With a brand new generation of gaming console to work with, and not sitting on the fence by doing a cross-generation release, Nippon Ichi Software have started their development for the PlayStation 4 on a high note with their release of Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance. Featuring the same quirky approach to storytelling and retaining many familiar gameplay systems that has helped keep the franchise alive in the gaming industry for more than ten years now, the experience has been enhanced by a variety of new features and improved visuals. Disgaea 5 provides all the justification needed to spend hours sadistically throwing explosive penguins (Prinny’s) around the battlefield, and to once again sink hundreds of hours into grinding towards Level 9,999 just to take full advantage of everything this title has on offer.
Storyline / Character Development
Quite similar to the approach adopted by Nippon Ichi Software’s spin-off title Makai Kingdom (PS2), Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance takes place in a number of different netherworlds rather than just the one. These netherworlds have fallen prey to the Demon Emperor Void Dark, who with his large army of “Lost” soldiers has sought to wreck havoc upon every netherworld in existence – and is succeeding. This is where the main protagonist Killia enters. Harboring a secret past that involves Void Dark, he seeks to defeat the demon emperor to get revenge against an incident he caused involving a mysterious girl. Although having a “lone wolf” personality, he is progressively joined by five other rebels who all seek to extract some form of revenge against Void Dark:
Seraphina: The princess overlord of Gorgeous who seeks to avoid her arranged marriage to Void Dark.
Usalia: The successor of Toto Bunny who has been cursed by Void Dark’s army and is forced to regularly consume curry or risk rampaging.
Red Magnus: The overlord of Scorching Flame who desires to defeat Void Dark and claim the title of strongest overlord.
Christo: Affiliated with a “certain netherworld” but holding the abilities of an overlord, Christo’s reason for wishing to defeat Void Dark is kept secret from his allies.
Zeroken: A small overlord who until aligning himself with the other rebels, fights against the Lost by himself.
Presented across sixteen episodes and a handful of post-game chapters, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance manages to get the balance right between providing the quirky/comical dialogue many have come to expect from Disgaea games, and presenting a serious, structured storyline based around the topics of revenge and personal tragedy. This is arguably the darkest Disgaea game by far, and coincidentally provides what I would call the most enjoyable, sophisticated and interesting story in the franchise to date.
Although the focus on and overall storyline regarding Killia does take precedence over other characters on multiple occasions, no character lacks development. All six of the protagonists receive ample character development throughout the game, with each receiving a couple of chapters which more heavily focus on them. The three main antagonists are also well developed, and are not just one-dimensional characters who are evil for the sake of being evil. Development between all characters are enriched by events that take place in the base, presented in a similar style to skits in the Tales series.
One minor change to the storyline in Disgaea 5 is how the post-game chapters work. Previously these have consisted of one-stage battles, where players could battle and potentially unlock hidden characters from either that particular game or a previous Disgaea title. For example, in Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten it was possible to unlock Asagi, Axel, Etna, Flonne, Kurtis, Laharl, Raspberyl and Zetta through these post-game chapters. All previous game characters have been regressed to DLC status, with individual and more in-depth chapters provided for just four characters – Asagi and the three antagonists: Void Dark, Marjorita and Bloodis. This is a bit of a double edged sword as you gain more content while losing the expected assortment of free post-game characters. Fortunately these chapters were fairly interesting and tied-in with the overall storyline, making it somewhat worth the sacrifice in my opinion.
Design / Music / Voice Acting
Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance is easily the best looking Disgaea game released to date, providing vivid and crisp character sprites/portraits which builds upon the already improved design appraoch first implemented in Disgaea D2. With sixteen themed chapters with approximately 5-6 stages in each, there are also a good number of distinctly designed stages to battle in. Many of these provided a good challenge, and I found often required me to build up an effective team rather than going into the battle with just one overpowered character (Although that is still possible on some stages). It is fantastic to see that Nippon Ichi Software have managed to maintain the same anime-styled charm the series has had since Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, improving the quality significantly but never being tempted to try something more mainstream or completely different (Such as 3D character sprites).
Featuring the work of composer Tenpei Sato once again, the assortment of tracks found in Disgaea 5 were appealing. The music was well implemented into the game as well, with the mood of a sorrowful cutscene enhanced by a more melancholic melody, while an intense battle is made all the more epic with a heavier tune. Complementing the in-game music is the opening theme “Kill Real”, which is supported by some fantastic anime animation. Easily my least favourite song was “Moving On”, the theme used every time the player arrives in their base. It wasn’t a terrible song, but it doesn’t stand out as much as earlier base themes or fare as well after the first few chapters of repeated listening. It is a theme I would expect to see in a light-hearted cutscene rather than a base resided by those seeking to take down a demon lord.
As one would expect, Nippon Ichi Software America have commissioned an English dub for Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengance, although have retained the Japanese dub option for anyone desiring it. Their newly created English dub is of a consistently high standard across the board, with a good portion of the game featuring dialogue and not just text. Both dubs are of equally high standard, so I recommend just going with your personal preference.
Gameplay
The core gameplay mechanics of Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance remains mostly unchanged from its predecessors. Players are once again tasked with leading their party to victory across a variety of grid-aligned stages littered with enemies, geo blocks (Blocks which when on a coloured panel can apply a positive or negative effect to those standing on that colour) and the occasional puzzle which will require the use of multiple characters or some form of strategy to pass. As mentioned above, on average the stages are well designed in this title, and unlike previous titles I found it encouraged me to often tackle battles with a larger party rather than just a couple of overpowered characters.
There is a good array of character classes on offer as well, with some new additions including the maid (Which despite being a weaker character, can use items after she has performed her action for the turn), wrestler (Which specialises in lifting/throwing allies) and Dark Knight. Previously to unlock characters, players have had to level up different combinations of classes to a particular level in order to unlock them. Although not the only application for this system, humanoid and monster classes are now unlocked by a new quest system. By completing objectives such as passing a challenge stage, defeating X of an enemy, collecting Y of an item or have one character hold a stat value of at least Z – it is possible to unlock new allies, gain new recruitable characters, obtain HL or unlock something else.
In addition to new skills being available to at least some character classes, the battle system in Disgaea 5 has also received some new additions. The most notable and occasionally frustrating of these features are overload skills. Each character is now provided with a revenge gauge, which slowly builds up when ally units receives damage or are defeated. Once this gauge is filled it automatically activates, granting that character the ability to perform any skill using just 1 SP for a limited time. Characters who are Overlords (At least until post-game) are also able to perform special overload skills which can turn the tide of battle. The issue I consistently came across was that since characters automatically enter revenge mode, it can be activated at very inopportune times. As this can build up across multiple battles, it is possible for the skill to activate the moment a character is pulled out from the starting base.
Another new feature introduced to the battle system for story-important characters are Alliance Skills, where two characters and perform a powerful skill together should they stand next to one another. These can provide some unique stat boosts or allow characters to perform powerful attacks, giving players a reason to juggle the different abilities of the main characters and keep them all out on field during battle. With regard to monsters, Disgaea 5 also makes a new addition to the Magichange system. It is now possible for characters to dual-magichange with two monsters, granting access to new weapon designs and stronger attacks/skills.
Characters on the field can also be impacted by stage effects, which depending on the environment, can increase/lower a characters stats, cause negative status effects, or randomly cause damage to those on the field. One highlight of this system was in one of the earlier netherworlds, where all my characters had their ice resistance lowered by 50%. Since most of my more powerful characters had low ice resistances already and were faced with many mages who used ice magic, it became a challenge to slowly progress without being OHKO at a range.
A feature I found myself struggling to care about while playing Disgaea 5 was the new Nether Research Squad system, which allows you to gather units that do not participate in battle and ship them off to new netherworlds – allowing them to potentially gain experience and you to potentially gain items, prisoners and more. It is interesting in theory, but I found that there were other things that caught my attention more than rifling through menus to send characters off on missions I would not be playing a significant role in. Being able to explore those themed netherworlds in greater depth would have been more interesting in my opinion.
All Disgaea games have provided a wealth of options to develop your characters and equipment, such as the Item World, which allows you to explore randomly populated worlds to incrementally develop an item of your choice with improved stats. Although this system remains unchanged, the Chara World has been given a significant overhaul. Rather than being a carbon copy of the Item World system, diving into the Chara World places a particular character in a board-game-like world, where their movements are determined by the roll of a slot wheel and their landing position determines what perks (or negative impacts) they receive. While these levels tend to only take a few minutes to complete, they do serve as a fun and distinct relief from the regular grind associated with increasing your level.
One of the main reasons why Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten received my Game of the Year Award for 2011 was its introduction of networking features. While Disgaea D2 opted to remove these, Disgaea 5 only chose to retain some of these features, in addition to retheming some others. It is still possible to create your own custom stages and upload them online, which I envision will provide a lot of replayability as more and more players reach the higher level tiers. The pirate ship system has been removed however, replaced by the ability to create your own “netherworld”. These come in the shape of a netherworld exterior which hovers above the battlefield, as your own characters invade another player’s item world. It is an interesting system, but didn’t feel anywhere near as deep as the pirate system from Disgaea 4.
With so many little systems and ideas spread throughout the game, it is difficult to provide commentary on every component that makes up the Disgaea 5 experience. What I will say however is that Nippon Ichi Software have provided another fantastic tactical RPG experience overall.
Final Words on Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance
For its sixth major release in the franchise, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance has presented another strong compilation of storyline/character development, anime-style design and addictive gameplay; bundled into one experience that in my opinion provides enough content to dive into as you head towards the ambitious goal of Level 9,999. Granted the battle system’s foundations may not have changed all that much since 2003, but features both new and old once again provide plenty of opportunities for those either looking to just play the game, or looking to fine-tune their characters/weapons/equipment alike and aim for the harder post-game challenges.
A review copy of Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance was provided by Nippon Ichi Software America for the purpose of this review.
