Nippon Ichi’s breakthrough strategy RPG is just as good now as it ever was – complex and silly, yet a little overwhelming at times.
| Developer | Nippon Ichi |
| Publisher | Nippon Ichi |
| Franchise | Disgaea |
| Genre | Strategy |
| PSTV | Yes |
| PSN | EU/NA |
World-building & Story
Everything is not okay in the Netherworld. Prince Laharl awakens from a two-year slumber to find out his father, King Krichevskoy, has died. With help from his loyal vassal Etna he vows to reclaim the throne that is rightfully his and become Overlord of the underworld.
What follows is a series of somewhat disjointed scenarios as Laharl and company pillage the Netherworld (they are demons after all), deal with the consequences of becoming Overlord and ultimately foil a plot to take over their domain. Afternoon of Darkness does its storytelling via chapters, each one focusing on a different series of events, which actually works fairly well and gives it somewhat of a cartoon-y feel (assisted by Etna’s bizarre babbling between each one).
At the emotional centre of everything is Flonne, an angel trainee sent by Celestia (implied to be heaven to the Netherworld’s hell) to assassinate the king, who sticks around to teach Laharl about love upon learning about his nature. It’s refreshing to see a game focus on anti-heroes (even if this became a focus for NIS going forward) and Flonne provides a perfect foil to Laharl’s more depraved ways – it’s lovely to watch how they grow and evolve over the course of the story.
Disgaea balances a fine line between comedy and more serious moments that I’ve rarely seen pulled off well in videogames. The majority of the time it’s happy to go for jokes or creating absurd scenarios for the cast to find themselves in, which is assisted by wacky side-characters like Mid Boss or the Prinnies who act as Etna’s servants. I can safely say that I never knew what was coming next (one minute you’re raiding a pig’s house for money, the next you’re fighting off Power Rangers-style heroes who try to claim the title of Overlord), which is a very good thing.
At the same time, it’s also more than happy to take a step back and deliver some touching scenes to help further character development. One chapter focused on redeeming the Prinny’s souls tugged at my heartstrings during the final reveal in a way I really wasn’t expecting, heightening the emotional impact. These moments are few and far between but used just frequently enough to be extremely effective.
The Netherworld is also surprisingly well realised – all different types of demons and vassals litter the castle and ideas like the dark assembly provide a surprising amount of immersion to make it seem like a real, functional place. It is a little disappointing that you use portals to get to the rest of the destinations but I suppose this is a compromise to introduce a variety of different map types for the strategy gameplay.
Between the unique story, likeable cast and enjoyable representation of the Netherworld, Disgaea’s plot shines through as someone you’ll want to see through to the end (which is no small feat for a title featuring a heavy focus on grinding in its gameplay).
Presentation & Sound
At times simplistic with its presentation, Afternoon of Darkness is nevertheless a polished package with some beautiful sprite work that looks gorgeous on the Vita’s screen – it won’t win any awards for its graphics, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pleasant to look at.
The aforementioned character and enemy sprites make up the main bulk of what you’ll be looking at and they’re fairly detailed, with some of the demons like Maderas featuring a tonne of different elements to their design which look fantastic (and are in-fitting with Japanese game sensibilities). Not everything is perfect and repeated enemies like zombies in certain maps become a little tiring to look at, but this is only a minor complaint.
Movement and animation is better – standard attacks pack a wallop, but it’s the spells and special attacks that really stand out. The unique characters like Laharl and Etna in particular have a variety of moves that are flashy and completely over-the-top, zooming the viewpoint out to show them leaping into the sky and crashing down on foes. Mages and other spellcasters can light up the screen with ice pillars and fire bombs too which are always brilliant to see.
If there’s one thing that lets the presentation down, it’s the environments. There’s a decent variety from snowy fields to volcanoes and they’re filled with colour (assisted by bright geo panels on certain maps), but they’re also small and feel fairly bland and unexciting. Obvious Disgaea is a game from 2003 originally, but a little more inventive design in the battle areas would have gone a long way.
All conversations and plot development is done through visual novel scenes which are generally pretty good – characters are expressive (particularly Laharl when angry) even if portraits are static, and the artwork is nice. Menus on the other hand are a little drab, with very little to set them apart from your standard brown JRPG menu with a bit too much displayed on screen at once.
The music here can get a little repetitive (especially in the castle) but there’s also some great tracks in battles, which balances it out. Sound effects and yelps during battle all fit the theme, but it’s the voice acting which is the star of the package – all of the cast absolutely nail their roles, with Flonne sounding slightly ditzy and Gordon being a classic comic book American hero.
Soundtrack highlight – A dark race becomes magnificent
Gameplay & Content
While it follows SRPG design traditions almost to the letter, Disgaea sets its own identity through its over-the-top attacks and large number grinding. It’s not for everyone – but the ability to get as in-depth as you like means there is a good chance you’ll find something that works for you.
Battles take place on isometric grids which you can rotate the camera 90 degrees on to get a better view of hard to figure out corners. Each level has a portal through which you can summon your squad, a maximum of 10 that can be out at any one time (although if a character returns to the portal, you can swap a new one in their place). Slain heroes are gone for the rest of the fight though and your unit count will also be reduced meaning you can’t bring new reinforcements, leading to some risk-reward style management.
Everything else is done in a turn-based manner – the player and all of their units act first, followed by all of the enemy units. Each character can move a certain distance per turn and has a standard attack as well as a variety of skills or magical abilities which you’ll gain more of by levelling up. It’s all standard stuff, but it’s a design template that works extremely well and is quite addictive once it gets going.
Disgaea begins to set itself apart once you start executing attacks. Units on adjacent squares have a percentage chance of chaining attacks together, which nets xp for all involved and will factor in to levelling up classes with weaker attacks such as clerics and priests who can’t necessarily take down foes n their own. The actual group attacks themselves are hilarious – the characters might blast the enemy into the air then slam them down to the ground in increasing frequency in some messed up game of Pong, which is always amusing to watch.
The special attacks are even better – although you can’t chain these, you can expect to see supernovas, divebombing monks and a literal rain of prinnies, each causing a tonne of damage. You’ll need them to beat some of the game’s bosses too, as these regularly pack a punch and are accompanied by minions who you’ll have to work your way through to reach the final event – it’s often a battle of attrition more than anything else.
In order to spice up battles, various mechanics are introduced that you’ll need to be aware of which almost turn some sections of Afternoon of Darkness into a pseudo-puzzler. One is lifting – characters can lift others and throw them to further areas, which can be used to cover ground quickly but also puts them at risk of being cut off from support. Another is geo panels – coloured squares which confer either benefits or detriments and can be used to your advantage, but most often are used by enemies which you’ll have to counteract by destroying the source.
Yet as much as there is to do in battle, there’s an equal amount happening outside of it that you’ll need to be somewhat on top of. There’s your usual shops offering weapons and equipment to bolster your stats – something that’s central to everything as levels can only give you so much of an advantage without the items to help you win in a fight. I did find my team a bit lop-sided towards three or four characters though, as it seemed better to have a few strong members than a full spread.
The biggest unique point of Afternoon of Darkness is the Dark Assembly, which is basically a Netherworld Council that regulates everything you do. You’ll have to spend mana with them (awarded by killing enemies) to unlock new characters, although if you ask for someone too strong you’ll need approval which means coming before the Assembly and asking them for permission… but you are a demon after all, so if you don’t get this you might have to force their hands.
This plays out via an interesting mechanic where you can see each member of the Assembly and how they’re likely to vote. You can influence their vote by bribing them (giving them items), but this still might not be enough to sway them meaning you’ll have to fight them to get their vote – but doing this means they’ll loathe you even more in future votes. It’s a super interesting system although explained very poorly – I had no idea the level of the voter affected the amount of votes they’re given, only finding this out through a Google search.
Outside of this, you’ve also got the item world – you can dive inside any item, weapon or equipment you’ve obtained and level it up by clearing floors of enemies. It provides a potentially endless stream of content as each floor is randomly generated but is wholly overwhelming too – it’s a big undertaking to get involved with and not something I spend much time with as I was always aware I’d be getting better items through the story (meaning it’s something you’re going to want to start doing at endgame).
And really, a feeling of being overwhelming is something that affects Disgaea quite often. The aptitude of your characters is affected by the amount of mana spent on creating them – which almost encourages you to remake your entire team after a certain point in the game once you obtain enough to get the strongest fighters. You can also start each character over at level 1 with higher stats which again encourages more grinding, but in turn makes Afternoon of Darkness a somewhat unapproachable title.
Despite all this, you can just choose to play it as a simple SRPG – make a squad, equip them decently then challenge the puzzle-like levels of the story at your leisure. For me, this was where the game was at its best – not a stat-heavy grindfest, but just an enjoyable SRPG with a whacky plot and fun mechanics. It’ll take you a good while to work through the base game too, I think my final tally was around the 30 hour mark with only little bits of extra content done – but if it gets its hooks in, you can expect to spend hundreds of hours grinding stats and levelling characters.
Conclusion
It’s easy to see why Disgaea became a beloved franchise based on this first entry – the mixture of comedy and emotional moments in the story is pulled off extremely well, assisted by a cast of likeable characters that buck the usual trends. Throw in some standard SRPG gameplay that gets more and more addictive as you play and you have a recipe for success – although it may be overwhelming at times to truly grasp everything at play here, Afternoon of Darkness is a rewarding title which is well worth a try.
8.5/10
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