A number of years in the past, Nippon Ichi produced Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny, a brand new entry within the long-running sequence that aimed to shake up sequence conventions by introducing auto-battling and transitioning to a 3D artwork type. Not all of the modifications it introduced had been positively acquired, however happily, the sport offered effectively sufficient to not solely preserve the lights on on the firm however to additionally justify the event of a correct successor to deal with these criticisms.
Director Shunsuke Minowa mentioned that one of many staff’s principal targets with Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless was to go along with a “again to fundamentals” strategy, and that was completely the proper name. Disgaea 7 appears like the last word distillation of the Disgaea expertise, efficiently merging the improvements of 6 with lots of the traditions of earlier video games, all whereas throwing in some worthwhile new concepts of its personal. It’s an extremely compelling new entry, and we will’t advocate it sufficient to any technique RPG followers on the market.
Disgaea 7 is ready across the similar time as Disgaea 4 and takes place in a cluster of Netherworlds referred to as Hinomoto that’s impressed by Edo interval Japan . The story kicks off with Pirilika, a wealthy, spoiled otaku who involves Hinomoto to expertise its tradition, notably its famed Bushido code. To her dismay, Hinomoto has since misplaced its Bushido as a consequence of being taken over by the evil shogun Demmodore Opener and his magistrates. She’s shortly joined by a lazy, miserly samurai named Fuji, who bonds with a magical sword she had in her bag that simply so occurs to be one of many legendary Seven Founding Weapon, and the 2 got down to accumulate the opposite Founding Weapons, kill the magistrates, unseat the shogun, and restore Bushido to Hinomoto.
In retaining with sequence custom, the story is about as foolish because it will get, full of all types of jokes and goofiness to maintain a usually lighthearted environment. Fuji, for instance, is allergic to any type of friendship or empathy, which causes him to cough up blood each time somebody thanks him for serving to or expresses any type of affection. He additionally has a daughter (or, not less than a woman who thinks she’s his daughter…) who chronically blows up buildings as a result of he gained’t inform her that he loves her. As our main duo excursions the worlds of Hinomoto, they cross swords with all method of larger-than-life personalities and whereas among the jokes get performed out a bit, it’s onerous to not be enamored with the tone of Disgaea 7. Stuff like listening to a Prinny (an fool penguin that explodes when it journeys) cheerfully exclaims “your life is mine, dood!” because it costs into battle is solely charming in a means that solely Disgaea can seize.
While Disgaea is ostensibly a conventional turn-based SRPG, there are actually two interrelated ranges to the way you play Disgaea 7—the gameplay and the meta gameplay—so we’ll begin by describing the gameplay. Here, issues are easy to know and also you’re centered on directing a handful of items by way of turn-based battles centered on routing the enemy staff whereas making an attempt to not get outplayed your self. You need to take typical elemental and stat strengths or weaknesses into consideration whereas deciding matchups, terrain additionally performs an enormous function within the sense that phases are constructed with different elevation and can usually have particular Geo Panel flooring that alter the stats of any unit that acts whereas standing on them. It could be a little tedious to direct a staff of a dozen characters—individually deciding on everybody’s actions and actions to take—however battles are satisfying to interact in and supply ample rewards.
There are over forty courses to experiment with in Disgaea 7, supplying you with near-bottomless depth to the groups you’ll be able to construct. Old standbys just like the Gunner and Cleric are again as soon as once more, whereas new ones just like the Maiko and the Zombie Maiden deliver some attention-grabbing new concepts to the desk. The Maiko, for instance, is particularly efficient towards male enemies, whereas the Zombie Maiden powers up each time one other staff member dies in battle. You’ll don’t have any hassle discovering attention-grabbing functions for every class’s nuances, whereas the comparatively low issue of the story missions ensures that you simply’re given loads of leeway within the first few dozen hours to check out compositions and see what playstyles click on with you.
It wouldn’t be a correct Disgaea entry with out some goofy new concept to alter issues up, so it doesn’t take lengthy earlier than your staff is launched to the idea of Jumbification. As your staff takes injury an influence gauge will step by step fill, and as soon as it hits a sure threshold, you’ll be able to have any character Jumbify themselves to show right into a 200-foot-tall monstrosity that may’t even match on the battlefield. Jumbified characters can assault any items on the sphere with area-of-effect assaults that hit about as onerous as you’d count on from a Kaiju, and every character brings with them a singular Jumbility that casts a passive impact which impacts all items on the sphere, similar to giving everybody an HP regen impact or inflicting everybody to blow up when thrown.
Enemies can Jumbify, too, which provides an attention-grabbing further layer to the underlying technique and timing for while you need to use the mechanic. Characters can solely keep massive for 3 turns, and in case you’re caught with out your individual nuclear deterrent to retaliate towards a newly Jumbified enemy, your complete staff could be annihilated in a single flip. On the opposite hand, Jumbifying could be a ridiculously simple “I win” button in case you handle to catch the enemy off guard with it, resulting in a really delicate stability of energy that at all times looms within the background over all the standard skirmishes going down in battles.
All that is effectively and good, however now let’s get into that meta-gameplay. Much like its predecessors, Disgaea 7 step by step reveals to you that it’s not all about grid-based battles. Hour after hour, the sport continues to dole out dizzying quantities of further mechanics and programs that each one offer you extra instruments for constructing your staff, supplying you with absurdly fine-grained ranges of management over each conceivable aspect of a personality’s stats. All that is in service of the endgame—which the builders declare takes about 400 hours to clear—as you’re employed to construct an insanely optimized staff that may tackle the immense challenges that lie in ready for you.
To offer you an concept of the depth right here, not solely can characters every be outfitted with an unlimited array of apparatus that alters their stats and builds, however every particular person piece could be min-maxed by way of one thing referred to as the Item World. Here, you’ll be able to ship your staff into the merchandise itself to discover dozens of flooring of randomized enemy encounters, every one being tougher than the final and elevating the merchandise’s degree extra in case you can handle to prevail. Eventually, you come throughout Innocents, small creatures that stay inside of each merchandise and have an effect on its stats in myriad methods. You can breed, fuse, and struggle these Innocents, all to get their stats even larger. This can additional increase the stats on the objects they arrive on, which then boosts the stats of the characters you equip them on. Then, when you lastly max out an merchandise, you’ll be able to select to reincarnate it to start out the entire course of over once more, however with higher stats to start with this time.
Suffice it to say, the story of Disgaea 7—which takes about thirty or so hours to clear—feels just like the tutorial for the considerably longer and richer endgame grind. And whereas this endgame will at all times nonetheless have you ever partaking in fight in the identical means you probably did while you began the story, extra of your time will more and more be devoted to evaluating stats and talents between objects, balancing your staff’s ability load-outs, and testing completely different class and sub-class compositions on completely different staff members. If you’re not the type of one who actually enjoys moving into the weeds like this, then we will comfortably say that Disgaea 7 is not for you; that is the epitome of an SRPG that encourages (and finally requires) min-maxing at just about each conceivable flip.
To assist make the grind just a little extra manageable, Demonic Intelligence has returned from Disgaea 6 to permit auto-battling to take the wheel, although it’s been reined in a bit. You now must spend a consumable useful resource referred to as Poltergas to have your staff run itself, and this will solely be executed on phases that you’ve got already managed to clear manually. Some could also be a bit miffed you can’t simply set it and neglect it like in Disgaea 6, however the flipside is that auto-battling appears like a great tool and never a crutch. With it being relegated to a extra elective design, the endgame grind isn’t constructed to be practically as monotonous and repetitive because it was in Disgaea 6, as a result of the builders are assuming that an precise participant can be on the controls for many of it.
Auto-battling isn’t simply used for grinding anymore—it’s a essential part of Disgaea’s first aggressive on-line multiplayer mode. Here, you fastidiously assemble a self-sufficient auto staff after which can select to check its may towards different gamers’ groups which might be at a detailed rank to you. Rankings reset every season and with every refresh come new phases with new guidelines, necessitating that you simply tweak your staff and create complete new ones to adapt to the modifications. Though it does really feel type of bizarre you can’t simply straight play head-to-head with others in stay video games, this mode nonetheless appears like first step for on-line multiplayer for Disgaea, notably in the way it rounds out the endgame providing. If you’re a part of the small, extremely devoted group that can handle to utterly clear the endgame, this ranked mode will supply a just about limitless sequence of challenges as you interact within the meta and wrestle to the highest of the leaderboards.
Visually, Disgaea 7 sticks to the 3D artwork type that noticed its debut in Disgaea 6, and whereas this may little question nonetheless hassle some followers that had been fonder of the wealthy spritework of the sooner video games, its software right here feels extra assured than earlier than. Character fashions have been improved and animations for the extra bombastic assaults are extra excessive than ever earlier than, however most significantly, efficiency is at a wholly acceptable degree this time round. If you play on the Graphics mode, there are some body drops right here and there, however nothing like its messy equal in Disgaea 6, whereas Performance mode sticks to a clean 60 FPS with a barely softer decision. It’s actually an evening and day distinction from earlier than, and we’re glad to see that the brand new artwork type is given a correct probability to shine right here.
