Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited

Editor's Notes

Digital version reviewed.

Introduction

The 'Disgaea' series is essentially what put the developer and publisher Nippon Ichi on the board. Combining humorous, yet deep tales about demons and surprisingly dense strategy RPG gameplay, the series has gotten a decent following of fans, warranting a number of sequels and re-releases. This trend continues with 'Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited', an enhanced Vita port of the PlayStation 3 title 'Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten'. As typical Nippon Ichi fare, this re-release adds all of the DLC from the PS3 version, and mechanical improvements taken from the series' latest entry, 'Disgaea D2'.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

The main character in 'A Promise Revisited' is one Valvatorez, a vampire that has lost his powers because of a promise he made long ago. Because of his loss of his power, which was befitting of a Tyrant, he is sent to Hades, a prison for demons who do not carry on their proper duties as a demon. There, he is a Prinny Instructor, training the souls of deceased humans to properly pay for their sins. However, when the Prinnies are abducted before Valvatorez can keep his promise to them, and he sets out to overthrow the Corrupterment of the Netherworld to right their wrongs.

The game is spread out across multiple chapters, with a varying number of maps to work through. Each map is an area with varying terrain and other gimmicks, and are separated into squares, much like a board game. Battles play out in a turn based affair, with the player moving and then positioning all of their characters, followed by attacking (if the player can reach the enemy), and then the enemy gets a turn to do the same. Positioning is important, for if an enemy attacks the character's back or sides, some of their evasion chances will be lost and the character can even take more damage during the attack. In addition, if the attacking player character is higher up terrain wise than the target, the attacker can get various boosts; but, if the height difference between the attacker and adversary is too much, they won't be able to attack them at all.

Mana

Unlike many of the other 'Disgaea' titles, the player learns and power ups a variety of skills in 'A Promise Revisited' with mana, which is obtained from defeating enemies. Mana itself is an extremely important aspect of the entire game: Other than using it to improve skills, it is needed to promote and reincarnate characters (which gives better stats), call the Dark Assembly (which can do anything from unlocking new classes to having characters in your base dress in swimsuits), and buy Evilities (essentially character traits). Managing mana is a very important aspect of the game, as using it effectively will ensure characters are strong enough to handle the next gauntlet of maps.

Demons

There are also two distinct types of demons in the world of 'Disgaea.' The Humanoid characters are more of what is normally expected from a strategy RPG: They can equip a variety of weapons, are of classes that are relatively typical (like Fighter, Mage, and so on), and can lift and throw other characters. Monster characters, on the other hand, work a bit differently: Their skill pools are a bit more restricted than their more human-like counterparts, and can only equip specific types of weapons. Unlike humanoid demons, however, monster characters can fuse with other monsters, combining into a huge, massively powerful form, and also Magichange with humanoid characters, turning into a weapon for the humanoid to use, complete with a new and advantageous set of skills.

Geo Blocks

If that isn't sounding complicated enough, there are also Geo Panels and Geo Blocks to worry about. Geo Blocks and Panels give various effects and detriments to allies and enemies alike, and it's very important to keep track of them, lest the player get decimated. Several different things affect the effects of these Geo items, including destroying them or throwing them out of an area of Panels that can be affected. The clever use of these Geo effects makes almost every stage a puzzle of sorts, where many times it's more important to work the Panels and Blocks to your advantage than it is to defeat your foes.

Item World

There are plenty of things to do and keep track of outside the battlefield, as well. The base will be home to the typical item and weapon shops, but it also grants access to the Item World. In the Item World, the player can dive into one of their items and fight a bunch of battles, strengthening said item. Many different things can happen in the Item World, including super bosses, pirate attacks (where you can steal their boat if you win), and other flat out crazy stuff. It's usually worth it though, as the player can get much more powerful equipment out of the deal. The Item World is a bit risky, though; unless the player has a specific item, they can only exit the World every tenth level, and won't be able to recover HP or MP during that time.

The Cheat Shop

But, possibly the most important thing to do in the base is actually something new to 'A Promise Revisited'. The Cheat Shop makes a return from 'Disgaea D2', and it makes a huge impact on the ability to grind and gain currency. With the Cheat Shop, the player can use points to increase or decrease the amount of experience, HL (money), and mana obtained from each enemy killed. Decreasing the amount from one area yields points to add into the others, so the player can effectively manipulate how quickly they can level up. In addition, usingthe cheat Shop can also raise the levels of enemies across the board, making it easy to find an ideal map, raise the enemies on it to a decent level, and go to town. The Cheat Shop takes the grind that was present in the original 'Disgaea 4' and practically gets rid of it, making it very simple to get underleveled characters up to speed or to be able to get some extra mana for one of its multiple reasons.

All of this can sound quite difficult to remember and pull off, but the game introduces everything at such a pace that the player has time to grasp all of the concepts. Once through the tutorial, the fun picks up even everything continues to fall into place. Overall the difficulty does feel a bit on the easy side, but this may be due to the inclusion of the Cheat Shop helping to mitigate grinding for levels.