Disgaea: Hour of Darkness 3 (aka. Makai Senki Disgaea 3) takes place in a Netherworld School called the Maritsu Evil Academy. In this demon school, a good student is one who engages in delinquent activities such as ditching classes, or not doing homework. The student who participates the most in these kind of activities is known as the Honor Student, while demons who arrive to class early and do their homework are known as delinquents. Mao, son of the chairman, has not once attended class since the beginning of school and is known as the honor-student of Maritsu Evil Academy. His ambition for the future is to overthrow his father, who also happens to be an Overlord, and take his title for himself. After reading a few volumes in his manga, Mao comes to the conclusion that "heroes are the ones who defeat devils". From that point on, Mao resolved to become a hero himself, convinced it will help him achieve his goal.
Eventually, Raspberyl, the delinquent of the school, learns about Mao's goal and begins to worry. If Mao were to achieve the title of Hero, then it would endanger her position as the school's "Number One Delinquent". She makes up her mind to follow Mao, stop his plan, and once again secure her title. However since Raspberyl is a demon delinquent, she tries to solve the problem without violence and talk him out of it instead. Seeing this from a distance, Almaz, a hero himself, misunderstands the situation and tries to save the day. Mao accepts the challenge and defeats him, stealing Almaz's title in the process. With the title of Hero, Mao believes he is one step closer to defeating his father and achieving his goal of becoming an Overlord.
More of the same... and we love it. Whenever you see a Nippon Ichi game, the first two words that probably pop in your head (assuming you're familiar with their games, naturally) are "ludicrous levels of damage" and "humor". With Disgaea 3 it's no different. Disgaea 2 had been sadly lacking in the last department - at best it made me chuckle a couple of times. But it just didn't have the flair that made Disgaea fun and famous in the first place.
In Disgaea 3 they've made amends for that little mistake. The game breaks the fourth wall fairly often, with jokes such as "demons are lazy so instead of levelling up skills everything is bought with mana now" (referring to the changes of the Weapon Mastery system). Speaking of changes, the Weapon Mastery system is gone; to acquire new skills, now you must create new, higher-tier characters so they can learn other abilities. The Dark Assembly remains, though now it's called Homeroom (the entire game is high-school flavored), but the basic principles of it remain the same - bribe your way through, toss demons around or beat the everliving snot out of them to get things done. Changes to individual characters such as increasing movement range or throwing ability are no longer resolved via Dark Assembly; rather, you must enter that character's Class World and pay for the upgrades with mana - which you can acquire during the journey itself.
Gathering specialists for your items has also become somewhat easier due to the new club system. For those of you familiar with Soul Nomad, you can now assemble a classroom, assigning seats and clubs to each character - doing so enables several benefits, including but not limited to allowing a character to gain a portion of experience or mana from another character.
The graphics remain as beautiful as ever, and the attacks remain as ludicrously overpowered as ever. The game is all-around fun, despite the initial learning curve.
There is no multiplayer, which might disappoint some, but then again no SRPG has ever been built so it could be played that way.
For all of you familiar with Nippon Ichi work, it's more of the same, and the same is awesome. (Yes, there are endgame cameos, though some of them are DLCs).
For Disgaea Fans All of Disgaea games are good or great. This game also a good game to play. the weak points in graphic, it's not like for PS3 or HD graphic, it's just like PS2 graphic.
More Disgaea Goodness A lot of fun! If you liked the first two Disgaea games, then you'll like this one too! If you didn't like them, well, you're probably not going to like this one either. Very similar to the first two Disgaea's. Yes, the characters are still sprites, but if you're someone who thinks you have to have super-amazing high-def graphics for it to be a good game, then this isn't for you. Excellent gameplay, character designs, music, fun story and characters, all make for a great game!
A Must Buy! With its new gameplay and superb funny storyline, not to mention unique level approaches to make the game entertaining, Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice is definitely worth the time for the series fans or new to the series, for even after you finish the game, you still have many hours worth your while to do.
