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.
Well worth it. Like Disgaea 2, Disgaea 3 brings back just enough of the basic gameplay system to keep vets happy and adds just enough new content to make the game challenging all over again. All around, it's an improvement.
More fun for the fans New ideas and more of the same from the series for hundreds more hours of devillish levelling up. Love the new reverse-pirarte aspect in the item world. Better main characters than 2.
disgaea... epic fail might be unfair to disgaea fans. i think this is really a niche game. i mean, REALLY niche, meaning it only appeals to 10% or so of the fanboys. with that said, i don't like disgaea. never did, never will. in fact, i hate it. to me, disgaea is a game with an identity crisis--it doesn't know whether it's a puzzle game, an SRPG, an anime, a sim, etc. it tries to be everything ends up being mediocre (at best) in everything. i would play FFT over this any day.
Great battle system - graphics are poor Disgaea is all about the SRPG gameplay - and this one really cranks it up.
I really enjoyed the changes to the character progression systems, and the updated tower fighting mechanism. The new classroom system gives you even more control over battle combos.
And item world has been improved significantly - with more secret rooms and things to break up the grind.
The character progression is so complicated now - you truly need the separate strategy guide book. Buy it - you will need it.
Now the bad side is that the graphics in the main character "sprites" are well below 720p resolution. They look like the original Disgaea PS2 monster sprites with blur filters applied.
Thankfully the cutscenes are nicely done in high resolution, and the characters and story are up to the usual standard. Trophy patch has also just come out.
Demonic rehash Imagine a demon child wanting to become a hero. For all the un-heroic reasons, naturally, given his devious nature. So, in Disgaea 3: Absence Of Justice, you have the character Mao wanting to be the lead guy because in all the literature and games he has come across, the person who defeats evil - in this case, Daddy dearest - is the hero. Part of the attraction of the Disgaea franchise is that it never takes itself very seriously and long-time fans will have no trouble going along for the diabolical ride. As a tactics-based RPG (role-playing game), players move their party of players in a playground grid. You have a choice - converge your party to fight one opponent or spread them out across the board. Aside from battles, Mao and his team are always transported back to school to restock and recuperate, before setting off to slay new demons. This makes Disgaea 3: Absence Of Justice extremely time-consuming and not very friendly to new players. While it maintains all the elements of the series, Disgaea 3 doesn't really do the PS3 format any justice: the characters and animation look no different from the previous PS2 or PSP outings. Details are lacking and character designs look faded - it's as if the developers simply blew up the artwork, instead of creating designs for the high-definition format. The end result is a game that looks dated - more of a rehash than a sequel. I recommend waiting a few months for the price to drop. As it stands, you aren't paying more for anything genre-changing.
Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice As someone who was only introduced to the Disgaea series a matter of weeks ago, (via the PSP's Afternoon of Darkness remake), I have to say that I'm really finding myself quite addicted to this game.
I've been playing AoD pretty steadily for a while, at least enough to know how the game plays out and what to expect for #3. Even with completely swamping myself in info about this game prior to its release, there's still so much to see and do that i had no knowledge of until loading the game up.
The only let down would be that the sprites look a little washed in contrast to all the HD menu's and levels and what not, however this only draws a stronger appeal to those that, like me, have a fond spot for the old school snes sprites.
I ordered this title from play-asia on a Friday, and had it arrive here to me on the following Monday. Couldn't be happier with the service and the game itself!
Top notch!
monkeyconcarne(1) on 14, Jul. 2008 10:24 (HKT)
Disgaea 3 As for the game itself, the gameplay is pretty much like the previous versions of the series. So if you did not like Disgaea 1 or 2, then you probably won't like this one. The story is fairly entertaining, and there are enough new additions to the gameplay to make it a little more interesting. I would not buy it if you are looking for the latest, greatest graphics, since the game relies on sprites that do not differ much from the ones used in the previous games. All in all, a worthwhile buy for those who enjoyed previous versions of the game or those who like strategic RPGs.
