In my evaluation of Disgaea 7 final 12 months, I concluded that the sequence was lengthy overdue for a shakeup. Disgaea 7 addressed many fan calls for after the disastrous Disgaea 6, but in doing so revealed simply how stale the sequence method had turn out to be. After hitting peak mechanical refinement in Disgaea 5, the sequence has been treading water, eradicating beloved options to appear totally different from the final entry with out altering the elemental design template, simply so as to add them again within the subsequent entry and go that off as significant evolution for the franchise. It appears the builders over at Nippon Ichi Software program might have felt the identical means concerning the sequence trajectory as I do. The latest recreation within the 20+ 12 months previous franchise, Disgaea Mayhem, opts for a completely new style shift right into a hack-and-slash motion RPG. Disgaea Mayhem establishes a agency mechanical basis and adapts the franchise’s most iconic mechanics decently nicely to a brand new format, but in the end fails to ship sufficient selection or depth to justify this new route.
So far as the presentation, characters, and narrative trappings are involved, Disgaea Mayhem is a traditional Disgaea recreation by means of and thru. The story follows grizzled mercenary protagonist N.A. (a man so darkish and mysterious his identify is actually “Not Relevant”) as he’s employed for a job by the brand new Overlord of the Netherworld Tremendous Duper, Tichelle. Tichelle explains that Tremendous Duper was a Netherworld stuffed with sturdy and horrible beast demons, who lived by survival of the fittest. Nonetheless, the earlier Overlord, her late father Margraf, united the assorted warring factions by cooking up the Pristine Gleam Flan, a dessert so scrumptious it soothed the trend of Tremendous Duper’s inhabitants and turned them into confectionary-loving softies. After Margraf’s dying, the assorted factions (every led by certainly one of six Psychlamates) rebelled towards Tichelle, therefore why she introduced in N.A. to calm them down lengthy sufficient to feed them her personal wacky flan recipes and quiet their rambunctious spirits.
The plot is, in fact, fairly silly in Disgaea sequence style, although I appreciated the goofy tone. The fixed meals and calorie-counting/weight-gain jokes associated to overconsumption of flan started to grate after the preliminary hours, however watching as N.A.’s gruff exterior slowly will get damaged down by Tichelle’s youthful, saccharine exuberance and his personal budding love of her wild flan concoctions proved pretty entertaining. It positively feels extra like a derivative narrative, even amongst customary goofy Disgaea tales, however Tichelle and N.A.’s dynamic is cute sufficient to hold the narrative throughout its quick five-hour runtime.
Preliminary impressions from the pre-release demo led many (together with myself) to imagine Disgaea Mayhem was a musou title ala Dynasty Warriors. From a primary look, it’s clear to see why: hack and slash fight centered round executing combo strings by alternating gentle and heavy assaults, enormous swarms of enemies to mow down, and stage-based degree design. Nonetheless, seems to be could be deceiving; Disgaea Mayhem isn’t actually a musou title, as a result of it lacks the objective-based design that makes these video games compelling. There are not any troop actions to handle, no bases to guard or seize, no invading enemy captains showing to upend your technique nor allies to direct. The entire strategic, battlefield administration gameplay that provides a sequence like Dynasty Warriors its depth is totally absent. As a substitute, Disgaea Mayhem is a really simple motion RPG with small, contained arenas containing waves of fodder enemies to mow down, and a capstone boss encounter. The general move of gameplay is extra just like arena-based motion RPGs like Croixluer Sigma or Misturugi Kamui Hikae slightly than Koei Tecmo’s flagship franchise.
Whereas the story levels are decently giant and have various layouts, most missions are relegated to a small portion of these levels, with monsters spawning in waves of 15 to twenty at a time. Upon defeating these waves, a mini-boss (often a bigger, recolored model of an everyday monster with a extra advanced transfer set) seems. This makes the variability in stage layouts feels slightly pointless. Disgaea Mayhem by no means actually makes use of the layouts in an attention-grabbing means, preferring to simply ferry you to fight arenas with totally different backdrops.
The builders appear to have acknowledged this truth, since coming into the Merchandise World grants you levels which are merely tiny arenas with out all of the pointless traversal fluff of the story levels. Every merchandise class has its personal distinctive enviornment design (typically a flat round airplane, typically a slim ring with a big hole within the middle, typically a cross form or one with giant pillars) to allay full monotony, although all of them share the identical purple void aesthetic. These extra confined levels, regardless of being visually boring, are literally a a lot better match for the fight mechanics, because the small play space means monsters are continually on prime of you, their aggressive habits holding you in your toes as you attempt to mow them down quicker than they will spawn and handle your give attention to the boss.
The core fight feels extremely tight and fluid; N.A. has a fast dodge with invincibility frames you’ll be able to chain endlessly to keep away from assaults, and the assorted weapon transfer units are satisfying. I grew significantly keen on the dual pistols and fist weapons as a result of weapon sorts had all kinds of combo strings to drag off that saved N.A. cell whereas attacking, permitting me to mow down the relentless hordes of foes whereas concurrently staying out of the best way of harmful assaults from the mini-bosses. You may as well equip as much as 4 particular expertise onto a weapon to clear giant teams or do giant single-target harm to a key foe.
There’s additionally the Battle Buddy system, the place you’ll be able to befriend monsters after finishing a stage for a nominal Mana payment, then prepare them up by bringing them into battle with you. Their AI is fairly horrible, however the Magichange mechanic makes them helpful. Every monster species corresponds to a selected weapon kind, and while you interact Magichange, they are going to take the type of that weapon, permitting you to change to a brand new moveset till the Magichange bar runs out. You may as well expend your complete remaining Magichange bar for a singular final assault. Moreover, the Battle Buddies take middle stage within the Chara World, a board-game autobattle the place you progress alongside a linear set of tiles, each conferring everlasting buffs to N.A.’s stats, as your chosen social gathering of Battle Buddies fights off the rival monsters encountered alongside the best way. That is the principle approach to earn new Evilities (passive skills like a double leap, elevated therapeutic, and many others.) for N.A., so you should have an excellent secure of monster companions to get essentially the most out of those development programs.
Sequence followers may be fooled into pondering from my descriptions of adapting Magichange, the Merchandise World, the Chara World, and monster elevating into this new framework that Disgaea Mayhem is a profitable style shift for the franchise. Sadly, the satan is within the particulars, and the sport misses the mark in key areas. For starters, there’s a ridiculous diploma of asset and content material reuse in a recreation this quick. You see each single enemy kind throughout the first couple hours of the sport, with later levels merely recoloring the identical enemy sorts (with the identical movesets) to indicate their elevated power. From the story levels to the Merchandise World, you battle the very same enemies the very same means time and again advert nauseum. Disgaea has all the time been repetitive, however by no means earlier than has the unique content material been so paper skinny and stretched to date, tearing on the seams because it struggles to cowl the modest expanse of about ten hours of distinctive gameplay ideas (together with the postgame).
Moreover, the issue steadiness is extraordinarily lopsided. Disgaea gamers could also be used to breaking the sport by means of repeated Merchandise World excursions and build up a fastidiously crafted workforce of battle-hardened veterans, however that often takes a major time funding and energy. After unlocking the Merchandise World, I spent lower than an hour playing around with it, upgrading some newbie gear, and promptly destroyed the issue curve for the rest of the sport. I’m not exaggerating after I say that each single story boss after this level died inside about 5 hits. Disgaea Mayhem employs a easy stagger system for enemies that labored nicely within the preliminary hours however was totally obviated by a weapon that took me solely fifteen minutes to improve. I demolished every part the sport may throw at me (together with the ultimate boss) in seconds. This can be a disgrace as a result of the story bosses have essentially the most advanced and concerned movesets, and can be enjoyable to battle in the event that they didn’t die from a lot as a grimy look thrown of their route.
I’d say this can be a cautionary story to keep away from the Merchandise World till after you’ve completed the story, however as a result of the Merchandise World is critical to outfit N.A. with a full package of fight skills, doing so would go away you feeling considerably handicapped with out the total suite of fight choices the sport clearly intends you to entry. The postgame challenges do require some important time funding within the Merchandise World to turn out to be sturdy sufficient to finish, however the journey to get there turns into interminably boring earlier than you even unlock the Postlude content material.
It’s an actual disgrace, as a result of there’s a diamond buried deep within the tough of Disgaea Mayhem. N.A. feels nice to manage, and utilizing the musou-influenced movesets to fend off giant swarms of monsters you blow up with over-the-top particular assaults stays enjoyable all through. That strong basis is let down by a major lack of content material, dearth of significant aims within the stage designs, and a problem curve that instantly flops like a moist noodle. Disgaea Mayhem feels extra like a spin-off proof of idea than an evolution or new route for the sequence, and a proverbial monkey’s paw that can make me cautious what I want for sooner or later.
