But what exactly is the Disgaea series? The Disgaea franchise (pronounced "dis-GUY-uh) is a series of turn based strategy games created and developed by Nippon Ichi Software famous for three things; Wacky and over-the-top animations, clever/witty writing with a VERY tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and taking literally hundreds of hundreds of hours to complete. In other words, my kind of franchise! Lore wise, the only information you need going into a Disgaea game is that they take place primarily in an alternate universe existing parallel to the human world known as the Netherworlds, populated by demons, dragons, vampires, werewolves, ogres, bunny rabbits, fairies, cat-people, wrestlers and a bunch of adorable penguin like monsters called Prinnies.
Oh, and the entire franchise exists as an affectionate parody of basically everything. But anyway, Disgaea 5 is notably more serious in tone when compared to the previous games (hence the admittedly edgy sounding subtitle, Alliance of Vengeance)... But not by much. There is still plenty of comedy in this game, such as the main heroes spending an entire chapter chasing after a stolen bowl of curry, or the running gag of every chapter ending in an Episode Preview cutscene that has no plot relevance whatsoever and exists as a spoof of some kind of popular media.
The story follows a group of demons who form what can best be described as a mythical version of the Rebel Alliance (from Star Wars) to go to war with and defeat an omnicidal maniac known as Demon Emperor Void Dark (try saying THAT five times fast!). And before you ask why the game has Alliance of Vengeance as it's subtitle, the reason for that is because the six main rebels all have a personal grudge against Void Dark and are basically using the war as the perfect excuse to get revenge. Although most of their reasonings for their grudges against Void Dark are at best incredibly petty, and at worst make the rebels seem like a group of selfish extremists (thankfully the game is fully aware of this and there are several jokes pointing this out), the lone exception being the male lead, Killia (pictured above and on the far left), whose desire for vengeance is actually pretty understandable given his backstory. Which is filled to the brim with spoilers, hence why I'm not explaining his origin story outright.
Now if you read other folks' reviews for this game, you'll notice that just about everyone complains that the story is the weakest part of the game. And while I do agree that it's very cliche, it's likable characters and the trademark Disgaea comedy keeps the main story campaign from getting boring. But it still has SEVERAL cliches and unless you've been living under a rock you probably have seen all of them. Is the male lead a dark and brooding pretty boy with a mysterious past? Yes. Is there a evil spell/curse broken by the power of love/friendship? Yes. Does the main villain want to destroy everything and everyone for seemingly no reason? Yes. Is the female lead a spoiled, arrogant princess who immediately develops romantic feelings towards the aforementioned brooding pretty boy literally seconds after meeting him, and frequently pretends her feelings for the male lead are strictly platonic? Definitely yes. But the thing about the Disgaea games is that nobody plays them for the story, as their main selling point is the comedy and complex gameplay. On a positive note for the story, I appreciate how chapters 8-14 give the six main rebels important character development which leads to them not only overcoming their flaws, but also branching out of their overused archetypes and becoming more believable as characters. Example, Red Magnus goes from cocky musclehead getting himself and his friends in trouble, to calm gentle giant that acts as a cool big brother figure to the other five main rebels (or at least he tries). Or how Zeroken goes from a coward who's all bark and no bite (geddit? Because he's a werewolf!) to brave and heroic kung fu master.
Although, when I say that the main cast is likable, it really depends on you what you consider good qualities for a main cast in a video game. Some people will love these guys, others will hate them. Apparently, not matter how much you like Disgaea 5's main cast, everyone pretty much agrees that the best characters in the franchise are the dynamic duo from the original game, Laharl and Etna (pictured above), although some folks do make the argument that Valvatorez (the main hero of Disgaea 4) is better than Laharl and Etna, but they have nostalgia on their side and as such have more fans.
But enough about the story, what about the gameplay? The majority of your play time is spent engaging in mind bogglingly complex turn-based tactical combat (that I have to explain in order to give a proper review). Basically every stage is a chess-board like grid, and you move your characters (who I will refer to as "unit") on said grid . When a unit gets close enough, they can attack an enemy with a variety of special moves that they learn from using the same weapon type repeatedly. Said special moves will also level up as you use them, and if you use them enough, you'll unlock a stronger special move for that weapon type. For example, use the Sword exclusive special move Blade Rush enough times and you'll unlock another Sword exclusive special move known as Killer Spin, and if you use THAT enough times you will unlock Excavation, and so on. Additionally, some weapons are off limits for some characters due to how the cast is divided between Humanoid and Monster units, with Monster units having less weapons to choose from, but get exclusive skills that only they can use to compensate, and possess the ability to Magichange, where the monster temporarily transforms into a weapon that a humanoid unit can use, thus boosting the stats of both units, and any EXP earned by a Magichanged Monster is shared with the Humanoid they Magichanged with.The only downside of Magichanging is if the Humanoid dies, it takes the Magichanged Monster with it. Also, both Humanoids and Monsters can literally pick up and throw teammates around the board/grid, a tactic best used to position your offensive powerhouses just right for a sweet combo. And finally, the main thing that separates Disgaea 5 from the previous games is the addition of the Revenge Gauge, which can be used to essentially put your units in a temporary Super Saiyan Mode that gives them a massive stat boost, but the catch is one of your own units has to take damage for it to charge the Revenge Gauge.
Oh, and if you don't like the main cast, you can always use a team of the highly customizable Generic units, which are mainstays of the Disgaea franchise. Generic Units are customizable characters with no story relevance whatsoever divided into 47 different classes (each with their unique gimmicks and quirks), and an argument can be made that the Generic Units' versatility makes them actually better than the story relevant characters, who are essentially locked into specific combat roles, but to compensate for their sometimes crippling over-specialization, the main characters have access to Overloads, which serve as both plot devices and chargeable super moves that can be used once per battle to give you a tactical advantage (example, the female lead, Seraphina, has an Overload that lets her mind-control any male enemy within a specific radius, and Red Magnus's Overload turns him into a giant, boosting all of his his stats for a few turns), the catch being Overloads can only be used while the Revenge Gauge is completely full. And in addition to all this, every character in the game has at least one passive ability that can do anything from boosting stats to inflicting a debuff on an enemy if they get within a specific radius of the unit in question. It's a staggeringly deep system that literally begs you to experiment until you find a style that works for you. And while it is complex, it's presented to you at a very digestible pace. Never once during the 145+ hour story mode did I feel overwhelmed by the game mechanics due to them becoming available to you gradually and giving you plenty of time to understand how each mechanic works on your own (and even more time to Google it in case you couldn't figure it out yourself).
All of the above summarizes the game's combat system, but it has so much more content than just that. You can capture/interrogate prisoners, pass bills at the Dark Assembly (which is literally a demonic court), complete side missions, literally go DIRECTLY INSIDE every single item you have collected thus far (including but not limited to plastic lightsabers, chocolate bars, and Dandy Gowns), to gather up EXP, Money, or whatever it is you need at the moment en masse, and literally unlock a Cheat Shop, because Disgaea is the only franchise besides the LEGO games that still uses cheat codes to this day. Granted, the cheats in Disgaea 5 don't require codes, but still let you customize the game mechanics even further by determining how much of one (or more) resource(s) you get when completing stages, or adjust the difficulty to your heart's content. But the biggest reason why Disgaea 5 takes a lot of time investment to make real progress? Every character, be they Humanoid, Monster, Generic or a part of the Main Cast, can level up all the way to Level Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Nine (9999!) and all of their stats can EASILY surpass ten million (10,000,000+!). And then you can reincarnate them, which sets them back to level 1 (out of 9999!) but let them keep any stats and skills they've acquired and now their stats can get EVEN HIGHER. Thankfully, once you reach that almost needlessly high level cap, it's much easier to reach it a second, third, forth, fifth or even sixth time. Also, as far as I am aware, you can only Reincarnate a character a specific number of times. And all this is just the tip of the iceberg! So if you like video games with a ludicrous amount of content, then Disgaea 5 might just be the most content filled game in history.
As for the visuals, Disgaea 5 adopts a colorful, Saturday Morning Cartoon (but like, if Saturday Morning Cartoons had swears, and innuendoes because all Teen rated video games must have swears and innuendoes)/Shonen Anime artstyle that while a tad simple, is easy on the eyes and generally pleasing to see. The character designs also aren't bad either. The main characters all look distinct, and despite the fact that they are called "Generic" units, the Generic unit designs are also nice to look at as well, chief among them being the Dark Knight and the Dragon King units. The attack animations can best be described as completely over-the-top, and they only increase in scale and grandeur as you progress through the story, eventually getting to the point where your units are casually blowing up entire planets just to defeat one pesky zombie.
As far as the sound goes, I can safely say that Disgaea is the only game where the regular battle theme (titled Bloody Brass Band) is fun to listen to. The Main theme, while energetic and has some great instrumentals, has an opera-woman-wail that overshadows the lead singer during the chorus and I personally feel the main theme would have been better if the wailing was reduced, or even absent, but that's just my opinion and music is an incredibly subjective topic. But aside from that the music is fun, often taking jazzy instruments and somehow making fast, upbeat songs out of them, with the occasional lyrical J-pop track, or some surprisingly epic guitar solos. The only song I don't like is the Item World theme, as it's ridiculously techno, which is a genre that I don't even like to begin with, and extremely repetitive, so whenever I use the Item World I make a habit of turning the background music off because listening to the Item World theme for too long is murder on my eardrums. The Voice acting is also alright. I mean, there's no stand out performances aside from the absolutely ham-tastic Red Magnus and the strangely adorable Usalia. Killia's voice acting did not really impress me that much. I mean, yeah, he's supposed to be a brooding pretty boy lone wolf but it's kind of sad when the hilarious out-of-character Episode Previews at the end of each chapter make him show more emotion than the real Killia even after he goes through his character development. And while I know a LOT of people hate Seraphina's voice in the English dub (which is what I played the game on), I think we can all agree that Seraphina's "Oh-hohohohoho!" laugh is the most wonderful sound in the history of voice acting (not the history of video games, that honor goes to the "Da, na-na-na-naaaa!" jingle from The Legend of Zelda franchise).
Overall, if you like long, complex strategy games and don't mind a somewhat cliche story, then Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance (also known as Disgaea 5 Complete for the Nintendo Switch) is the game for you. I give the game a solid 9/10. My only real gripes are extremely subjective in nature and may not apply to you. And it makes a good starting point for the Disgaea franchise, given the fact that this game is completely stand-alone from the rest of the franchise aside from the heroes of the previous Disgaea games making fun little cameos during the the optional bonus levels that either come with the Switch port or are sold as DLC for the original PS4 version, and also how beginner friendly the game is.
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