Disgaea is one of the game series favored by gamers because behind all the silliness it presents, especially through the dialogue between various characters that are quite quirky, hidden game systems that are very “deep” thanks to the presence of various interesting features that can keep players busy for a long period long. This privilege is also maintained in the newest game, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, which was released last October for the US region (the Japanese version arrived last March). What makes this game a must-have for PlayStation 4 console owners?
Put the “Grin” in “Grinding”
The only drawback that Alliance of Vengeance has is that the story is shallower than the previous games. Playing as Killia, a demon with tremendous power who (assisted by the formidable forces of The Lost) is trying to stop Void Dark from taking over the entire Netherworld, you must cooperate with four overlords from each Netherworld – each of whom has their own reasons to fight the enemy. demon emperor – to rise up and stage a rebellion for freedom. But fortunately all these shortcomings will not be felt once gamers enter the game. That’s right!!
Like other Disgaea games, grinding is an important activity that you must carry out where by doing this gamers can strengthen and increase the strength of each overlord as well as your unit. But make no mistake: the grinding process here doesn’t only apply to increasing the strength of your character because there are still many other features that require you to do this. Among them is Item World, where you can enter the world contained in an item and fight with its inhabitants to increase the power or pull out the hidden abilities possessed by the item. Although it looks tiring because each item has many “battlefields” that can be played, but all of them actually become an interesting challenge for players so it’s not impossible that you are addicted to living it instead of completing all the main battles – especially because the rewards are very tempting!!
The same thing can also be found in the Character World, a world owned by each character where we can increase their strength. Just like Item World, here you can fight with its inhabitants, visit the shop to buy items, even undergo a number of events that will reward you with new skills for the character to exclusive items that can only be found in Character World!! With its shape that resembles an ordinary board game, visiting this world can also provide its own fun for gamers and make you curious to continue exploring tile by tile to find out what interesting things you can find later. With so many items and character units available in Disgaea 5, you can guess how much time can be spent exploring these two unique “worlds”!!
Thanks to the appearance of Items and Character World, even though they have to spend a lot of time doing them, they actually provide exciting activities that gamers can run outside of other main activities, thus providing replay value for Alliance of Vengeance.
Unleash Your Power!!
In addition to maintaining a number of game elements that were also used in previous Disgaea games (which underwent improvements in various areas), Alliance of Vengeance also added a variety of new features that made the game appear more challenging. An example is the Revengen System, where the more your units are attacked or KO in the hands of the enemy, the Revenge Gauge will increase. And if it’s full, you can activate Revenge Mode which can increase the strength of the remaining overlords in the arena, as well as unlock new skills with great power (called Overload). For example, Killia can activate Revelio of Tyrant which allows him to move faster so he can finish off enemy troops in a short time!! One thing you must pay attention to: the Overload skill can only be used once in each map so you have to consider carefully when we will use it – another exciting challenge that gamers will encounter throughout the game.
Another unique feature is Alliance Skills which can only be activated if two characters with a special relationship – be it lovers or rivals – are standing close together. For example, Killia and Seraphina can use Cryo Heartbreaker’s combined attack that contains elements of Ice, Red Magnus and Zeroken can use Cross Flame Gale to cover the opponent with fire, while Usalia and Cristo can launch Curry Break (??) which is…well, you should better. see the effect for yourself. The presence of this feature again presents a strategy that you must take into account in warfare as a tactic to defeat effective enemy forces. Oh, there’s also Dual Magichange which allows gamers to use unique skills when using Magichange weapons with other units.
Other new elements that make the game in Disgaea 5 appear more interesting are the Research Squad (sending units that are not used in battle to the Netherworld to obtain items or prisoners), running various side-quests with attractive rewards from the Quest Shop, filling the stomach before undergoing battle in Curry Shop so you get certain stat boosts, and much more.
Sweet Vengeance
Despite presenting games that are mostly “recycled” from previous games, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance still looks fresh through the presence of a number of new features that the developer has embedded into its gameplay. In addition, the interactions between a number of characters are also interesting to watch because they can make us smile (or laugh, depending on each other’s sense of humor) – like Seraphina who firmly believes that her beauty can make all men drunk, which actually makes Killia hates to hear it.
To add to the fun of the game, NIS America has prepared interesting DLC that gamers can get, namely the presence of a number of characters from other Nippon Ichi Software games. Meanwhile, the characters that have been confirmed to be present are Zetta, Pram and Peta from Makai Kingdom (or Phantom Kingdom), as well as Lord Prierre from La Pucelle: Tactics, and (possibly) many other characters. In the end, all the advantages it has can bring Alliance of Vengeance to become the most powerful Disgaea game!!
Overall Score: 8/10
Publisher: NIS America
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Genre: Strategy-RPG
Release: October 2015
Platform: PlayStation 4