Review: Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited

Disgaea 4 is a sequel to Disgaea, a hardcore, turn-based, strategy RPG.

Pros:

• HD graphics with cartoon/Manga style cartoon characters, The cut scenes are a huge step up over the previous games and looks wonderful.
• Audio options allow you to change the game speech to Japanese or English.
• Import Diasgaea 3 save to have two bonus characters in your party.
• Huge array of options where you can change everything. Options like menu transparency,text speed,movement speed and many many more.
• New camera angles and improved camera control.
• Clever yet simple control scheme, Uses the touch and rear pads but can be turned off.
• Huge opening tutorial which is broken down into smaller bite sized levels.
• Soundtrack is just as crazy as in the previous games.
• Game play is basically a dungeon crawler with turn based combat.
• Home hub has many shops selling new armour/weapons,potions,hospital to heal wounds etc.
• Find chests for loot.
• The levels are varied and have some incredible detail. The floor of the dungeons are grid based and used for player movement etc.
• Form a party of players and select which ones to bring out onto the battlefield.
• You have a council room where you can try and pass new laws. By laws I mean you do things like get new stock in shops or make enemies easier. you make your case and then the board will vote. you can influence board member decisions by bribing them with food/items. Every member can be looked at and you can find out what is most likely to get them to swing the other way.
• The story is crazy but highly entertaining.
• You ca go into the underworld which is actually under the hub world. here you can build bases that bring bonuses/buffs for team members in there vicinity. its a weird addition but works for the most part.
• You can replay missions/levels at any point and earn more loot/exp.
• Earn exp to level up and get better stats.
• You can capture monsters and have them fight for you. You can also unlock the monster type so you can create a new player entirely.
• Buying from the shops increases the shop level and levelling it up unlocks new items.
• You can have a go at making your party members friends. As friends they can attack in pairs or triplets as long as they are side by side. its a mechanic that is worth investing in.
• Every player has a special over the top mental moves. You can unlock new ones but the base ones are pretty sweet.
• The game is huge and can easily take you 50+ hours.
• You can learn new abilities that influence the battles, Luckily you can also un learn moves/spells.
• On levels you fill a bar when killing eneies and finding loot, it has levels to it and filling it will grant end of level bonuses. For the first few levels it wont make sense but it will soon click.
• in some levels you have geo blocks which influence the ground around them. Displayed as colours, standing in a colour grants temporary boosts like +atk speed or lower def. This buff also affects the enemies. You can smash the geo blocks to get rid of them or if they are clumped together you can cause a chain attack. Its a addition that is as good as it is bad, Depends where you are stood.
• You can upgrade weapons by entering a place called item world. here you must do at least 10 random levels to be able to get back out. When/if you get out, Your weapon or item will be improved. You can still get loot form these levels. Exits appear every ten levels unless you have a special item. Going deeper gets better results.
• In the shops you can try weapons/armour before you buy. What this is is you can see how your stats will fare with new gear, If you like it then just press one button and its bought and equipped.

Cons:

• Camera mixed with the level layout is still a nightmare. You still have the moments where it is really hard to see whats going on.
• The first few levels are a bit slow and boring.
• Difficulty spikes through out the game and most of the time its due to bad item management.
• its still possible to screw your game up by upgrading wrong or rolling with the wrong items.
• A lot to take in in a short time.

In Summary, the game is a huge step up visually for the previous game. controls have been tightened up and new camera controls added. The story is a bit darker than the previous game and is still just as fun and engrossing. Looking past the visual tweaks you in essence have the same game as before. the flow of the game, the hub the party etc is all the same as before. The tweaks to game play are minimal and to be honest you wont even notice them. That said I still love playing it and fans will still get enjoyment from it. You will notice more enhancements than new players. New players can look forward to a fun but challenging dungeon crawler with brilliant combat and excellent loot. So in short, Not much has changed but is that necessarily a bad thing?