Disgaea 5 Complete

Disgaea 5 is the last chapter and was published two years ago on PlayStation 4. Today it returns to be seen also on the newborn Nintendo Switch, with an edition including every DLC already published in the past to enthrall the Nintendofila user. Then Disgaea 5 Complete was born: I anticipate that the reasons for wanting this new iteration of the franchise are many, albeit with some reservations to consider. In order to enjoy Disgaea 5 it is advisable to be able to understand English, since there is no translation in Italian, as in all the other chapters after all.

The adventure narrated, in a normal context, could be unoriginal and taken for granted to be honest. The events that follow make us travel from world to world, namely the Netherworlds, because a demonic emperor known as Void Dark has been caught up in the usual expansion craze and is invading every realm to take possession of it. The protagonists will soon find themselves intent on having to end the dictator's evil plans, joining forces and creating a rebel army that will have to grow and expand in order to face the enemy forces. Luckily you don't find yourself in a normal context, far from it! A seemingly weak tale in reality here, thanks to the madness of Nippon Ichi's production, will really become a fun to deal with.

Everything, from the protagonists to the universe, is a big and fat parody of itself, where stereotypes are extremely extreme and the events can border on the trash, with a purely Japanese kitsch taste. At some point the recovery of a culinary dish seems much more important than the salvation of the world itself for our heroes, to say. The whole adventure is a continuous sequence of comic and funny curtains that manage to tear more than a smile even if, in spite of the first impressions, the deep themes certainly are not lacking. Revenge, mourning for loved ones, dictatorship and oppression of the will of others, threats and blackmail are just some examples of what we will find along the way.

For the uninitiated, Disgaea 5 Complete is a tactical JRPG, along the lines of Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics to understand. The scenarios are back with isometric view divided into grids, called panels in the game, a numerous differentiation of classes for our units to be shown on the battlefield such as thieves, warriors, monsters, monks, archers and many others, there are over thirty classes by profession (and subclasses). The main objective is as usual to survive and annihilate the enemy lines (but there are also many variables that can intervene to change the rules), a sort of "fantasy chess".

Disgaea 5 Complete offers a range of options and possibilities that are not indifferent, not very common to the genre itself. With respect to the common trend, every order given during our shift is not carried out directly but is frozen and put in "stand-by" (even if individual attacks can be activated) and only after selecting each command for our units is there assistance to a sequence of actions that are concatenated. The longer the chains are, the more benefits can be gained from them, such as the possibility of receiving a better reward at the end of the battle. If you attack the same enemy unit with multiple allies, up to a maximum of 4, the combos are triggered (Team attack in the game jargon), which guarantee greater damage dealt. Chains, combined attacks, special attacks, team assaults, mergers between characters, altered statuses, offensive and defensive objects to use and, as tradition of the series, tower formations obviously return, that is, the ability to raise our shoulders allies to take advantage of new skills: all this is (also) Disgaea 5.

We can launch around the game map to reach places previously inaccessible or take advantage of exclusive attacks by forming a column of allies. Only the class of monsters cannot create columns but they can be raised even if no one can climb on them, interrupting the possibility of raising the tower further. On the other hand, however, they have an exclusive special command, the Magichange through which they can turn into real weapons for other humanoid allies, accessing new offensive techniques.

In all there are eight classes of weapons such as axes and swords, correlated by various elemental attributes and each unit on the game map must take into account the advantages and weaknesses of each. The fifth episode had also introduced the mechanics of the Revenge Gauge, a particularly fearsome state in which our protagonists can sink when the special bar fills up by suffering blows (or inflicting them) and this could upset the outcome of the battle itself ... because when one of our units enters this state, it will have the ability to deal 100% critical hit, take 25% less damage, and combat techniques will only consume one SP point. In addition, certain characters can take advantage of a secret technique called Overload here.

Red Magnus, one of the main supporting actors, can get bigger and increase his offensive statistics considerably. Seraphina can instead conquer the hearts of male enemy units with her charm to make them fight on our side for a turn. Each main supporting actor will have his personal Overload and the effects can be very different from each other, it is up to us to understand which and when they can be useful in the best way. Distributed on the maps there can also be the so-called Geo Symbol, pyramid-shaped objects that can influence a group of panels by attributing bonuses or malus of various natures to those who put their feet on them. They can be destroyed if they get in the way and also present particular additional effects, called Netherworld effects, linked to the map itself that cannot be removed (poisoned panels, to name one).

The meat on the fire certainly is not lacking even if, on the other hand, such a large amount of possibilities can be confusing at first glance and it may seem difficult to digest. But soon it turns out that it is the game itself that reaches out to us to gradually enter its mechanisms. If compared to a Fire Emblem it is less sober, elegant in proposing itself, on the other hand it manages to offer many more layers, with a commendable tactical depth. All that glitters is not gold, and unfortunately the balance of difficulty is not free from defects. Often the game runs too smoothly to present occasional peaks of difficulty that require a good dose of grinding and reorganization of your army. It would have been appropriate to have a more homogeneous degree of difficulty. With the difficulty rate called for gradual growth, rather than finding oneself with a succession of rather peaceful situations that suddenly leave room for too demanding moments.