Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten Review

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten has been a long time coming. A ridiculously over-the-top strategy RPG experience with a quirky cast of anime characters and plenty of nerdy tropes accompanied with some of the finest genre mechanics and plenty of replay value for all of you grinders out there. Fans of the cult series know exactly what to expect out of this sequel and will most definitely get plenty of enjoyment out of it. The curious, on the other hand, are thoroughly encouraged to take a peep into the Netherworld and see what it has to offer.

Disgaea 4's tale is just as outrageous as any other Disgaea outing. Players never really step into the shoes of the stereotypical anime hero out to save the world. Nay, this is Disgaea and therefore players will find themselves playing as the villain instead – although the word is said in the most liberal way possible. This time around, the demon vampire tyrant Valvotorez fills the shoes of the story's main character. Well, former demon vampire tyrant. The dood's fallen down the Netherworld ladder to the very bottom and is now a mere Prinny Instructor, apparently the lowest of the lows in all of the Netherworld. Regardless, he takes his position in stride and with pride I might add. See, his philosophy of never breaking a promise is the cause to how he ended up at the bottom of the pit.

As the story unfolds, players will discover just exactly the kind of promises he made to end up in his current predicament. No details here as that's the fun part, but the premise puts Valvatorez in a rescue mission to save his newly graduated Prinnies in order to fulfill a promise he made to them (he promised to give them each a sardine if you must know), this inevitably leads him to his quest to remind the Netherworld President of how proud and feared the Netherworld once was, and to clean up the corruption in the Corrupternment, the game's equivalent of a government – ironic, isn't it?



So how does the game work? Think of Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre as the foundation, then add seemingly random mechanics like tower stacking and multi-character combo attacks. That's Disgaea in a nutshell. Battles take place on an isometric grid that players can rotate and zoom in or out on. Players have an entire turn to issue orders to each unit which can then be executed in succession of each other. If a character has other allied characters adjacent to his position, they'll perform a combo attack that deals more damage. These combos are just plain fun to watch as they vary depending on how many characters are part of the combo. Some are quite epic while others are outright ridiculous and random. On top of that, there's the aforementioned tower stacking where a character can lift another and then be lifted himself by another and so on and so forth. The abilities and skills associated with tower stacks add even more to the already absurd reserve of eccentric abilities.

In addition to the grid-based strategic gameplay, players have to take into consideration Geo Panels and Geo Blocks that add buffs or de-buffs to the levels. These can be exploited by either side and can turn the tide of battle. More importantly, the rarity and value of rewards and loot depend on how these are exploited alongside combos and specials. Dumping a Geo Block on top of a panel will add its buffs to the corresponding coloured panels, while destroying one on top of a panel will change that colour to the colour of the block. Throwing a blue Geo Block next to another blue Geo Block will disintegrate all adjacent blocks of the same colour. Regardless of what a player does, if a block is destroyed and the panels change, damage is indiscriminately dealt to both enemy units and allies.