Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny by developer Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) and publisher Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA)—Nintendo Switch review written by Pierre-Yves from an eShop Demo.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
While there are plenty of great strategy RPGs out there, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) may pretty much be king of the field in damage dealing alone! Slated for North American release later this month, Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA) have recently dropped a demo on the Nintendo Switch for Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny and the netherworld may never again be the same.
While only going as far as the first two chapters, with how much the series has stayed the same in terms of core mechanics, it feels different enough but not so much that it's not like coming back to a warm hug. The main reason is that unlike the rest of the Netherworlds, Disgaea 6 has moved away from faux 3D sprites into actual ones making the world that much deeper looking. Everything is still recognizable from the Warriors chiseled pecs to the prinnies' satchels, but the detail will make you wait to keep the animations on for a bit just to see it all in action.
Otherwise, following the tried and true formula of the overall series, Disgaea 6 starts off with a ridiculous chapter and keeps on going from there. Following a zombie that has no right to be as powerful as he is, our story follows Zed on his quest to defeat the current God of Destruction. Accompanied by his faithful zombie pooch Cerberus, the zombie and undead jokes are heavily laid upon but at least in the first chapters they haven't grown old. Get it... they are undead... I'll see myself out. In all seriousness though, I'm not sure how it'll come across later down the line but for now? Even the expected jokes or flat retorts had me chuckling or laughing as a good NIS title does.
In regards to the gameplay Disgaea 6 follows on all the improvements done over the years. Perhaps one of the biggest improvements that I could see is that you can now actually undo a throw which is revolutionary. Also new to me as I haven't played Disgaea 1 Complete yet was an auto battle system. While I only poked at the system in order to see how well it worked, I can definitely see it having massive uses later down the line in order to grind for experience. With some customizations on how your characters can act, I can definitely see the usage while prepping up to go against Baal who will at some point make an appearance.
For the rest though and potential new fans to the Netherworlds, the Disgaea series is a turned based Strategy RPG in which you move about your pre characters alongside a cast of potential minion types from Humanoid over to your Monster types. Each class type has their own uses though the more requirements and red tape in order to unlock them, the better they tend to be.
Split into a combination of combat and almost visual novel esque voiced over narrative, there's a flow to everything that just works. Enter a stage, have a bit of dialog, fight through those that stand before you, more dialog, rinse, repeat, chapter complete. But it never feels like a chore with how it's designed. Want to fight more battles? There's always an Item World that opens up which allows you to level up items in a dungeon crawling fashion. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping you from replaying a stage over and over and over again in order to grind out experience. Every entry has one of those stages so why not make the most of it!
Finally there are a few systems making a return and some others that can be interesting going forward but I want to know more on those before really making a decision on them. If I were to have one potentially major worry now though it would be that North America is only going to receive the Nintendo Switch version. The reason for this worry is that I found myself continuously having to switch between either balanced or performance in order to have a smooth enough experience as switching over to Graphics everything just lagged which is unfortunate because this is one of the best looking Disgaeas yet.
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny: Demo Contest
It's time to show us
what you're made of, dood!
Head to Nintendo eShop to download the free demo for Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny, then enter our "A HL of a Lot of Damage Demo Contest" for a chance to win big by sending us your biggest damage numbers. While you're at it, preorder the Limited Edition and check out exclusive merch at our Online Store!
Summary
So overall I'm excited for this newest entry into the series. From seeing how the cast interacts with each other to seeing all of the elements in full instead of just a demo format, Disgaea 6 looks like it could easily top several other entries. Now it'll be to see how some of my favorites look in 3D such as Adell and Valvatorez but I'm sad that Almaz or Overlord Prier aren't on the list.
Side Note: LaPucelle would make an incredible addition to a NIS Classics package with Makai Kingdom.
Score: N/A
