Game Review - Disgaea 6: Complete (PS5)
Summary: A huge disappointment as a series fan. Fails to improve in areas that need improvement and adds features that are half-baked and detrimental to the series. Cuts some fun features that were prominent in D5. Characters, plot, art design, gameplay, strategy experience, stat inflation, and auto-battle all fall flat. NOT RECOMMENDED.
Introduction
Let's start things off by getting this out of the way: I love the Disgaea series. I've played every major installment, and when I read some initial negative reviews of Disgaea 6 when it was released on Nintendo Switch last year, I was reluctant to believe those reviewers. I was wrong. I purchased Disgaea 6: Complete on Playstation 5 from the Playstation Store on June 29th, 2022. I had previously put over 200 hours into Disgaea 5 on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 4 combined. It's my favorite of the series, and the Disgaea 6 release announcement was a joy to hear.
I downloaded the Demo and played that for a couple hours before I purchased the full game.
What's New?
Disgaea 6 introduces a few changes to the series. The first and most obvious of these is the new cast of characters. Second, we have the addition of Auto-Battles and Demonic Intelligence. Third, we have massive stat inflation. Fourth, we have a revamped Item World/Innocents/Research setup. Finally, according to Tristan Jurkovich at Gamerant, there were other changes I should discuss: Changing from Sprites to Polygons, Super Reincarnation, Group Experience, How Shops Work, Bigger Units, and D-Merits.
Characters
Zed
For the first time, the main protagonist is a zombie; Zed is a decent enough protagonist. He goes through a hero's journey that is fairly typical in the series, and his primary motivation is similar to games from the past. He searches for ways to get stronger so he can destroy a big baddy for reasons of his own that unfold throughout the game. This is all well and good and is reasonably expected for a Disgaea game. His character model is fine, although there are very few visual cues that he's a zombie. He just looks like a pale blue one-horned demon. His English voice acting is fine. His gameplay is fine. His story motivation is fine. His reaction to situations is bland and dismissable and written poorly enough that I largely ignored it. I spent more time reading my phone or talking with my daughter during story scenes than I ever have during a game. Zed's main ability is "Super-Reincarnation" where he (and his party members) can reset at Level 1 with zero mana while maintaining all previously-learned Specials and Evilities and gaining an increase in stats and abilities through a new currency called "Karma." All characters also learn a free random Common Evility every time you Super-Reincarnate through the Dark Assembly. When you do it through the story, you have no gameplay effects. (Zero. It might as well not happen. Yay for a story-based mechanic that's completely independent of gameplay.)
Zed is bland and forgettable. Killia, Valvatorez and Mao were all better protagonists. He's about on par with Laharl and Adell (who were both pretty forgettable). A mediocre protagonist is forgivable if the supporting characters and gameplay around them are strong. Sadly, this was not the case.
Cerberus
The first introduced side character, Cerberus, is the guide and tutor for Zed throughout the early game. He's a zombie dog who claims to have once been a powerful Sage. Cerberus is the one who designed the magic of Super-Reincarnation that Zed uses to become stronger. He begins the game by making fun of Zed's rotten brain but this quickly stops (losing some of the better humor from the opening of the game). When this opportunity for a fun running gag is discarded quickly, it's probably the first genuine blemish on the game.
Cerberus's character model is bland. He just looks half-designed. A patchwork dog could look so cool, but they tried to make him cute and failed miserably. His eyes are particularly terrible. How they made such an awful-looking zombie dog is beyond me. Cerberus is never a playable character (at least in the 40+ hours I played). His voice acting is weak (not terrible, but not good), and his storyline is awful.
Ivar
Speaking of bland characters, Ivar is a random demon overlord who appears at the start as the audience for Zed to entertain with tales of his adventures. Did I mention that most of the story is told as a flashback? Regardless, he's the chairman of the Darkest Assembly (which is never really contrasted with the Dark Assembly you use in the game), and his role as the audience of the story is a bit of a subplot. He's never fleshed out in a way conducive to us caring about him in any way. He's mostly just played for laughs with very few redeeming qualities. There's a running gag that he's exceptionally stupid, but this is just an example of the bad humor in the game, and it's not countered by him being physically powerful or immensely wealthy or anything of the like. It's hard to believe that he's some super-important demon overlord when he's such a nitwit.
His voice acting is decent and his character model is actually pretty good. He's just so poorly written that it's hard to get past his personality in order to care about him in any way. He has some story beats that make absolutely no sense; it seems the writers realized it and tried to paper over the problem, but didn't spend actual time developing the character in a way we can enjoy as players/audience members.
God of Destruction
The main antagonist of the early game, this (usually) unnamed monstrosity shows up everywhere Zed Super-Reincarnates storywise. They're initially a bit of a challenge, but you quickly out-level them and they become trivial to handle by the third or fourth fight. Did I mention you have to fight them again and again? It's mindless and annoying. There are literally no other boss fights before the very end of the story. Yay?
Misedor
The King of the Human World, Misedor (as his name would hint) is obsessed with money. He constantly talks about how money makes everything better and that he can pay for anything. Of course, he doesn't actually GIVE you any money--or help you earn it until so late in the game that you won't care. Gameplay-wise, he's awful. His damage doesn't scale as well as others. His healing is awful. His support benefits are terrible. Story-wise he's okay. There's a decent little subplot about his motivations and his history that's one of the more enjoyable ones. Voice acting is stronger than many of the others. The character model is actually pretty good. He would have been a great fifth or sixth character. Sadly, he's the second--the one who's supposed to draw you into the story and hold you there.
Melodia
God, where to start on Melodia... She's easily the worst story character in the game.
Melodia is the Princess of the Musical World. She has a ridiculous character model, a ridiculous storyline, and weak gameplay, and she clearly belongs in a game from 20 years ago more than a game released today. The idea of a Princess of the Musical World having 665 prince suitors who tried and failed to defeat the God of Destruction before Zed's arrival is a fun little plot point (thus making Zed 666th), but her whole love-obsessed bit falls flat. (A musical pun. Get it? This is similar to the entire character in humor.)
Too bad the voice actress is... underwhelming. If you're going to make a musical character, please get a true vocal music talent to voice them. She uses the cutesy child-like soprano voice that is so common in JRPGs and it grates every time. Many of her lines are sing-songs and they're delivered poorly--with no discernable melodic motion and no musical quality.
The character model is godawful. Her bust is ridiculous and looks like it belongs more in a softcore porn game than it does in a tactical RPG. Her dress is actually somewhat interesting (other than the ludicrous bust), but her entire appearance is ignored throughout the story. Whoever designed her character clearly copied her from some of the more offensively-designed characters from D5 (like the Sage or Seraphina) and crossed them with the horny dreams of a fourteen-year-old boy who's never talked to a real girl. This actually coincides well with her story. Her entire plot line is trope after trope lifted straight out of a 1980s sitcom, and it is all so dated as to be offensive to modern audiences.
She shattered any enjoyment of the story every time she appeared on the screen. Whereas most of the story characters were weak, any appearance of Melodia was actively detrimental to my enjoyment.
Majolene
Majolene was the 10,000-year-old Witch of the Abyss/Principal of the Magimage Academy who through a silly mistake becomes transformed (irreversibly) into a young "Magical Girl" shortly after Zed and company meet with her. Before her transformation, she's repeatedly called an "old hag," and this bit is recycled for laughs again and again. It's never funny. I have no idea why she's not offended by the term, but it's probably just a translation issue.
Majolene (for some reason) is unhappy with her sudden youth and... that is everything you need to know about her. She's entirely two-dimensional, forgettable, and pointless. She brings nothing to the group story-wise, contributes nothing in battle, and I honestly forgot she was there for most of the time after she joined. Her voice acting is decent. The character model is mediocre. The storyline is weak but not actively harmful like Melodia's. There's a bit about an old regret from her past that's somewhat interesting. And then you forget it all. Because that's how this game is.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention her voice during battles. When she takes a turn in battle, she often screams. Like a bloodcurdling shriek. It's horrifying. Nice acting; stupid design choice.
Piyori
Piyori was the first and only character that made me genuinely laugh out loud. She's Prism Red of the Ultra Chroma Power Squad Prism Rangers in the TV World. It's a knock-off of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Captain Planet/Voltron/Whatever, and her show is at risk of getting canceled. Her fourth-wall-breaking TV World story was genuinely interesting to me, but her naivete was almost unbearable. The voice acting is the best in the game, the story is the best in the game (which is still worse than every single storyline in D5), and her gameplay use is the highest of all the story characters. Finally, she has a hilarious voice prompt in battle which rarely sings "Go-go Prism Rangers!" when she takes her turn--to the tune of "Go-go Power Rangers!" I genuinely laughed out loud the first time it happened, and it was rare enough that each subsequent instance brought a smile to my face.
Too bad her character model is so awful. Once again, we have a horribly over-exaggerated bust line on a character, again without any reason, and again it looks like it was designed by a horny edgelord who never moved out of his parent's basement and has never had a conversation with a real woman. Why does her character have a skirt? None of the other Prism Rangers have a skirt when they're shown as poor knock-offs of the MMPRs. The rainbow belt and prismatic wrist cuffs are cool. I'm not sure what's up with her "helmet," but... okay.
Piyori was still the best character in the game. In any other Disgaea game, she would have been the first one forgotten.
Bieko
More often a character to be discussed than a character you played, Bieko is Zed's little sister. We get quite a bit of relationship development between these two, and Bieko is played as adorable and cutesy at all times. She's a decent part of Zed's story and a decent character model. She's supposed to be a zombie, too, but there are no visual indicators. There's not really anything bad about how she appears in the game other than the fact that she has no wants or desires of her own. She exists only as a plot device for Zed (and others). She's kind of a Manic Pixie Dream-Girl, but she might as well be in a refrigerator for all that she matters for most of the story.
Other Story Characters (DLC and Post-Game)
No other story characters mattered in the game that I played. Laharl, Etna, and Flonne make an appearance in the postgame right before the Carnage Dimension's return, but they're played for laughs and come across as pushovers. Girl Laharl (blah, but at least we have a reason for the ridiculous bust size for this one), Axell (he's fine), Rozalin (she's surprisingly good), Asagi (who gets treated awfully), Raspberyl (who's fine), Mao (who's fine), Valvatorez (who is probably the highlight of all the DLC), Plenair (who's fine), Fuka (who's fine), Desco (who's fine), Killia (who's a pale shadow of his D5 role and voice-acted terribly), and Usalia (who's sadly mediocre) all show up as DLC characters in the Complete Edition. Killia and Usalia were real letdowns, as was Asagi. Valvatorez was easily the best DLC character (story-wise) and Mao was the best gameplay-wise.
Generic Characters
There are 22 generic characters in Disgaea 6. They are:
- Warrior
- Martial Artist
- Clergy
- Mage (Witch)
- Thief
- Archer
- Gunner
- Magic Knight
- Ninja
- Samurai
- Armor Knight
- Mecha Girl (New)
- Psychic (New)
- Prinny
- Succubus
- Dragon (Dragon King)
- Horseman
- Undead
- Sea Angel
- Mothman (Winged Warrior)
- Pincer Shell (New)
- and Evil Eye (New)
This is a significant reduction from Disgaea 5 which has 21 (or 22) humanoid classes (plus three DLC generic classes) and 21 monster classes. These are the classes that existed in Disgaea 5 but were cut from Disgaea 6:
- Valkyrie
- Fight Mistress
- Magician (Skull)
- Cleric
- Maid
- Professor
- Wrestler
- Dark Knight
- Pirate
- Sage
- Celestial Host
- Fake Asagi (lol fine)
- Celestial Hostess (D5 DLC only)
- Kunoichi (D5 DLC only)
- Sorcerer (D5 DLC only)
- Orc
- Imp
- Sludge (though mentioned in the story)
- Flora Beast
- Slumber Cat
- Nether Noble
- Shroom
- Fairy
- Rabbit
- Chimera
- Nine-Tails
- Bear
- Felynn
- Twin Dragon
A number of these classes are fine to cut.
- Magician/Skull (including three varieties for Fire/Wind/Ice) was redundant with Witch. Fine that it's gone.
- Sage was a great meta character in D5, but Mecha Girl replaced it. Fine. Sage also had one of the more offensive character models, so again fine, though Mecha Girl is an awful character model and a horrid fembot trope.
- Orcs are inherently racist. Removing them is fine.
- Nine-Tails is strangely fetishized in D5. Again, fine to remove.
- Similar to Felynns. Again, we can strike them.
- Twin dragon is redundant with Dragon Lord. Fine.
- Nether Noble steals from Misedor. Okay.
But some of these seem strange to remove: Pirate? Maid? Even the overly-sexualized Cleric was a decent character in D5 if you could get over her overt model and voice. None of this mentions that almost all of the empowered-female characters are gone. Valkyrie? Fight Mistress? Professor? Come on! Way to roll back any representation in the game. The only non-cis character in D6 is Girl Laharl and he's played for laughs (he clearly prefers the masculine pronouns based on his character's actions). You could argue that Clergy (Heretic) appears non-binary and even talks that way, but they're always given masculine names from the name randomization pool.
I'm not trying to say that the Disgaea games need to be all political or socially-aware. I'm saying that they shouldn't roll back positive changes that were inclusive in the name of "streamlining." When you couple the removal of the empowered female characters with the increased exaggeration of the inhuman proportions of the other female characters, you start pushing objectification. The overt sexualization of the character models in D6 is so over-the-top as to be repulsive to this particular gamer.
A couple more points on this issue: Compare these models: The Magic Knight from Disgaea 5 and the Magic Knight from Disgaea 6.
Yes, they're both overly buxom, but the D5 one was slightly less ridiculous. The D6 model makes such a point of emphasizing her bust size and blowing up the head proportions in order to emphasize the other curves. It's ridiculous. When you compare it to the "cut out" from the character screen, below, it becomes even more egregious:
I mean... seriously? This is just one example. It gets worse when you start to stack (forgive the puns) images of other generic characters next to each other. Check out these others.
Armor Knight:
Mecha Girl:
Succubus:
Okay... went off on a bit of a rant there. Back to the review.
Auto-Battles and Demonic Intelligence (D.I.)
Now you, too, can grind for hours and hours getting millions of levels without actually doing anything! Haven't you always wanted a turn-based tactical/strategy game where you don't actually make any decisions?!? Hooray! What fun!
In case you missed it, the whole point of playing the game is to play the game. This removes playing the game from the game. You're actively encouraged NOT to play the game. What a great design choice!
All sarcasm aside, Auto-Battles were first introduced as a neat little quirk that quickly becomes necessary to compete with the challenges of the later game. It became tedium only for the point of being tedious. And it leads me to the next really bad change...
Stat Inflation
Why in the world does anyone who worked on this game think it would be a good idea to make Disgaea (a game with unfathomably large numbers already) use even more inflated statistics beyond what it already had? I cannot fathom why someone thought this was a good idea. I'm sure it was just the most popular person in the office and no one wanted to say no. I can only imagine the pitch meeting...
"What if we make all the numbers bigger? Like way WAY bigger!?!"
"Why?"
"To make it MORE EPIC!!!"
"Well, I'm sold!"
Yeah... I'm not.
It was a horrible idea. Nearly infinite statistics due to super-reincarnation means you're hitting and being hit for trillions and even quadrillions of damage. I'm not even exaggerating. There's an actual mechanic to abbreviate things as Qd and Qt for quadrillions and quintillions.
Why? Just... why?
Stat inflation also removes all value in items. This creates a separate but related issue. There's no longer any reason to use any items except shoes/movement buff items and whatever the best weapon is that you have. That part isn't really necessary, now that I think about it. I finished the story with Zed still using a level 1 Thimble as his fist weapon.
It's trash. All statistics are from levels, so items don't matter. They're completely pointless.
Item World/Innocents/Research
If not for the stat inflation, the new Item World/Innocents/Research setup would actually be pretty cool--if a little hollowed out.
However, due to stats, it's a waste of time to explore this aspect of the game that is the core of what the Disgaea series is actually about!
The item world is the single most important aspect of the Disgaea series. The idea of unlimited random dungeons contained within every item is such a fascinating and innovative characteristic of Disgaea.
The Geo Panels (again rendered unimportant without an Item World) and the Innocents (yup, useless again) are by far the best parts of the series.
Disgaea 5 also had Item World invasions, fascinating Geo Panel puzzles, and the like. All of that is gone. Most geo panel puzzles in D6 can't be solved. And who really cares? They're useless anyway.
When you make stats so huge that items don't matter, you make the core tenet of the game pointless.
The new Item World Research idea is cool, too. You send your research parties into the Item World (returning Innocents, gear, Juice Bar essences, and powering up the items passively while you do other things). This is so much better than the Netherworld Research of Disgaea 5. The UI for research sucks, but fine. Disgaea has never had a fantastic UI.
But it's all for naught. The whole Item system doesn't matter.
Other Changes
List from Gamerant.com (Source Link)
Changing from Sprites to Polygons
Disgaea 6 has three-dimensional polygon-based characters. A lot of the character models look bad (see the above discussions around characters), but the overall change looks good. World maps are bright and colorful. The variation in map textures is enjoyable. The graphical effects are fun. Yay! Something sort of positive to say about the game!
Super Reincarnation
Zed's reincarnation power and the fact that it uses this new currency (Karma) in order to power up each reincarnation is actually quite fun and enjoyable. You also get to spend Karma at character creation.
The whole system doesn't work without stat inflation, so that sucks, but it's actually a pretty fun little system. (More good things!)
Group Experience
This was yet another good idea. No longer does it matter which character killed something on a map. This makes Towers a lot less useful, so they removed Tower skills. You can still make Towers together and Lift-and-Throw works exactly the same. But now, everyone gets credit for everything that dies.
 |
| The Group EXP/Mana Acquired Screen. Note the medals by some characters mean they earned a bonus. |
The only bonus you get from having a specific character kill something is if that character has EXP, Mana or HL bonuses, those kick in "on kill." Then the total gained EXP, Mana or HL is thrown in a pot that everyone gets at the end of the stage. This is actually a good change that streamlines fights in a positive way.
There are also specific awards given on every stage to people who did different things, too. The person who healed the most gets +100% EXP. The person who moved the farthest gets +10% Mana. The person who threw the most gets +20% Mana. And so on. This is a fun change and a good one for the series.
I missed my Towers, through.
How Shops Work
A lot of shops work differently now. The main General Store has all of your item shop needs. It's supposed to increase in item rank every chapter, and each chapter lets you pass a Dark Assembly bill to increase it one more rank. Yay! We've done all that before.
However, there are no bribery items, rare items, percentage-based heals, etc, available in the general store, and there's no Alchemy anymore. All of that is only found in the Item World. To buy those less common items, you need to find Mystery Rooms.
Also, the Netherworld Hospital doesn't charge to heal you in your base. It just does it automatically. In the Item World, however, the Hospital is prohibitively expensive. You don't gain nearly as much HL as you do EXP, so your HP/SP is next to impossible to heal during an Item World run.
Good thing Item World dives aren't necessary for Disgaea 6! Never mind that they're the main draw of the series.
 |
| Zed at the Juice Bar |
The other major Shop change is the Juice Bar. Every stage you complete, a portion of the EXP and Mana gained are sent to the Juice Bar. This is in addition to what your characters get, so it's a bonus. It's not like they're losing out on something. Anyway, when you visit the Juice Bar, you can purchase saved EXP or saved Mana to buff your experience in various different ways. You can gain Weapon Mastery or Class EXP. You can gain straight character levels. You can gain Mana. You can use "ability extracts" to gain direct stats (like Max HP, Max SP, ATK, DEF, INT, RES, etc.). It's an excellent way to cut down on grinding, but it's terribly expensive until you're swimming in HL in the late game. I'd like it more if it were more accessible earlier, but it's just not balanced well enough to be a good addition to the game.
Bigger Units
One of the best changes is one of the least consequential. The size of some units makes them take multiple tiles on the map. When a Horseman, Dragon, Pincer Shell, God of Destruction, or the like is on the map, they're too large to fit in a single square, so they take multiple. Most of them are 5 squares (in a 1-3-1 cross pattern). This makes sense, fits, and is useful without being game-breaking. As none of these are story characters, I didn't get much chance to use these units to see if they would be unable to reach certain places on the map. It's an interesting question--but moot.
D-Merits
Another positive change, D-Merits are minor achievements for your characters. They're implemented poorly, although the idea is good. Every time your character earns a D-Merit, you can claim that D-Merit to get a minor reward and unlock the next tier.
For example, if your character is level 9,999, you can claim the D-Merit for level 99, level 200, level 300, level 500, level 750, level 1000, level 2,000, level 5,000, level 7500, and level 9,999. Yay! Free stuff for playing the game!
It mostly gives you Karma and unlocks new Evilities to purchase for Mana at the Skill Shop. One of the biggest drawbacks is that each time you claim a D-Merit, it doesn't automatically move the cursor to the next completed D-Merit. This makes claiming them a tedious process if you forget to do it for a while. There will be so many that your hands will get tried just moving and blindly clicking them all.
There are also no in-base or in-battle indicators that you have a D-Merit ready to claim. You just have to periodically go check. Who needs quality of life? This is a game! The whole system seems unfinished.
Conclusion and Verdict
Overall, this game was an enormous disappointment to me as a player and as a fan. I really wanted to enjoy it. I purchased it almost immediately upon release and played it for many days in a row. The gameplay had a lot of the old enjoyable elements like Team Combos and undoing/redoing movement in order to get the exact move that you wanted. The problem was that it didn't matter anymore. You might as well just hit Auto-Battle and ignore it.
In fact, the whole game is better that way. That's... sad. It's a tactical RPG that is designed to make it so you don't have to play it.
So, just don't play it. If you're a huge fan of the series (like me), wait for it to go on sale for a deep discount. Otherwise, don't waste your time or money.
Overall score out of 10:
OKAY
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