Disgaea 5 Complete Review

As I’ve never played a Disgaea game in the past, my review may come across as different than most you will read on the internet. If you are skeptical – like I was going in – perhaps my review might be the best to consider. If you are a hardcore fan, well, you probably are not reading this.

My initial thoughts when loading up the game were not great, and I worried that my deepest fears would come true: that I would hate this game but wold be stuck dropping many hours into it for this review. There isn’t a lot of flash early on. Sure, the voice acting is pretty good, and the writing is some of the best I’ve ever encountered, but I was quickly overwhelmed by the first fight sequence.

Thankfully, however, the game slowly layers in the complexity as you go, teaching you how to create combos that will cause more damage to your enemies. For the uninitiated, I thought the pace early one was really great, but I’m concerned about how a veteran of the franchise would feel about the first few hours.

The story line is probably equally confusing for people new to the series, and when the villains name was first uttered – Demon Lord Dark – I thought it was a joke or play on words. Nope. That’s his name. It does set up a pretty compelling revenge story, however, as you follow the paths of Killia, Seraphina, and many others. As you progress through the numerous chapters in Disgaea 5, you will have the option to recruit new followers with different skills that will be valuable in your upcoming battles. Having a good balance of offence and defence will help you progress quickly.

Each level provides performance bonuses, with each level having a one time bonus for being exceptional as you complete the fight. Personally, I’ve never been able to attain the exclusive level bonus, but have got some great loot regardless from just completing the levels.

Once you get back to the main hub, you can spend credits on new warriors for your army, new gear for your people, and much more. There are also a host of other NPC characters to interact with: there are areas to purchase items, areas to heal, and even an NPC who will track trophies for you. This is one of the best features of Disgaea 5 Complete: even though this is a PS4 port, the company has found a great way to bring over all those trophies to the Nintendo Switch, which currently doesn’t have an on-board application to track these things.

Disgaea 5 Complete isn’t a game easily reviewed because of its many complexities. I’ve laid out the basics from someone who has never played before, but there is so much more to uncover. We will continue to review various portions of the game here on GamesReviews, but for now we highly recommend Disgaea 5 Complete on Nintendo Switch, and score it 9.0/10!