Why change a good thing? Since the first Disgaea game, Nippon Ichi Software has had great success with it’s fans in Japan and worldwide. While the series has gone through minor changes to improve quality, gameplay and things to do after you complete then game, the main changes to Disgaea have been a new cast of characters, an alternate world/netherworld, and graphics that take great use of the Playstation 3 and even some use of the PSN.

A vampire who can survive in the sun, survives on sardines and doesn’t sparkle

As with previous Disgaea titles, we are introduced to a new main character named Valvatorez, a Vampire. Centuries ago in the human world he was known as a “Tyrant,” who would cause fear among the humans humans and gain power by drinking their blood. As the title suggests, Valvatorez had made a promise 400 hundred years ago to a woman he met on a battlefield; she was a woman with a pure heart and wanted to help people. The promise was made and he has not drank any human blood since. Because of this, his powers have drastically weakened, putting him at level 1. Fast forward to the present: this hasn’t bothered Valvatorez at all and instead has taken up a new role in the lowest levels of the netherworld, he now takes great pride in his job as a Prinny Instructor!! No prinny will pass his class without knowing all rules of being a prinny including rule #1: All Prinnies will finish their sentence with a Dood! (Or in Japanese -su). As for his vampire nature, you would imagine he would thirst for human blood, but he quenches that another way. His craving for blood is well under control and he prides his new found strength on the power of SARDINES!!

Valvatorez is treated like a lord, even with his low rank, by his familiar Fenrich (a werewolf), and the warden Axel who runs the dungeon/training area (who returns from Disgaea and is no longer a Dark Hero). Problems arise after Valvatorez is done with the final lesson of the current  batch of prinnies, promising for their graduation one Sardine each, as a reward for good work. They are all suddenly transported away. As a demon of his word, he plans to keep his promise to the prinnies and find out why the President of the Netherworld and his corrupt goverment has ordered for all prinnies to be destroyed due to over population. Valvatorez vows to save the prinnies to keep his promise and will go through anyone to keep his word. The further he goes, the more he learns of the dark truths that has been happening between the human world, netherworld and even the Celestia. Valvatorez promises to change everything by bringing the humans down to hell and teaching them fear. He is a Prinny instructor with the power of Sardines and a team of unlikely allies on a mission.

The battle system is similar from previous Disgaea titles, only the animations and character/weapon specials have been changed for new and returning characters. You will choose characters from your base to form a battle strategy and everyone will be able to attack. Team attacks are possible by having one person attack and surrounding characters helping to initiate a team attack if they are compatible enough, or the right evility is equipped allowing you to create unique attacks for massive damage. Weapon skills and class abilities return and both are learned and boosted by visiting the Evility shop and using mana to pay to buy the skill or boost it.

Magichanges that were introduced in Disgaea 3 return and have been improved by allowing new double magichange with the monsters to double equip weapons after meeting certain requirements (even I haven’t found out how to do it but when I see the enemies do it I get so jealous!). Similar to magichange is fusion, which allows 2 monsters to magichange together or in this case fuse together to create one large and powerful monster that now takes up 5 spots instead of one…all hail the Giant Prinny!

The item world returns, allowing you to power up items by entering them and the further down you go into the item defeating enemies and destroying certain marks, you can power your favorite weapons constantly or make your armor stronger. If you die in the item world it’s game over, so the only way to escape is by going down 10 levels in an item or using an exit item. New but similar to the item world, is the chara world, which allows you to power up certain abilities for your characters. My favorite addition to this game is the punishment room, which allows you to take captured enemies you have tossed in your base and punish them until they join your team; it’s something you need to see for yourself to enjoy.

With a crazy cast of story characters, including the incomplete Prinny Fuka (wearing only a Prinny hat) and a huge arsenal of human classes and monsters, players can level up characters to level 9.999. Reincarnation returns allowing you to change your characters class, abilities to your liking. This game just keeps going and going, giving you tough missions and DLC for more adventures.

Disgaea 4 follows NISA’s path of giving fans both the original Japanese and dubbed voices, but while I enjoy and appreciate hearing Japanese voices, the voice acting in Disgaea 4 was well done which was also true in Disgaea 3, so playing in either English or Japanese didn’t bother me like most games. Finally for nostalgia feelings, Disgaea 4 can go back and forth between game style allowing a player to play Disgaea 4 in the updated HD graphic. New for this game are the Omega spells that feature cross over characters from other anime series such as “Spice and Wolf,” “Bikkuriman,” “Toaru Majutsu no Index,” “Anime Tenchou,” and “Lotte no Omocha” make cameos.

As Disgaea 3 focused on a classroom setting, D4 supplies you with a campaign area that expands as you progress placing symbols that give different effects to your team members and the senate returns, as you try to pass topics by having them vote. It’s the netherworld plan to bribe senators to liking you with tons of items to increase your chances of passing a topic. If you don’t want to bribe, you can always try to beat them into listening to you if you’re strong enough. For the first time ever though, other players from Disgaea 4 can be senators in your game and bribing them means free stuff for them and vice versa, so online friends can give you some great items or you can help out someone by giving them something powerful to start off with *hint hint.* Finally, creating a pirate ships allows you to surf the PSN, literally allowing you to enter other players worlds, not just the ones you create. There are so many things to do in this game that I haven’t had the chance to find everything, but I will.

Time to complete the good ending on story mode via one playthrough, reaching level 360 with Valvetorez, reaching level 70 in item world with a few pirate ship parts and  reaching level 20 in the chara world, plus doing the side missions to unlock 3 of the extra characters only available after the story mode is beaten = 47 hrs 19 mins with way more to go, including any and all DLC.

- Disgaea 4 is available in 3 editions:

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten  Standard edition –  Which is the game only, but get it at the NISA store and receive a bonus Disgaea 4 OST for $49.99

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten Premium Edition – This Edition comes with not only the game but also, a Disgaea 4 softbound artbook and Fuka figurine all in a Premium box holding everything inside. NISA store offers the free OST while Gamestop offers a DLC code for Fallen Angel Flonne for $10 dollars more making it $59.99.

And last but not least, Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten Premium Figure Set – This edition is a NISA Store Exclusive which includes everything in the Premium Edition but also adds a set of 9 Disgaea 4 figures for an extra $60 dollars making it $119.99(with free shipping), but hey online a box of the import figures go for 70+ and don’t forget about shipping and tax. I’ve collected the first 2 sets of Disgaea character figures and statues at my local anime shops and now it’s even easier in one click.

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Disgaea 4 is a Playstation 3 exclusive and is available Sept. 6th.