Disgaea PC

The first entry in an excellent franchise. While it does a lot of weird things that its sequels don't, the gameplay and character building remain consistently compelling to this day.

9 Years after this game's release on steam it still doesn't work well with AMD graphics cards, big layering issues in the castle and INVISIBLE (literally transparent texture) base panel on battles. This is just on the first half hour btw.

Just sad coming from a reputable publisher like NIS America, and being the first game of a long standing, popular saga. Even sadder when 2 years later they released an improved version (Disgaea 1 Complete) for Switch and PS4, with extra content and QoL changes, but no steam port so we are left with this broken version.

I've put in hours and hours and I still can't kill most of the enemies in the item worlds. 10/10 would play again

👍

Dood

Very Addicting

I bought this game to encourage NISAmerica to publish more games on Steam and it worked. The best way to play this game is on Nintendo DS in my opinion.

This tactical RPG is a quite the grind fest and if you are having trouble progressing it's because you didn't go back to previous stages to grind. If you claim you did that, then you didn't grind long enough... Or you forgot to equip your new characters with weapons in armor. I've done that a couple of times.

The games popularity comes from its charming array of characters and it's mixture of humor and emotional storytelling. Every character is goofy and crazy in their own way, but then they hit you with the tragic backstory. BAM! Now your emotionally invested. Let's take over the world! Wait, wrong ending! (Yeah, that actually happened to me. Unlocked optional stage and completed it. New Game+ though.)

This is the just first game in the franchise and is the foundation for the rest of mainline games in the series. Later games have additional features and quality of life upgrades to the gameplay. So, you are really playing this game just for the story.

Catch it on sale because Disgaea 1 Complete is easier on the eyes and just as lacking.

Gameplay can be a bit jank + lacks a lot of QoL stuff from later games but the story and characters are probably the best in the series.

It's ancient and some of the QoL that I'm used to in the newer games are not there. BUT I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

it's very good I completed main story on mobile now I'll strive to 100% complete this game on PC althrough the port is really bad with the black boxes bug on amd (fixed when updating to newest driver)

Be warned, game does NOT play well with AMD. Visual bugs galore.

not that far into the game since i've been doing usless grinding but the main prince guy is kinda built like a apple core

WHY ARE ALL THE CHARACTERS HOT

I will sort this review in 3 different parts.
1) The normal playthrough of the story.
2) Playing the game in Japanese
3) The grinding/afterstory stuff

1)
The normal playthrough teaches you the very basics of the game, which are necessary to beat the story. However it doesn't go into as much depth as you need to in order to be able to really get deep into it, if you want to grind a ton for all the bonus bosses and content after the story.

The story itself is pretty fun, I really enjoyed it. It is pretty straight forward, doesn't require that much grinding and can generally be beaten pretty easily by just using the characters that you get by playing the story, without having to create new ones or grind for lots of items etc. It really is very simple compared to how deep the entire game can go, if you really want to put everything in there! But thats a good thing. Just want to enjoy the story playthrough? You can do that! I think the characters have nice development and are all fun to listen to aswell! (Though I can only talk about the Japanese version, as I have only played it in Japanese. I really enjoyed it)

2)
If you want to play the game in Japanese, you can easily switch the language in your library. Very simple.
I did actually use this game to help my Japanese learning and there will be lots of repitition of certain words, so you will definitely learn a thing or two while playing it. Though I wish it had an option to replay the audio. Almost everything in the story is voiced, just a few stages are not.

If you can't read some of the kanji, you can easily use the snipping tool and put the text into google lens. It will take out all the text and it can be put into google translate. It only had problems with 1 or 2 kanji I think, while I played through it, so its possible to translate everything, but that will take a ton of time. I worked myself through it and am happy that I did!

I saw a few english videos of the game, because I wanted to see the endings I didn't get/go for and it felt very weird to me, as I was so used to the japanese voices. I prefered the japanese ones.

3)
The normal story only needs you to go to around level 90 to beat the game. If you reincarnated here and there and grinded back up like I did, you can beat the story with a much lower level aswell, as you'll get stronger everytime you reincarnate. I think when I finished the main story, I was around level 65 or maybe 70.

If you want to really grind all the side stories and bosses, you'll be facing enemies in the thousands of levels. The game allows you to go to level 9999, but if you reincarnate there, you can get even stronger. Max is 9999, but the stats still go up more.

You can grind a ton of equip, fight lots of different bosses, level up your spells or your items aswell. There is a ton of ways to get stronger, though it really requires monotonous grinding, doing the same things over and over to level up all the different aspects. You level, equip, moves, enemy levels, collecting bonus stats for items, like getting more EXP etc.

For me personally, it was mostly about the japanese text for learning and that the game was fun aswell was definitely nice, but grinding everything to maximum just seems to take a bit too long for me. You definitely level a lot quicker at some point. Like it takes only half the time to get your first level 200 as it took to get to level 100 etc.
After a while you'll be making hundreds of levels in a few hours, it just keeps boosting itself up more and more for some time, until it gets slower again until you find another good grinding spot, but it is a pretty boring process if you're just leveling, doing the same fights again and again...



Overall:

I really enjoyed the experience I got from the game, I played this game a lot, but I wish I stopped grinding a bit earlier, as I felt like I could have saved a few days of time, if I knew it would be too much for me in the end anyway.

I'll definitely get all the other games aswell, but probably stick to the story.

I can't believe that I'm saying this but I actually prefer the Nintendo Switch version of this game way more than this version for one very simple reason.

Unit movement in this version is so slow and there's no way to speed it up without a mod.

It's a very good game but if you're going to play the PC version, I highly recommend getting a speed up mod. Otherwise, don't bother.

I still have a little bit to go to finish the game, but I think I have played enough to leave a review. This is my first Disgaea, I have heard of it before, I just kinda forgotten about it till a friend talked about how it was his favorite game. I can see the appeal of the game, and I assume series. Though I will say, I'd probably like the game more if I had a handheld.

The game is a little silly and has a lot of mechanics, many of them were unique to me, and I was overwhelmed at first and put some things on the back burner. Looked some stuff up and made my life easier, one of my issues was I was spreading my exp too thin across my members, which it turns out deploying all 10 units at once can cause problems. Most of my problems was just early game learning, once I understood more things, the game got easier.

I recognized a few of those references lol.

Even though the tutorial is not great and the design can feel outdated at times, I still think this is the best Disgaea game with the best story in the series. (8/10)

At this point I would recommend getting the Complete version for the QoL's it offers, but if you want the old quality sprites this is a good version. If you played the PSP version (Afternoon of Darkness) and wanted to play as the added characters that you couldn't in that version (Pleinair, Adell, Rozalin & Book Zetta) this version allows it and doesn't have the mangled DS versions translation changes due to space.

Classic tactical JRPG

Damn, if you want to get a heartache, play that. Even that will be worth it.

I began enjoying this franchise with its 4th installment - and I really liked it, although I couldn't appreciate the gameplay that much and never finished it.

This one, same - except - being a little simpler - I can actually understand half of what I am doing. Very Nice!

pretty much my favorite game ever

I had heard a few good things about this series and decided to give it a try, and it's just not that fun. Maybe I need the nostalgia glasses. Maybe it needs the quality of life features I've seen some other reviews mention. Game just feels like a slog and the pacing of the story is pretty slow. Others have mentioned that this is a bad port and that AMD machines have issues running it. The game ran fine on my LED Steam Deck but I just wasn't feeling it. :(

It's a classic. Fun, silly plot, lots of lovable characters and you can grind as long as you can stand it. Highly recommended for fans of building ridiculously overpowered JRPG-styled characters

yes

I know it's supposed to be cute and fun and an iconic game within the genre, but playing it 20 years after release, I just don't think it aged well the way Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, or Shining Force seem to. Was not feeling it.

A pretty good JRPG, In my 50 hours I still haven't got around to finish it, so long, so much to do, quite complex, it's really fun to throw characters around to cover distance, a lot of trickeries, very fun game!

The OG. Funny moments, nice story,, great mechanics and gameplay for an Strategy-Tactics RPG.

my dentist says i grind even in my sleep
relax, doctors, thats called being an overlord

Silly fun strategy game.

classic weeb game 10/10

FUCK THIS GAME

I hadn't saved for a bit cuz I was getting thought the first area pretty easy. I got to like the last level of the first area. There'e a funny cuteness where the enemy is renamed mid-boss. I dont make the best starting play, whatever. none of my attacks do any more that 5 damage and almost all of my units that can do any damage get killed off in the FIRST TURN from full health to none, i cant revive them or anything and I only have the main character left. i make a half hearted attempt to maybe destroy the geo crystal thingy i break, it nothing happens, i realize im stupid and dont understand the mechanics of the game. the main character dies. i cant do anything with my remaining units. i send them out and just get them killed to like booted back to the hub or something.

that doesn't happen instead the game tries to be funny and the guy named mid boss is like "OH i didnt expect that to happen" and then it plays THE WHOLE FUCKING CREDITS. and then the game is like you can carry your levels it over to your next game or something.

I think i got some like secret ending thing or whatever but like now I have to play completely up to that point. I have a save before that but its from when i was going through the tutorial.

I get that I lost due to a lack of understanding of the mechanics, but the game didnt give me a second chance or something. part of this is on me, this is an old game so i should have had up to date saves, but like the game was pretty easy up to that point . idk i was enjoying the game up until then and I may still keep playing, but any momentum I had before is kinda gone now

Nostalgic.

"Don't worry, you can still beat the game with minimal knowledge." You underestimate my inability to have any knowledge at all...

i did platinum trophy and forgot to do review:
in this game you play as laharl and fight many types of demons while leveling up,upgrading items,reincarnating and attending senate, yes if you played later games they have more mechanics and stuff, but this game STARTED disgaea as a series, so i'll give it a slack.
tl;dr kill mobs,get lvls,get cooler items,do story+extra endings,attend dark assembly(senate),vote for bills,become the strongest and deal 10 million damage!

Bro imagine spending over 100 hours on this game

Classic JRPG. Very fun.

The PC version is the worst available, but still a great game.
Funny and a farming heaven.

Dood, my name ain’t important! What’s important is what I’m gonna do, yeah! I just freakin’ HATE this world and all them human worms squirming around on its rotting carcass! My whole life’s been nothin’ but cold, bitter hatred, dood! And ya know what? I always wanted to go out in a big ol’ BOOM! Violent as heck, dood!

fun game even though it came out in like 2003. other then that, i like the story and gameplay. pretty sure it was originally for psp or like the ps2

the start of everything. and what a great start.
even with those horrible graphics, which where underwhelming even in its ps2 era, the story and the gameplay are so fun that you could forgive and forget about the low res components.
i had played every Disgaea, and the first one is always a joy to come back.
its the only one that takes the right amount of silly and serious. yeah, everyone is a fool, but, it has a good and mature plot behind. the later ones went 120% silly all the way, and i liked them, but this one, the first one, is still irreplaceable.
the franchise is known by their addiction to numbers and after game shenanigans, and this one had some of them too, but honestly you are not losing anything just by playing the main story.
i know there is an elite version, but honestly, you don't need it. as the old game that this is, its still a great old game.

nope. Grind in this game is a big nope.

gaym

this game is a time capsule of simpler times for me, i try to revisit it occasionally without getting too overwhelmed with nostalgia.

perfection

I gave up. I played the psp version ages ago and grinded on my free time, now feels like a chore. You need to level a lot of stuff and this version didn't have that useful feature from disgaea 2 and the switch/ps4 remaster where an enemy dies mid-combo and you can reuse the rest of the characters that did not attacked. I bought the switch version on black friday and I takes a quarter of the time to do the meaningless stuff. All this version had to offer is a free Plenair from the begining, and quite nice filters and graphic options but is way too slow.

Disgea PC started as a lackluster port of a great classic PS2 era game. But with time and mods it's become a pretty solid way to experience the start of the great series that is Disgaea.

It has some odd filler mechanics and isn't quite as deep as some later entries but the story and characters are still some of the best to this day and the sense of progress from grinding is still immaculate all these years later.

Hard to say of this is the best version, especially with Disgaea 1 Complete out there. But well worth a shot if you have even a passing interest in the gameplay or the riduculous and hilarious story.

After so many years this game still rock.
Although i loved disgaea 2 the most, This game comes so closed to it.
The characters are so memorable and its the best cast in the disgaea series.
The art is always amazing and beautiful to look at.
Man this still amazing me how great this game is after so many years.
It not so great like the item world being perrty shit.

Disgaea 1 is the first Disgaea game, which makes sense if you think about it.

It's also the game where the disgaea formula was both introduced and kind of already perfected. Newer titles in the series add quality of life, and start letting your automate certain parts of the grind. But everything that makes the series good is here from the start. So if you're looking to get into the series then I don't need you to start with 100% this one, but I would recommend starting here. If you like it then you'll only like the newer titles better and if you don't then the newer titles aren't going to give you something different.

I'll also say this, if you're looking to one hundred percent the game and you've never played a disgaea before then it's going to be a pain in the ass to figure out the inner workings of the game. You don't need to know shit about how this game actually calculates stat-increases on level-up or that you get a bonus out of equipping a character with multiple items with the exact same rarity values. You can just play the game. But if you want to 100 percent the game, if you want to get that 10 million damage. Then you will need to look that up, and the disgaea wiki sucks.

Additionally while the writing can be childish, when it's good it's good. I ended up really liking the dynamic that Etna and Flonne have, because they really are just besties. Laharl also really grows on you and the three of them together do just make for a very entertaining core that the rest of the writing gets to bounce around.

Litteraly unplayable, first the game wasn't able to start due to something who wasn't dl with it, then it's impossible to save+it's the old version with the improvement