There are games which are so dead serious they'll make you drowsy. There are games that are serious but don't back out for a nice joke sometimes. There are games that focus on humor, but still have some serious undertone. There are games that are only funny.... and then there is.... DISGAEA...

Disgaea takes ridiculousness and idiocy to a new level that even Terry Pratchett couldn't come up with, and especially when you are an experienced gamer, you'll see how much gaming in general is being parodied, and the forth wall broken on numerous occasions.

Disgaea is a tactical RPG game, originally released as a launch title for PlayStation 2. It was one of the few games for the PlayStation 2 of which the disc had a purple bottom side. Normally games released under these circumstances do not do very well, since their primary use is to make sure some titles exist. Disgaea however did significantly well, and on the moment I was writing this the main series had 5 installments, and then there are some sub-installments as well, and the first game has been remastered for Windows and is available even on Steam, which is quite a way to go.

Disgaea centers around the Overlord's castle, which is just a kind of main city, but then in the form of one big fort. You got an infirmary there to heal up your wounded characters, shops to buy weapons and items and so on. A character called "The Gatekeeper" gets you to all missions which are just all battlefields where you can combat out all your issues. Well, the classic setup for a tactical RPG, but I will get into the deep of the gameplay later.

First of all, let's talk about the storyline. The game's main character is the evil(wannabe) prince Laharl. He woke up ten years after his father King Krechevskoy died. He is awoken by his "faithful" (you wish) servant Etna, of whom it's not clear if she wanted to wake him or if she was trying to kill him. Those two character form your start group along with three prinnies. A prinny is a kind of penguin like creature on two peg legs ending all their sentences with "dood". Prinnies are basically abused and embarrassed all the time. A prinny is actually the soul of a human who did very bad things in life and who must now in death, pay off their sins as a slave. Once their sins have been paid off, they can under the light of the red moon be reincarnated and try to lead a better life next time. The game then kicks off with many tutorial levels, but as Disgaea offers quite some stuff that sets it apart from other games in its genre, you need those to get the hang of things. When the game starts, the story is about nothing more but being evil and stealing money from other demons. However from Celestia, the realm of Angels, the Angel Seraph Lamington sends off a trainee called Flonne to assassinate Laharl's father (oops, he's already dead... Don't the angels know that?) However Flonne appears all but fit for the job. She's shy, naive, a completely obsessed with love. When she finally encounters Laharl and finds out his old man is already dead, she takes it onto herself to teach Laharl what love is, much to Laharl's chagrin. In the meantime archangel Vulcanus appears to have his own agenda and appears to feel passed by, due to the mission to assassinate the overlord went to Flonne and not to him. Not to mention that from Earth, General Carter sent Gordon the (incompetent) Defender of Earth (a parody to space heroes) and his assistant Jennifer (a parody to oversexuallized female side-kicks) and their robot Thursday (a parody to typical robotic characters in old science fiction stories) to fight the demon overlord (oops, that happens to be Laharl at the time).

Now for a story that really goes beyond any level of ridiculousness, most of all due to the cast being beyond insane, it still has quite a deep plot, and many things of where you initially won't understand where things are going until the point the clues are revealed. The game also makes clear that demons are not as evil as you think, but also that angels are not as good as you think, and with that the story tackles stuff like racism and prejudice in general, so although it's hard to imagine, the story does have a wise lesson for you to learn.

Now the game features the story line characters, but as this is a tactical game, you can however set up a big army for yourself. These extra characters can be summoned in combat, but they do not take part in the story line in any way. The characters can be divided in two main groups. Humanoid characters, and monster characters. Both have their pros and cons. And in both groups you have several classes. For the humanoids that can be fighter, magician, healer, etc. For the monster classes stuff is a bit more obscure, but there you got cat-girls (Felynns or Nekomatas) who are physically strong, but also ghosts more specialized in magic, and so on.

The game also features "The Dark Assembly". A kind of senate where you can offer bills, and if the senators approve the bill will be passed and you get an extra bonus. If they disapprove, the bill gets rejected, and tough luck. Trying to offer a bill costs mana, so you cannot keep on trying over and over. However, the senators are demon, thus evil, so you can bribe them. Yup, politics is in this game rotten to the core. (Just like real politicians 😜😜😜🤣🤣🤣). Now if the senate rejects your bill you can decide to beat them up, and if you defeat them the bill gets passed anyway, but make sure you are strong enough to stand a chance.

What the Disgaea franchise is hated for, but it's an element that keeps on coming back is... THE ITEM WORLD. You can make each item, both gear and consumables, stronger by offering them up in the item world. You will then have to pass through 10 randomly generated levels, and with each level passed, the item gets stronger. Well, that's the basic idea. There is the item called "Mr. Gency Exit" (pronounce as "Em-Are-Gency Exit" in other words "Emergency exit") with which you can exit the item world immediately and the game will remember how far you got in that specific item. Now in the original version of the game, you had a very irritating tango style music on the background here. The Windows version allows you to pick another tune. There are also specialists in the item world (aka "Innocents"), well check the in-game tutorials for more information. Most of the time in the game is spend in the item world, and that can over time get a bit boring.

Yet, despite that flaw Disgaea is still enjoyable. The game offers a few unique traits like throwing allies and enemies (although prinnies explode when you throw them), and there's also the geo panel system that does make you think further. Also the ultimate level cap for experience levels is 9999, which is very extremely high, but due to the existence of the item world, and the transmigrate system (called "reincarnation" in the later installments) you can really get your characters beyond most of the stuff other RPG games offer.

Now the controls can be a bit bothersome and later installments did make many improvements on this, but still I do recommend to play this game, and also to play it prior to trying the later installments. Now the Windows port also show quite some improvements compared to the original PlayStation 2 version of the game. The port also contains an extra "Etna mode" in which the story is told from Etna's perspective and with many different twists, but I have not yet tried that mode, but I know it's there. Laharl's evil laugh became legendary, and every Disgaea fan who hears the word "love" will say "Flonne". Maybe a downside that the character Vyers is only known by the name Laharl gives him "Mid-Boss" (the choice of the name clearly shows he knows he's only a computer game character, thus breaking the 4th wall in the process).

The game is now available on Steam, and if you buy it I'm sure Flonne will LOVE you for it (although I must admit, she'll probably love you for anything).