Disgaea Hour of Darkness
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness takes you into the challenge of a lifetime — the right to rule the Netherworld! More than 40 hours of intense gameplay, with multiple endings
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Disgaea hour of darkness
This game is really good for ps2 and one of good anime seris that is named that title and it has great gameplay and it has good story…
4 Stars Great game
I ordered this game for my son and it came in a timely manner and my son likes it a lot. He has really enjoyed playing this game.
1 Star Not that great, actually
I know some people love it, but I really don’t.
First off, any game with 9,999 levels has got to be some kind of joke. How can such a thing be possible without becoming a mind-numbing, repetitive grind? Answer: it cannot.
Not that you have to get that high, but my point is, if you think that many levels is some kind of good thing, you and I have nothing in common, and you might as well stop reading right now.
This is actually one of the very few games I’ve ever traded in. I just couldn’t see myself ever inserting the disc again after the first few days. The gameplay is silly, the story is silly, the voice acting is … well, it’s actually decent. But I don’t buy games for the voice acting alone.
The “innovative” lift-and-throw feature is interesting the first couple of times, but once you learn how to exploit it all the time, it becomes more of a chore, like something you’re being forced to do instead of something fun. Same with the ludicrous geo-color-nonsense. Yes, you CAN kill everything on the screen with it, but how is that engaging or immersive? To me, it just makes everything ridiculously simple, and it gets old fast.
And the bit about leveling up items? Ugh. Seriously, I cannot be bothered. Not fun.
If you like RPGs that have a good story punctuated with truly strategic battles that actually make you think, if you are looking for a challenge and accept that you might actually lose a tough battle, or if you care at all about rules that make some kind of realistic sense, do NOT buy this game.
If, on the other hand, you like to powerlevel your dudes and easily pwn everything on the map in every fight with the same repetitive set of strategies, and if you think unsubtle sexual innuendo and jokes about bodily functions are the height of humor, this game is totally for you.
4 Stars Weird, but Clever
I’ve played a lot of RPGs over the years, and this one really is unlike any of the others. You’ve got funny, quirkly dialogue between the different players in the storyline, a game cleanly structured into “Chapters” that take you to the end of the story, and then several different ways to tackle the gameplay. Getting from beginning to end is half the fun: you can “reincarnate” and go ’round again, making different choices on the next pass.
Battle is turn-based, but again unlike anything else: push your character up to another like pieces on a chessboard. Is an ally next to them? They get to double-up and both attack. Instead of a Final Fantasy-style method of applying actions to the whole party…then everyone takes a turn, in Disgaea each character gets to make their move whenever you choose to…then the opponent gets a turn. Special moves might have certain rules as to when you can use them, such as the character needing a clear path behind them to get a running start.
Disgaea then takes the action up a notch by coloring the squares on the battlefield…and allowing you to apply bonuses / penalties to squares of that color…or a character can pick up the bonus / penalty token and move it to another color. Can your player not get close enough to the enemy? Move them close, then have another party member pick them up and throw them the rest of the way. Unless they’re penguins: penguins explode when you throw them. Handle pengiuns with care.
Sound weird yet? How about this: you can go inside of items and “play levels” in things you find or buy. For example, I found a gun, took the party into the gun, and started going through battle maps, finding loot and unlocking goodies. I needed more people in my group, so I created some. If I wanted to, I could petition a kind of legislative panel to make new people, but that’s harder: you should probably bribe them. And if they don’t vote your way, threaten them. Just don’t be too obvious about it, or they’ll all jump out of their seats and come after you!
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is hilarious. It’s bizarre, but it’s still something you can learn fairly easily. And the gameplay is both fun and addictive. Creativity will be rewarded. The only real hindrance here is that sometimes the isometric 3D battle map is hard to see: despite being able to rotate the board, there will be spots that you can never quite put your eye on. That can makes it difficult to move characters to exactly the right spot without some effort.
Higly recommended for the RPG gamer, novice or pro, who wants to do something different.
3 Stars A brief critical review
I found this game good for story, not as good for game-play.
The cut-scenes are classic, and they’re the reason I kept playing. The repetitive battle format and constantly being in the same castle… not so much.
The graphics reminded me of Final Fantasy Tactics, which would be great if the game was as fun as FFT, and wasn’t on a superior system with much greater capabilities.
Good game, but I’m not sure why it’s getting 5-star reviews.
