E3 2015 – Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance Hands-On Preview: Prinny Bomb!

The Disgaea series has been a staple of the strategy RPG genre since it first released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2003. Now this long standing franchise is making its long awaited debut on the PlayStation 4 with Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance and is bringing with it a whole slew of new changes. I got to sit down at E3 alongside my favorite Prinnies and have a go at the latest entry in this series and things have never looked better.

As I started up my demo of Disgaea 5, I had a quick fear that this game was just coming to the PS4 with more enemies on screen and better animations. While those two things are true, my fears were quickly washed away with all the new features that this game is pumping out. There are a lot of changes here from the previous game that give a huge boost to just all the things you can do in Disgaea 5. The core of the combat mechanics have mostly been left unchanged from the previous games in the series. Battles again take place on a grid map, as you pull out characters from a starting portal and move them into position to attack or defend enemies on the map. 

New to the series is a revenge gauge, which builds itself up with each overlord character as they get hit. With enough hits, your gauge maxes out and you are then allowed to do a massive revenge attack. This entire revenge system will only work with overlord characters, so don’t expect to be able to get your revenge this way with just anyone. Also new to the series are MVPs at the end of each battle, showing you the top three performers and then giving them an extra boost of experience.

Disgaea 5 will also give you the cool ability to create Netherworld’s that can be used to overwrite effects in a level, such as some levels that will have poison on the ground. There will also be a research squad that you can send out to different worlds to unlock new places to battle or find new items to use for your party. If all of these changes weren’t enough, there will also be things like a Quest shop. Here you can accept a quest and then complete it to gain new scrolls that can unlock abilities and classes.

The changes don’t just stop there, as you will now have a shop to create different kinds of curry from all sorts of items collected. These different curry dishes will unlock different effects before battle, hopefully creating an advantage in your next encounter. D5 will also feature squads, with the ability to torture people captured to improve these squads. I didn’t actually get a chance to mess with this portion of the game but it sounded interesting.

Disgaea 5 looks to be another solid entry in the Disgaea series. It feels accessible to newcomers of the series while also adding and feeling fresh for series vets. The game look really good on the PlayStation 4 and of course plays really smooth. If you’re a fan of strategy RPGs, then you will want to keep a close eye to this title. Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance is set to release for the PlayStation 4 later this year.