Disgaea starts out with the King of the Netherworld's death. Two years have passed and you, Prince Laharl, are awakened by your vassal Etna. What follows is a story that seems straight out of a Manga comic. As Laharl, it is your mission to reclaim your throne and subdue the demons of the Netherworld.

Disgaea simply oozes style, anime style that is, and if you're a fan of anime then you'll love the humor and overall story of Disgaea. In fact, one of Disgaea's most refreshing features is its humor. In today's current gaming climate it seems that developers try so hard to be serious and thoughtful that it is quite refreshing to play a game where that entire attitude is thrown out the window. Though there is the usual seriousness to Disgaea's story the fact that the developers present it in a manner where they are also poking fun at it makes for a great experience.

The story is told through episodes, and each episode consists of four battles - three regular battles and then one boss battle that ends the episode. At the start of each battle a story sequence takes place. These sequences usually consist of individual character portraits talking back and forth. The sequences are voice acted for the most part, another thing that adds to the delivery of the game's style. They do not take place on the battlefield (for the most part) or via FMV cut scenes, yet another refreshing break from the norm of today's games. The in-game musical score is fairly solid, nothing really memorable, but serviceable and the often quirky tracks, again, add to the game's atmosphere of outright silliness.

Disgaea's graphics are not really noteworthy, they are not spectacular in a Xenosaga type of way, but they are crisp and well animated. Special attack effects are quick and to the point and the game's textures are pretty clean overall. Graphics are really only a secondary aspect of a turn based strategy game; the real meat is the battle system, which is where Disgaea truly shines.

First you deploy your units, a standard of the genre, but I cannot remember a game that lets you send your units back to base, so to speak, and deploy a different unit in its place. Say you've got your warriors all out with a wind mage, and you're getting beat up pretty brutally because the enemies are strong against wind magic and you lack any other kind of combat mage. You can send the wind mage back to base and pull out your cleric, do some quick healing and then run the cleric back to base, and then redeploy a new unit.  Not that you necessarily want to heal your units, that's right, healing your units isn't always the best thing to do. Why you ask? Because back at your castle there is a hospital, this hospital gives you prizes for healing yourself there. Yes, you are encouraged to get the snot beat out of you. You get rewarded for it, very nicely rewarded at that.

Once you've got your units out and ready to go, then the fun starts. Scattered across the map in various patterns are geo effect tiles. Each geo effect tile is a different color and each color can have a geo symbol placed upon it. Different geo symbols give different bonuses to you and the enemy, things like attack +1 which gives you an extra attack and an additional fifty percent to your experience when you kill an enemy while on the effected square. There are also effects that boost the enemy's stats only. Well you don't want the enemy to have that boost, do you? Sometimes the symbols are close by and easy to destroy (or move, more on that in a second) and other times they are across the map. So how does one go about destroying a geo symbol on the other side of the map? You throw yourself over there. You heard me right; you can pick up and throw units.  You can even pick up and throw multiple units if you stack them properly. That means that no enemy or geo symbol is out of range from your attacks, usually; there a couple of occasions when you can't throw yourself across the gap between you and them but in that case you can't get to them, they can't get to you. This usually occurs in the item world, not in the regular battles. Some of the units you can recruit need to be thrown with caution, such as the Prinny (a.k.a. devil penguins), because they will do things like explode upon landing. That's right; you can throw devil penguins that explode.

Reread that last sentence a couple of times.

Destroying a geo symbol can be a risky proposition as it sets off a combo trigger. The squares that had the effect of the geo symbol, in essence, blow up doing damage to any unit standing on them. They can also trigger fire onto another colored square, which leads to further "blowing up" of the field. Setting off a string of geo symbols destruction can be incredibly powerful, as well as rewarding. Clearing all geo effect tiles gives you a special bonus.

Outside of the geo effects and the unit throwing, most of Disgaea's combat is pretty much standard turn based material. Each unit is strong (or weak) to the three different forms of magic in the game (fire, wind, ice). Having you units attack from behind a unit or to its side results in better hit percentages and more damage. There is a bonus gage that fills with every combo attack or enemy killed, plus whenever you destroy a geo symbol the bonus gage is filled. Once a battle is over the bonus gage is counted down and you get a reward for each bonus point you earned, anything from money to items to extra experience.

You can also perform combo attacks with your units. The cool thing about the combo attacks is that their percentage is greater depending on if they are a pupil/mentor combo. How do you go about making units have a pupil/mentor relationship? It's easy, all of it occurs in the Dark Assembly.

The Dark Assembly is the part of Disgaea that controls many things that are indirectly related, from the creation of your army to the stocking of the item store in your castle to the quality of the units you create (the highest quality units require approval). All of these things must be done at The Dark Assembly. Each action requires mana - you acquire mana by striking the killing blow against an enemy. To get the aforementioned pupil/mentor combo you simply have to create a character. Once you create the character whomever you sent to the Assembly to create it becomes its mentor. So if Laharl creates Warrior X, then Laharl is now Warrior X's mentor and when they are side by side in combat their chances for a combo attack skyrocket.  Doing this also opens up new class combos and class upgrades as the pupil levels up. The more pupils a mentor has, and the higher level they are, the greater the number of classes that become available.

The other major functions of the Dark Assembly are proposals and Rank tests. The rank tests pit one of your characters against a team of enemies. If you pass the test then your demon rank goes up. This opens up new proposals to be passed and increases your influence in the Assembly. The proposals themselves consist of the senators of the Netherworld gathering to vote on the topic, topics like allowing better items for sale. You can bribe the senators in hope of getting their vote, but even if they say they are going to vote yes, they don't always do so. So what do you do to these treacherous dogs? Subdue them and sway them by force of course. That's right, if a vote fails you have the choice to try and fight and defeat the senators who said no. Be careful though, as your influence grows tougher and tougher senators start to show up to your proposals. Lastly, once you subdue a senator by force, they will loathe you. What's that old saying? It's easier to catch flies with honey?

The final prong of Disgaea is the Item World. The Item World is a section of the game that allows you to enter your items and level them up. You heard me right, you can level up that old short sword as high as you might want to. Along the way you get the chance to subdue specialists. Specialists are neutral opponents in an item battle who will grant even better bonus stats and abilities to your items, things like poison hits and poison protection. The major drawback to the Item World is that you can only leave after clearing 10 levels, or if you have a special exit item. However, the rewards (in money, experience, and items gained) are usually well worth it.

I like to think of Disgaea as a three pronged game: the story mode, Dark Assembly, and Item World. Each game mode intertwines around the other. You need the Dark Assembly to manage your army and castle, the story mode to keep you entertained and the Item World to level up both your existing items and your army. Your castle acts as a hub to each portion of the game and a place to rest, save your game, and restock your inventory.

Overall Disgaea comes together as a very polished product, though there is one major flaw in its polished surface. How the developers forget to add in a mid-battle save function eludes me, and it is the only problem I really have with the game. During the story mode it's not that big of a deal, as you can return to your castle at anytime before or after a battle and save, but when you're in the Item World it would've been nice to be able to save my progress say, six floors down without having to use one of the rare exit items.

Disgaea is the best turn based strategy game I've played since Final Fantasy Tactics (including Advance Wars), and in many ways I feel that Disgaea has surpassed that venerable title. As mentioned before, if you're a fan of turn based strategy games, go buy this now (And why are you still here? Didn't I tell you to go get it already?). The rest of you should give Disgaea a shot as well; it blends together so many elements and has so much depth to it that it can easily give you hours of enjoyment. Even if you don't care to explore all that depth, the game is balanced so that you don't have to. What more could you ask for? Plus, it has exploding devil penguins. If that doesn't pique your interest then nothing will.