I guess I'll talk about my opinion of Disgaea 3, after 50 hours of play. (Review)

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice
Genre: Tactical RPG (hardcore grind)

Overall Gameplay: 8/10 *how well the mechanics function unbiasedly*
Series Gameplay: 7.6/10 *how well the mechanics work compared to the rest of the series*
Plot: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 8/10
Total Package Score: 8/10
Would I recommend it? Yes
To Who? Disgaea Fans, but I wouldn't steer anybody away who was interested.

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Yeah, nigga late, I know.

Disgaea 3 came out 5 years ago (surprised me when I looked it up and saw this) and I took my sweet time getting around to it. I actually didn't get a ps3 for the longest time, so I couldn't get the game on release anyway. However, during my PS3-less period... nobody really talked about Disgaea 3. I remember people talking about Tower Attacks (which is supposed to be the new mechanic to the game)... but they only talked about the game for like, a week. Not a whole lot was REALLY said about Disgaea 3 upon it's release. That lead me to believe the game was mediocre at best.

And if I look at the game unbiasedly I guess I'd have to say it doesn't really stand out as special, but that's not really a problem.

Overall, I say the game is solid. It's Disgaea at the end of the day, so if you liked the original or 2, you really won't have a problem with this one. Mainstory is still fairly straight forward, you still have to work around Geo panels, you're still allowed to try a wide variety of strategies to get through the game. Nippon Ichi understands the concept of "if it ain't broke don't fix it". That's not to say new stuff wasn't added. Beyond the obvious new classes, Geo Blocks are introduced, a variation of Item World (and a new twist IN item world), new skill systems. In short, they gave the game identity among the other 2 (technically 4 at this point, as Disgaea 4 and D2 are currently out).

I'll actually keep the rest of the review part short and put it in 3 paragraphs. The graphics and audio are standard issue for a Nippon Ichi game. It's kinda hard to mess up sprites in this generation. Yeah sure hi-res blah blah I don't really care about that. I view it as "I can look at this game at any point and time and tell who made it, so it's kinda hard to gauge it either way." The audio fits in the same boat, but I think it's funny how varied the genres of music are. I get the impression that they picked up a Black or African person somewhere along the way as they have Japanese Gospel songs and a few vocal-rhythm heavy songs (would you believe I have a Music Ed degree and can't think of the genre to describe wtf I'm talking about?). It's all good.

Now the part of the (main) game was, surprisingly, the plot. Surprising because I expected it to be subpar, and thus the main reason why nobody talked about Disgaea 3 as a whole. Wrong. The plot's actually better than (what I remember of) 2 by a long shot. Maybe it's simply because I like the characters more (especially since Disgaea 2 somehow made me hate the ORIGINAL cast), but the game was actually able to hold my interest to some degree. Random side note...... how do I put this, the game is "extremely ethnic". I don't want to go as far as to say racist, but I'm kinda amazed how many ethnic groups were included in the game's voice acting. No matter how you look at it, everything combined to bring Disgaea 3 closer to the charm and humor that made the original a classic.

All in all, the game is better than I imagined it'd be. I say that imagining if I bought it on release and having to pick up directly after 2, and now after waiting 5 years and seeing if it just survives a "test of time".... It's Disgaea; it's pretty hard to mess up. As a fan to the series, I wish I'da got it when it came out (and will probably get my own copy somewhere in the near future). It's been a nice week-long excursion so far.

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Somewhere down the line, I might make a post a more in-depth opinion about the game. I have a lot to say, but it really only pertains to hardcore Disgaea fans (read: people who're actually crazy enough to grind it out and do some of the extra stuff). I want to get more into the endgame before I talk, though, so I'll save that for later.

Until next time, though.