Disgaea Mayhem Review – Punchin’ Prinnies

Disgaea Mayhem lacks some polish and is surprisingly short, but Disgaea fans will be pleased to find the addictive and deep leveling systems the series is known for intact and as fun to mess with as ever. The more action-filled gameplay itself is surprisingly well-done for a series so well-known for strategy RPGs and meshes well with the franchise’s iconic systems, creating a decent enough first shot at a Disgaea action RPG.

As a big Disgaea guy, I’m open to trying pretty much anything set in that wild and quirky world. I’m also fond of action RPGs, so a game like Disgaea Mayhem seems like the perfect title for me. It’s definitely an enjoyable romp that serves as an interesting curiosity for Disgaea, but there are more than a few rough edges that could certainly do with some smoothing.

The core combat at the base of Disgaea Mayhem is quite enjoyable, as, though there’s only one playable character, there are lots of weapons to use – each with their own gameplay style. Though you’ll likely find one to settle on, each weapon feels incredibly distinct and enjoyable to use in its own way, with the more long-range sorts like guns and magic staffs coming off as especially creative. None of them felt substantially worse or less fun to use than any other, and since you can level up each weapon type’s affinity, completionists will get a lot out of maxing them all out.

That being said, the gameplay loop of Disgaea Mayhem’s story falls a little short. Every stage is made up of a few levels that have you defeat a set number of spawning enemies a few times, then a sub-boss. After those levels are done, you take on the boss stage, which has a slightly more challenging battle with a story boss. This happens again and again, and though it’s fun enough to fight off enemies using the different combat styles, a bit of variety would have gone a long way in making the levels stand apart and last longer than five or ten minutes.

Disgaea Mayhem’s narrative is as silly as you could hope for.

The story is as goofy as in any of the Disgaea titles, centering around a mercenary named N.A. who, at the behest of the newly-crowned Overlord Tichelle, must reclaim her stolen flan. Pretty much every boss fight and story beat revolves around flan, which is fairly comical. This could be because the game offers roughly 6-8 hours of story content (even with the post-game), which is surprisingly short for a Disgaea campaign. While this certainly helps the fairly one-note story avoid overstaying its welcome, it also makes it hard for the characters beyond N.A. and Tichelle to make much of an impression. The main duo is memorable, but the others aren’t around long enough to do too much.

Naturally, you can do Item World and Chara World to excessively level up your items and buddies, and you can Reincarnate as N.A. to make him ridiculously powerful and highly-leveled, but you’ve got to really enjoy the gameplay loop to make it worth doing. There’s not a ton of postgame this time around – mainly just a short epilogue to the story – so there won’t be too much new content to use these levels on. Still, there’s fun to be had in taking on the free-roam levels as you boost N.A. beyond all reasonable levels.

The visual presentation of Disgaea Mayhem comes off as a bit cheap, with many of the 3D models featuring fairly simple, limited animations and no lip-syncing during dialogue. Some bigger story moments are conveyed with stills of characters about to battle, while the more impressive major moments feature gorgeous 2D art. The voice acting is great and expressive, while the music is spunky and energetic, fitting of the silly tone. I wish the smaller bosses at the end of each stage were voiced too since they have lines, but it’s not a major issue.