PixlBit

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness  is a tactical role playing game by Nippon Ichi Software and published by Nippon Ichi Software in Japan, Atlus USA, Inc in North America for the PS2.

The Story opens with you a character named Lahari coming out of an open coffin of his room who has been asleep for two years, and Etna one of his vassals she explains he has been asleep for two years and that his father King Krichevskoy, has died. Lahari vows to reclaim the throne, and after consulting with Etna and his other vassals, goes to Vyers castle. After defeating Vyers who calls himself the Dark Adonis and renamed mid boss by Lahari then meets a fallen angel named Flonne who was sent by another realm to assassinate the already dead king then joins Lahari,s party so she can see if demons are capable of love, the whole story is quite good and humorius.

Battle gameplay is on a square grid map and players control squads of humanoids and monster units which each occupy a single square of the grid and you move units to battle other units in turned based combat you can pick up your units and throw them to other squares to maximize there moves and you can capture units by picking them up and throwing them into base panels as well, but the catch is theres a chance he the creature wont defect in which case all units in the base panel will die except for the unit your trying to capture, you can also buy items swords, armor etc from stores in Laharis castle and to upgrade your armor swords or items you can actually go in the item in question and complete levels and the farther you get in the item determins what level your item will be.

There are also geo panels which some maps have they are colored squares that you can change to benefit the terrain your on for instance you can pick up a red pyramid and throw it to another color to change all squares to the same color which can form chains to destroy the color which effects stats for units that are on them its really an ingenious system.

The graphics are ok by todays standards but that really isnt saying much cause after all its a srpg and graphics dont make or break a game in this genere. The music and voice acting are excellent from the over the top comedy to the excellent voice over and music are done extremely well and trust me you will laugh with some of the comedic voice overs lol!!! The gameplay is excellent and easy to learn with the great tutorial but one word of warning it does have a steep learning curve and will take time to learn what this game is all about. So bottom line is this is a very good and in depth srpg that will get you hooked for hours on end and is definently worth the purchase and if you have never played it please do you will love it.

My Score 4.5 out of 5 Excellent