I really don't know how I feel about this game. This is the Monster Hunter World of the Disgaea franchise: the one where the gameplay is dumbed down to painful levels so that anyone can play it, where the improvements made to the formula come at such a high cost that it might be too high to pay, because it fundamentally does not look or play the same as anything else, and subsequently doesn't feel like a proper entry in the franchise.

I'm not against making games more accessible to newcomers, I think everyone should be able to play anything: video games are not just for a specific group of people, etc. The inclusion of auto-battle and auto-repeat eliminates the need to spend hours doing the more repetitive part of grinding, and as a Disgaea veteran who has put thousands of hours into this series and doesn't have the time they used to when they were a teenager, I can't say I'm wholly displeased by this. I am definitely not sorry to see the Chara World go, either. I can see the merits of auto battle in this, and if it bothers you that much, you can just choose not to use it, so it shouldn't really be an issue.

But this game completely removes all concept of effort or rewarding that effort - right from the beginning you're doing ridiculously high damage numbers, to the point that accumulating billions in stats doesn't feel like much of an achievement. You might as well use auto-battle, because doing it the old fashioned way doesn't yield the same satisfaction that it used to. The game seems designed around the assumption that you will use auto-battle to get the grinding out of the way, in fact. Priorities have definitely shifted with this game, and not for the better.

It also feels distinctly bare-bones for a Disgaea title, with a microscopic number of classes. Even a few of the more recognisable ones from the series have not made the cut, and that's disappointing. There isn't much in the way of variety here, and whilst the new classes are very nice, they really should have been additions rather than replacements.

Visually this game is repellant. I'm sorry, but this is another Pokemon case: 2D sprites are much, MUCH better than 3D models. They have the cartoony vibe one would expect of the series, but this isn't even remotely as charming as the HD sprites the games have been using prior to this. Never mind that the perfomance on the Switch is so bad that even I notice the framerate dips, and I'm the kind of blind idiot who can't tell the difference between 60FPS and 30FPS unless I have a comparison video playing them side by side. I have never cared about framerates in video games. If I can see it and I'm bothered by it, then I know it's bad. This is the fault of the developer and not of the Switch itself: if The Witcher III can even just RUN on the Switch, something like this game has no excuse.

Story-wise this is better than Disgaea 5 - although considering how lacking that game was in the story department that is saying very little - and it has Sato's trademark score, so it certainly feels like a Disgaea game in this regard. But it's missing so much else that these are very small victories indeed, because anyone who has played Disgaea knows that the story is a very small part of the experience - in fact, it's usually just a hurdle to get out of the way as quickly as possible so you can open up the postgame.

Also, fuck off with your overpriced season pass, NISA. I'm not paying that kind of money for individual characters either, this is part of what made DD2 an abhorrent entry in the franchise, and it doesn't enamour me of this one either. The addition of boosters just adds insult to injury - we didn't need them then, and we don't need them now. No matter how much you're struggling for money try and have a little dignity, please.

tl;dr - if you're a newcomer to the series, this is a fantastic place for you to start, and if you've ever wanted to try the games but been put off due to the complexity and number of systems, this is a great place to dive in. For long-time series fans looking for a similar experience to previous titles, you might want to try the demo first and think long and hard about what you're prepared to put up with.

I'm still not sure how I feel about it all, personally.

Did you know that the producer of this game, Tomoya Asano, actually apologised to fans for Bravely Second? I've never been able to figure out why, because it really wasn't all that bad. At least it didn't repeat the grievous sin of the second half of the original game.

What Asano should have done was apologise for making this game so frustratingly mediocre. The job system is fantastic and fun to play with, but that is literally the only positive thing that can be said about it: the soundtrack is forgettable for Revo, the story goes absolutely nowhere, and the characters are basically the original cast with different accents.

Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan!

Whilst it doesn't come close to being as good as Aria of Sorrow, this is easily the best DS Castlevania. It's also the only Castlevania that will let you fight Dracula and Death at the same time, which is easily the greatest battle in the entire franchise to date.

Awkward-ish anime visuals aside, this is an absolutely fantastic entry well worth experiencing.