Disgaea DS box

Disgaea DS, a tactical role-playing game by Nippon Ichi, is full of wonderful art and story, wrapped around an addicting turn-based strategy game. You play as a demon of the netherworld, to be teamed up with angels, humans, and other odd characters.

If you are familiar with other tactical strategy games on the DS, the game plays a lot like Advance Wars or Fire Emblem, but there is a lot of depth and elements of RPGs, such as leveling, items, and equipment. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, you have multiple characters that you move on a grid-based map to guide them to attack opposing characters, much like chess on steroids.

It is a port from the PS2 to the Nintendo DS, so some things had to make the cut. Originally, the vast majority of the game had voice-acting. However, much of this was cut on its port to the DS. Still, the amount left over definitely puts it leaps and bounds over other DS games. However, it is worth mentioning that the DS version has new features not found in the PS2 version, such as hidden bosses, extra characters, and a few new game elements. It also features several game modes seen in the PSP version of the game, such as multiplayer and the so called “Etna mode”.

If I were to base my opinion on character art alone, I would rank this game highly.  The funky and cute characters and solid art allow you to gravitate toward the characters.  But even without the art, the end result is that it is a solid, fun game.

If strategy games are up your alley, you cannot go wrong with Disgaea DS.