Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice

The popular RPG series hits PlayStation 3. The question on everyone's lips: does our reviewer care?

	Version PS3	Developer Nippon Ichi	Publisher Square Enix	Genre J-RPG

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The game itself is exactly what you'd expect if you've so much as looked at a Disgaea title before - strategy battles of the utmost complexity, fought out on embarrassingly low-rent backgrounds with graphics that look bloody good (on a SNES) and with some steep difficulty spikes that require muchos muchos grinding before they can be overcome.

Lo, that's exactly what you get here too.

There are changes to the established formula - gone is the Demon Council, replaced with the Classroom. Here you rearrange seating positions to form stronger partnerships between characters and carry out actions that are pretty much exactly the same as those you used the council for in previous titles - new characters, passing motions and the like. Being bold: it adds nothing much.

A few minor swaps, changes and additions have been made in the main game as well, though they really don't affect things a huge amount in the grand scheme - it's still the same wonderful, tactical, overwhelming delight it always was.

Yes, it can take over your life if you let it. The hours can rack up into triple-figures if you're so inclined to allow them to. Characters can become obscenely powerful and of ridiculously high levels if you put the time into them. But never forget this is a game that - while allowing you to get lost in the ever-present Item World for days at a time - will let you play as a straightforward SRPG, completing the story in a matter of hours and feeling pretty satisfied with yourself as a result.

If you are so inclined.

Those that want to actually do more than scratch the surface, however, are more than provided for with this infinite chasm of grinding, levelling, equipping, item-worlding and story-skipping. It may well be one of the most overwhelmingly complex series of recent times - if not all time - but Disgaea 3 provides for the casual and the hardcore with great aplomb, and neither side is let down by it.

Just so long as you remember that it's only a game, and when you've racked up hundreds of hours' worth of play you may want to take a step back to smell the roses. Then get Mao up to level 999,999,999,999,999.

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