REVIEW: Disgaea 4 Complete+


Title	Disgaea 4 Complete+
Developer	NIS
Publisher	NIS America
Release Date	October 19, 2019
Genre	Strategy
Platform	Switch, PS4
Age Rating	Teen
Official Website

I’ve been a fan of the Disgaea series for many years now. When a re-release comes along I’m always interested to see how they improve upon these already amazing titles. I recently had a chance to check out Disgaea 4 Complete+ on the Nintendo Switch, and I was very eager to see how this version played. Disgaea 4 is one of my favorite title in the entire series, so let’s see if this newer release can do it justice on the Nintendo Switch.

The story revolves around the fallen vampire tyrant Valvatorez, who has made a promise to never drink human blood again. As a result of this promise, he lost a lot of his former powers, has fallen to Hades and taken on the role of Prinny instructor. After his latest class of reformed Prinnies is kidnapped, and before he can keep his promise of giving each of them a sardine (a promise is something Valvatorez takes VERY seriously) he sets out on a quest to save his class and discovers that something much bigger is afoot. The Netherworld government has become corrupt. Ironic, isn’t it? Thus he leads a rebellion to overthrow the government and reform it.

The story was just as good as the first time I experienced it. It has a wonderful blend of humor with some serious moments to keep you invested. The staple quirks of the series are all here – over the top characters, amazing weapon flavor text and addictive gameplay. Fuko is still one of my favorite characters in the franchise. She is so dense about everything going on around her that it makes her just a pure joy to watch on screen. It’s quite an achievement to stand out in this cast of characters, since they are all fantastic.

There has been quite a few quality of life improvements applied to Disgaea 4 Complete+. The one you will notice right off the bat is the graphics resolution has been improved. That amazing sprite work is not present in a full 1080p resolution. The Switch’s screen is bigger than Vita’s, so this helped eliminate the problem of figuring out where enemies were on some of the lager maps. There didn’t seem to be any slowdown on the bigger Item World stages like in the Vita version as well. Unless I just didn’t hit a map big enough to give the Switch issues this problem seems fixed as well.

This review is mostly focusing on the new features and upgrades in Disgaea 4 Complete+. If you would like a more detailed overview of the systems found in this game, you can check out my review of the PlayStation Vita version. The basic gameplay is that of grid-based strategy that is pretty much unchanged from previous games. The Demon Fusion and Magichange are the only two big changes to basic combat when this one released back in the day. Demon Fusion is where you take two of the same type of demons and fuse them together to make one big demon, while Magichange transforms a demon into a weapon for a humanoid unit to use. These weapons have unique skills that are very deadly! Doing this has the benefit of both unit’s EXP being increased and getting a slight stat boost, but Magichange units disappear after a few turns for the rest of the battle.

While I’ve always felt the gameplay here was some of the best the series had to offer, improvements NIS added to this release made it even better. Some of these include features from Disgaea 5 like the event viewer, changing the appearance of your weapons and other tweaks. The biggest addition here is the online Ranking Shop. You can do single player quests in order to gain points and earn a spot in the online rankings from around the world. These points can then be exchanged for some ultra powerful weapon, armor and more that cannot be obtained any other way.

Disgaea 4 Complete+ is undoubtedly the best way to experience this classic title. Not only is it the best looking version of the game, but it has all of the DLC from previous releases packed in and some important new features as well. If you own the Vita version of this title, while I feel the upgrades here are nice, they are probably not must haves. I would still suggest you pick this on up on sale down the line. If you do not currently own Disgaea 4 this version is worth every bit of the $49.99 price tag. There are hundreds of hours of some of the best Strategy gameplay anywhere here, and one of the best stories in the franchise. Picking this one is a no brainier, now the only real question that remains is – who is cuter? Desco or Fuka?