Disgaea: Netherworld ain’t that hellish

(Image source: Disgaea.jp)

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is a pretty complex game. The manual, in-game help and tutorials will help players come to grips with the basics of the game but there’s still a lot to take in and keep track of.

(There’s also some stuff that has been omitted. For instance, the L and R buttons on the PSP page up/down long lists. This is very useful when you’re managing equipment in your item bag and warehouse.)

It’s no surprise DoubleJump Books produced a strategy guide for the game but what was surprising was the company gave away a PDF version of the guide for the original PS2 game, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. The rationale was people would love the free PDF guide so much they would buy the printed version. I thought that was very cool of the company. It was pretty much a big gamble since there was every possibility people would be content with the PDF file.

There was also the possibility someone would abuse this act of goodwill and the world being what it is and some people being who they are, this is exactly what happened. Some ne’er-do-well decided to sell links to the PDF file on eBay. By ne’er-do-well, I mean “complete jackass.” By comparison, those gamers who bought a link to a free PDF file would be “partial jackasses.”

DoubleJump reacted rather petulantly to this by removing the free PDF file from its site. That was last year. This year, DoubleJump is selling a guide for the PSP port of Disgaea as well as a special edition of the original guide. I could submit a theory or two about DoubleJump’s actual motivations for pulling the free version of the guide but nah. DoubleJump is well within its rights to do what it did.

Personally, I’m enjoying the game so much I’m staying away from guides and FAQs and indeed, most articles about the game. It helps a lot that the game isn’t especially difficult. It will reward you if you put some thought into your moves but it doesn’t punish you too badly if you’re sloppy now and again.

That’s not to say there’s no chance of failure. I’ve been defeated a few times early in my campaign and I got one of the losing endings in the game after being defeated by one boss. I was then invited to save before being booted back to the beginning of the game. My characters had all their items and didn’t lose any levels but there’s no way I was going to replay the game from the start. There might be some partial jackass of a gamer out there willing to do just that but I simply waved my hands theatrically in the air and cast “Reload Save Game”.