Considering that Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten was released for the Playstation 3 back in 2011, the fact that Nippon Ichi is releasing this very same title for the Playstation Vita shows how much of a flagship it is. But wait, there’s more! Included in this handheld version are brand new features that weren’t in the original as well as every additional add-on for the game. That probably explains the slight name change to Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited.
 
For some story info, we have a vampire named Valvatorez playing as the main character who has changed his heart from being a tyrant to an instructor. Specifically, he is teaching the souls occupying the bodies of prinnies how they should act and talk. However, his group of prinnies happen to be transported away, thus prompting Valvatorez to investigate. Apparently, the President of the Netherworld and the goverment has demanded to have all prinnies to be destroyed on account of over population. Ultimately, Valvatorez puts together his team with the objective of overthrowing this government and stop this evil.
Looking close at the gameplay in Disgaea 4, there are characters from your base that you get to choose from. There, you decipher a battle strategy in which case you can choose to either an individual or team-based attacks in a turn-based fashion. The latter is pulled off depending on the compatibility of the character with the surrounding ones. Also with the right evil equipped, you’ll be granted the ability to pull special attacks that can leave lots of damage.
While the tutorial for the game does not sufficiently equip you with the right stuff to succeed, Disgaea 4 for the Vita is still loads of fun. The battling system is quite involved and complex since there are so many things to keep track of, including Fusion and Magichange. To add to the challenge, each battlefield has elements like Geo Blocks to account for. Therefore, careful thinking towards incorporating your strategy is the best way to complete your objectives.
Note that making your trip over to the Eviality shop will afford you the opportunity to use your mana to purchase and boost your weapon skills and class abilities. There are also a character painter and weapon editor, which adds quite a degree of customization to the gameplay in Disgaea 4. Mainly, you’ll be able to change their appearances in both respects. Finally, there is a cheat shop for those who wants to change the difficulty and enemy levels. On top of that, you can set how much cash, experience, and mana that can be earned from battles.
Ultimately, Disgaea 4 can take you around 40 hours to play through. There is a cast of characters that helps to keep you engaged in the story, even though the dialogue can be somewhat corny at times. With a number of human classes and monsters available, the ability to level up your character up to 99,999, and quite a number of add-ons thrown in, there’s definitely a lot interesting aspects in the game. As well, there is a brand new scenario called Nagi Clockwork Time Leap exclusive for the Playstation Vita, where you must travel back in time 400 years in the past to stop certain events.
Since the graphics are brought from Playstation 3, Disgaea 4 looks both clean and stunning on the Vita. The artwork is well done with a nice amount of detail with the anime-cartoon approach. As well, the music is impressionable and charming. Overall, the presentation gives quite the delight in the gaming experience.
With a great number of content packed into this Vita version, Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited has a lot of “promise†to players in terms of entertainment. With the $40 price tag, you will find very little reasons for disappointment for acquiring this ambitious title.
