Disgaea Mayhem Reviews
Disgaea Mayhem is so close to being a decent game. It's held back by the most mindless and unimaginative battles ever conceived in a Dynasty Warriors clone. There are no generals to protect or outposts. No compelling winning or losing conditions. There aren't even that many foes to beat. The only thing N.A. has to do is slap around 100 cartoon monsters, and he's won. The core Disgaea elements work perfectly for character progression, and even the staple democratic features remain fun and make sense in Mayhem. However, the lacklustre presentation, barren gameplay, and lifeless combat keep it from meeting the standard of quality. At least it was over quickly.
Disgaea Mayhem ended up being far more entertaining than I expected, especially considering the initial wave of negative reviews it received. I even found myself enjoying its utterly idiotic premise and overlooking some of its gameplay shortcomings. It was quickly becoming one of those perfect “switch your brain off and have fun” kinds of games. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t have enough to offer in the long run.
Disgaea Mayhem is the kind of spin-off that has a lot of potential as a concept. The series, by its nature, routinely produces characters that lend themselves well to the action genre. Unfortunately, limiting the entire experience to a single playable character while carrying over progression systems designed for a full roster strips away much of what makes Disgaea satisfying in the first place. The result is a game that understands the appeal of the grind, but rarely gives you a reason to enjoy it.
Disgaea Mayhem is an action-RPG that adapts the power grind of the strategy series into something more similar to the Dynasty Warriors games.
Playing Disgaea Mayhem almost feels like peeking into an alternate universe where NIS' flagship series began life as an action RPG, rather than a tactical one. Plenty of the franchise's iconic, over-the-top RPG systems are present and accounted for, and they graft surprisingly well onto Mayhem's core hack-and-slash loop.The problem is that said loop isn't fleshed out nearly enough, with shallow and repetitive combat that loses its lustre quickly. Couple that with a forgettable story and a bizarrely short runtime, and Disgaea Mayhem barely ends up making much of an impression at all. It's an interesting novelty, but I'm fine staying in the timeline where Disgaea keeps tactical battles as its bread and butter.
Disgaea Mayhem is a solid entry into the action RPG genre for the franchise, successfully carrying over the nonsensical plot, core mechanics, and boundless progression that the series is celebrated for.
Disgaea Mayhem is an excellent Musou game, no question. But as a Disgaea title, this game falls pretty flat.
Disgaea Mayhem is a flan removed from the oven far too soon, the sugary, caramelized surface of pleasant presentation and solid combat system collapsing into an oozing, watery mess due to a lack of content and substance in its level design.
Disgaea Mayhem is light, breezy, and charming, but that isn't enough to overcome the nagging feeling that it could have been a lot more than it currently is.
Disgaea Mayhem is a spinoff title within the Disgaea series, while in Japan and some other regions, the game is called Makaism: Frenzy, referencing the Netherworld Battle Chronicle or Makai Senki subtitle of Disgaea.
Disgaea Mayhem is a fun time and adds a new gameplay style to the mix of Disgaea. You still work on pumping up your numbers, but in a Musou-style engine. It is a load of fun, but it is not the Disgaea Warriors many Musou lovers might be wanting.
Disgaea Mayhem isn’t broken, and it’s fine for short play sessions. But it plays it incredibly safe, borrowing the series’ style and humor while stripping away most of what made the main games unique.
You got your action RPG in my Disgaea!
Disgaea Mayhem is certainly an interesting experiment, which in itself is not something rare for the series; what is definitely more unusual though is it bearing the Disgaea name, usually reserved for mainline titles, a telltale sign of the importance Nippon Ichi Software places on what is essentially a pivot into a different genre. The experiment can't certainly be defined as a smashing success; Disgaea Mayhem is too much of an action-rpg to call itself a musou and too much of a musou to call itself an action-rpg. Its saving grace, ironically, is the elements more closely resembling its Disgaea roots, such as its exponential character progression and challenging post-game, despite both being severely watered down by having a single playable character.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Disgaea Mayhem is an action RPG that introduces some new fun ideas and manages to include a few of the series’ signature mechanics, giving it that Disgaea charm for a goofy adventure. However, it feels like the game could use more time in the oven due to its short story campaign and repetitive, patchy presentation.
Disgaea Mayhem delivers a merely mediocre result in what it proposes: it fails as a clone of Musou in terms of gameplay and fails to exude all the charisma of the brand it supposedly represents.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Battles are fun to blast through, and power-leveling a character before cranking up the difficulty can be a blast. Like the main series, it’s not something that everyone will enjoy, but fans of Disgaea will find it an enjoyable spin-off that stays true to the series’ fundamentals. It may not ultimately be as delicious as the dessert it revolves around, but it is a tasty experience while it lasts.
Disgaea Mayhem is ultimately just a mediocre game that gets elevated somewhat by being part of a series with enough charm to carry it. With its $60 launch price and disappointing performance, it's hard to imagine an optimistic future for a game that undermines itself just as much as it shows potential.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Mayhem is a bold new step for the Disgaea series, and even though someone like me greatly enjoys the occasional different genre spin-off, there simply isn't much to be seen here. The game places a lot of emphasis on the Magichange mechanic, but the reality is that it rarely comes up during actual gameplay, as most enemies are pushovers and don't really require you to put in any effort. There's a lot of grinding to be done, something that fans of the series will probably enjoy, but while the stick is present, the carrot is unfortunately nowhere to be found.
At the end of the day, Tichelle and N.A.’s story ended up entertaining me in many ways, and the silly, somewhat "Zoomer" humor the series embraces really engaged me—I certainly didn't expect a Cory in the House reference, of all things. Unfortunately, a game can't survive on humor alone, and this one has aspects that make it hard to recommend—not just in a vacuum, but even to longtime Disgaea fans.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review