While the 4 sequels does a lot of things better than this slightly improved release of Disgaea 1 does, you're still in for a real treat if you like SRPGs/Tactics games and are new to the series. Disgaea is one of the most freeform games ever. Distribute 10 actions over a turn freely, from 10 separate turns in a row to a Rube Goldenberg-esque chain attack that devastates your target(s). Level up your characters with traditional grinding, or tweak your items with random-dungeon crawling to make them twice as powerful as normally or more. Are the plot-based characters too boring? Create your own! Do you think archers would be cooler if they ran around with axes and longswords? Why, just give them some!

Disgaea doesn't just have a single way to play it - you can do anything you want, and still succeed (well, as long as you did something remotely sensible), and that's why I love it. It also is extremely rich in content - you can easily lose hours in the random dungeons, and getting to the normal final boss doesn't even show you half the stuff you can come across. There are several bonus stages to take on once you're done with the normal story, and the story's final boss' level of 105 pales in comparison to the ultimate secret boss Baal's towering Lv.4000 figure - not to mention there's no end to the power of the random dungeon enemies' and bosses' strengths. Between powering up your party, micro-managing your equipment, and taking on new bonus challenges, you'll easily lose a few hundred of hours in this game, and feel entertained and rewarded all the way through. Slow-paced enough that you can watch videos and eat while playing, fast-paced enough to never get boring.

While the 4 sequels does a lot of things better than this slightly improved release of Disgaea 1 does, you're still in for a real treat if you like SRPGs/Tactics games and are new to the series. Disgaea is one of the most freeform games ever. Distribute 10 actions over a turn freely, from 10 separate turns in a row to a Rube Goldenberg-esque chain attack that devastates your target(s). Level up your characters with traditional grinding, or tweak your items with random-dungeon crawling to make them twice as powerful as normally or more. Are the plot-based characters too boring? Create your own! Do you think archers would be cooler if they ran around with axes and longswords? Why, just give them some! Disgaea doesn't just have a single way to play it - you can do anything you want, and still succeed (well, as long as you did something remotely sensible), and that's why I love it. It also is extremely rich in content - you can easily lose hours in the random dungeons, and getting to the normal final boss doesn't even show you half the stuff you can come across. There are several bonus stages to take on once you're done with the normal story, and the story's final boss' level of 105 pales in comparison to the ultimate secret boss Baal's towering Lv.4000 figure - not to mention there's no end to the power of the random dungeon enemies' and bosses' strengths. Between powering up your party, micro-managing your equipment, and taking on new bonus challenges, you'll easily lose a few hundred of hours in this game, and feel entertained and rewarded all the way through. Slow-paced enough that you can watch videos and eat while playing, fast-paced enough to never get boring.