It's been rumored to exist, confirmed in Famitsu magazine scans linked at various blogs, and now made official: NIS America is developing Disgaea for the Nintendo DS, with plans to bring the game to America.

Slated for a summer 2008 release in North America, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for the DS will feature several key improvements to the game's interface that make it work using the DS' unique capabilities -- among other changes.

The DS version will also feature the Geo Cubes introduced in the PSP version of the game. Geo Cubes are items used in multiplayer to enhance your abilities, summon monsters, or even attack your enemies. The addition of these items hints at some sort of multiplayer component in the DS version, but details on that are scant right now.

Another new item is Demon Gadgets, which are randomly generated items that appear on the battlefield. Anyone that has played Soul Nomad will recognize these items immediately. They allow you to level-up your unit by 30 levels at once. The game will also feature Transmigration, a form of reincarnation that allows you to start over from level 1, but retain a percentage of skills from other classes you have built in a character.

We will have more information on Disgaea DS shortly, so stay tuned to this space!