Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice (PS3)

The grind is good and the grind is never-ending.
9/19/2008 6:44 PM | 1 Comments | Page 3 of 3

Even more profound changes can be found in the Classroom at the Demon Academy, where you will conduct all your political business. Besides taking on the uncooperative student council (whose approval you need to get all your proposals passed), players have to deal with teachers (who give you direction on character development each time you level up), clubs and seating arrangements. Clubs are especially important to the Class World, because only characters from the same club can learn skills and Evilities from each other.

Clubs are very important in the mid-game and when you are reincarnating as well, because they are a fast track to leveling skills and character level very quickly. It makes it easier to unlock those elusive high-level classes because you don't have to grind crappy characters individually; simply put them in a club that gives you these advantages and use a power character to do all the killing. Of all the new features added this year, clubs are the most effective and useful of the entire bunch and alleviate the massive amounts of grinding you need to do in order to take on the more robust challenges that await in the post-game and in the Item and Class Worlds.

Finally, there is the Student Council, a replacement for the Dark Assembly that fits with the Netherworld Academy theme of the game. The Student Council functions exactly like the Dark Assembly, with the exception of a new club that allows you to put your characters on the student council and into the voting mix.

You can still use items to bribe groups and special items like PA's to trick groups into favoring a given proposal -- or ( if you are strong enough) you can simply beat the naysayers into getting your proposal passed. In the early part of the game, this is a tall order, but in the latter stages it's a satisfying cake walk.

After playing well over 100 hours, completing much -- but not all -- of the post-game and hitting level 2,000, I can confidently state that Disgaea 3 is a must-buy for Disgaea fans. It doesn't matter that it does not provide all the bells, whistles and window dressing one might expect from a true next-generation PS3 title. What matters is that the game delivers what Disgaea fans want, while changing the sum of its parts just enough to make the game worth playing for hundreds of hours. My biggest complaint is that it is not available on the PlayStation 2 -- many of Disgaea's most ardent fans do not own a PS3, and this game alone does not warrant such an extravagant purchase.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.