There’s not a lot of gameplay in the first five minutes of the sixth installment of Nippon Ichi’s tactical role-playing game series. That’s what the remaining hundreds of hours are for.
Marking the series’ debut on North American PlayStation 4 this week, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance promises to be another ridiculous, demon-powered orgy of tactical role-playing goodness. On one hand I am ridiculously excited about the game. On the other I’m a bit melancholy, knowing I’ll never have the free time I had back in 2003 when the first Disgaea hit the PlayStation 2.
Twelve years may seem like plenty of time to take care of all six games in the main series (Disgaea 1-5 and D2, the direct sequel to the original), but between standard story missions, side missions, item world leveling, grinding levels for new characters, managing inventory and equipment and otherwise fooling about with game mechanics, each entry in the series proper is good for hundreds of hours of gameplay. Only the most dedicated maniacs will get the most out of it.
And so I enjoy the opening.
And I enjoy the animated sequence I skipped in the main video.
And I steal what little time I can find in the middle of this crazy gaming season to take turns tossing about the Prinnies.
The First Five is the first five minutes of a game with light commentary. Once the five minutes are up, so am I.
Contact the author, the Overlord of Sweating Alot, at fahey@kotaku.com or follow him on Twitter at @bunnyspatial