If you played any Disgaea you'll feel right at home with Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance and if you haven't don't worry, every game has a totally different up beat story. I like the Disgaea series because they never take themselves to seriously with the story, it's funny, deep and engaging. This game just like the ones before it is all about character growth. You follow Killia, a demon who eats a lot of curry, has a dark side he can't control and along your journey you meet a lot of demon allies along with a few angels. Together your mission is to defeat the "GREAT DARD VOID".
If you're used to new age PS4 games and then you put this in you're going to be like WTF is this shit. However, if you give it a chance you will see that everything comes together. Disgaea is all about character's.. leveling up, developing skills, getting new gear. In a lot of RPG's you focus on making your characters strong. What makes DISGAEA stand apart is that it takes these factors to the next level. You can make a whole army of humanoids or monster type characters and among those two groups there is about 10 sub classes you can pick.. each specializing in certain weapons and skills. For example, you have female and male version of mages (each with little changes in stats) archers, gunners, swordsmen, spearmen, axemen, wrestlers who specialize in throwing other characters across the map and ect. There is so much fun in making characters and watching them grow.
All the cool characters in the world don't mean anything without execution of their skills and talents... and this is the very addictive part of Disgaea. You take your characters from your base during battles and move them to different parts of the arena/map. Then the enemies moves. You take turns moving your pieces like a game of Chess. when you get in range you can choose 'attack, skill, lift (throw), items ect.) the more you use your skills the more the skill itself level up along with your character. This is a strategy RPG which means you take turns going back and forth and you must think about character placement. Keep the mages with weak defense in the back and let your strong dudes kick ass up front.
Now for some of the changes that Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance bring to the table.. aside from a few new character classes, they also added "COMBOS" which certain main characters can use if they're standing next to another main character to combine forces to form an ultimate attack. You can also now going into your heart and it plays out like a board game, you roll dice and move your character and there are good and bad panels to land on along with enemies throughout.. the goal is to step up good panels, get stronger and make it to the "GOAL" line of the board before you die or run out of turns..,. if you make it you will grow stronger. Also, new online components allow you to give away items obtained to friends (I have no friends that play this, but you might haha).
Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance doesn't stray too much from previous Disgaea games but it adds just enough new elements for you to be interested. That combined with a funny and engaging storyline will keep you entertained for hours upon hours. Let yourself grow stronger in the infamous item world and before you know it.. days and days will have been put into this game. Don't let it take over.