Disgaea Mayhem

Disgaea Mayhem is light, breezy, and charming, but that isn't enough to overcome the nagging feeling that it could have been a lot more than it currently is.

Disgaea Mayhem has its stumbles as it fuses Disgaea’s iconic systems with frantic hack-and-slash gameplay, but it’s a largely worthwhile venture for series fans. Jumping between the different weapon types and leveling yourself and your items to crazy heights make for a solid base, and the charm the series is known for is certainly intact, even with its short playtime. Essentially, if you like the Disgaea series and action RPGs, you’ll likely have a good time with Disgaea Mayhem – so long as you know it won’t be too long a time.

To make a Disgaea game this short feels like a mortal sin. Perhaps if you had more than one playable character, more main story content, or a lot more endgame stuff to do, Disgaea Mayhem wouldn’t feel so painfully brief. As it stands, I’ve been left wanting a lot more. The worst part is, I love what I’ve played. The combat is excellent, the characters all look amazing, and there are so many systems you can tinker with. The potential for growth and power scaling is pretty robust. But then the game fizzles out and ends, seemingly out of nowhere.

Disgaea Mayhem is a cool concept on paper, and despite some flashy late-game abilities, the lack of overall content and polish makes it a forgettable experience, even for Netherworld acolytes.

Disgaea Mayhem has plenty of nifty aspects going for it such as its cute and colourful visuals and familiar systems that are well incorporated in the new action formula. At the same time, the combat is just so simple and repetitive and I wish there was much more to it.

Disgaea Mayhem delivers a merely mediocre result in what it proposes: it fails as a clone of Musou in terms of gameplay and fails to exude all the charisma of the brand it supposedly represents.

A part of me can't help but feel a little bad about Disgaea Mayhem since its genre shift could theoretically have been a gateway for me to enjoy a slice of this franchise. Unfortunately, it's simply just not an enjoyable experience in nearly any metric; I wish its two endearing leads, N.A. and Techilla, were in a more favorable game. At the very least, even though I won't be following the series' direction, I hope that Disgaea sticks to its roots as a tactical RPG franchise rather than flailing about in a desperate attempt to attract prospective fans.

Having played all the Disgaea games I thought the change to action would be my big gripe about the game. However, the lack of production value (even lower than previous ones) has me rethinking about getting the next one and I have bought them all day 1.

Disgaea Mayhem is a prime example of how not to attempt making a Musou/Warriors clone. The first biggest problem is that you have only a single playable character, and that one character isn't really fun to play as, despite being able to use different styles. And the only variety you have is with your monster companion, who changes the form, and offers some minor benefits, but not enough to be a substantial positive. The plot is nonsensical, the characters are uninteresting, and the writing is very cringy. The game is also very short, taking about 5-6 hours to beat the main story, and with no incentive for replaying, it makes the game criminally overpriced. Don't even wait for this game to go on sale, or end up free on PS Plus/Game Pass. Just don't buy it. You have better options for games in the Musou genre. Even Dynasty Warriors at its absolute worst, Dynasty Warriors 9, makes this game look amateurish.