Reading: The Secrets of Disgaea's decade-long success

The Secrets of Disgaea’s decade-long success

By Christian Nutt

I decided to have a look into this article with some base knowledge of the Disgaea series. It is a tactical RPG created by Nippon Ichi. As is typical within the genre, players fight in turn based missioned, which are available at a central hub, where the player manages their team and equipment. Missions can span over multiple chapters, with cutscenes to help advance the plot. Players will summon members of their party onto the board up to a cap, and can then arrange movement and attacks, before issuing an “execute” command. Team members can perform one action and movement per turn. The franchise is known for being “ridiculous”, in both narrative and gameplay. For example, players are able to get their units up to level 9,999. Further looking into the gameplay of Disgaea, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgaea#Gameplay) players are also able to have a chance of combo moves should player units be standing next to one another when one attacks, and are able to throw units around the map, allowing ally units to gain more ground, or to push back enemy units. There are squares in mission maps called “Geo Symbols”, that impart bonuses or penalties to different kinds of units, or can be destroyed, causing damage at on any square with the matching symbol. Players are also able to create new heroes and items from the central hub, as well as alter the central hub itself. (e.g. improve available weapons and armour at store).

                While the base elements of tactical RPGs are in there, Nippon Ichi’s take on the genre adds a lot of interaction between units, as shown through the throwing mechanic, and interaction with the map itself. For comparison, the Fire Emblem series is known for having town spaces; a small area of the map taken up by a town. If a player unit reaches the town, they are generally given an item or XP, sometimes even side characters can be discovered, who join the players team, and the town gate is closed. Should an enemy unit reach it first, the town is burnt down, and the player cannot access it again. Later in the series, players would find glowing squares, that would offer a temporary stat boost, XP, or an item. (It can also give support increase between two characters, but I will cover this in a more comprehensive post detailing unit interaction, as I believe that unit interaction is one of the key points that differs from game to game in the tactical RPG genre,  further reading should either highlight this, or undermine it, making it a lesser issue.)

                This will not discuss the article in its entirity, as the narrative aspects are not required at this point.

Disgaea is a tactical RPG first released to the western market in 2003 via Atlus, with it quickly turning into a cult classic, bringing tactical RPGs into a brighter light. One of the main reasons the game sold so well was the gameplay. The gameplay “is both complex and flexible”, which allowed players a multitude of playstyles. Players could follow standard tactics, or create something unique to their playstyle quickly and simply. This is echoed in the article I read earlier in my post Reading: ‘Amp up your Game Design: Crafting Strategy RPGs’, where it discusses that choice is key to drawing the player in, by ensuring that there is no “best” strategy, and every player can approach the game differently, creating a unique playthrough for every player.

One of the big issues with Disgaea is that the games in the series are rather long. As fans of the game have aged, they are finding less time to devote to playing, meaning that the fanbase needs to be constantly refreshed. Even though the number of early fans has been declining, they are replaced constantly by new fans getting into the series. ‘“As a result, it seems like there’s always been the same ratio of new players versus series veterans for each game,” Niikawa (Founder of Nippon Ichi) says.’

Niikawa goes on to say “The way we think about it is that it’s really important that in each game, we provide as much of the sort of the content that only we can produce as possible,”. This comes down to, Disgaea is it’s own game in the genre. While, as stated before, it does carry strong traits of tactical RPGs, it is very much a game that stands out from the crowd. Niikawa goes on to explain how this is the cornerstone of Nippon Ichi’s survival strategy; produce the games only they could produce, rather than follow other companies examples; “If we were just doing what other companies are, there’s no reason for us to be around; it wouldn’t be necessary at all for us to exist. Instead, we pushed ourselves to provide games that only NIS could produce, and that led to the creation of games like Disgaea.”

The article proceeds to go further into the “ridiculousness” of the series, with Niikawa commenting on how, as a company, they attempt to do “the kinds of things other companies would never think of doing”, and this is the aspect they have become best known for now. It glosses over the narrative, with an example of how one of the reoccuring main features, the “Prinny”, a common unit/NPC.

A Prinny; a human soul trapped "in the form
of an explosive peg-legged penguin."

It concludes with a bit more on the “ridiculous” aspects, with a comment from Niikawa, “Basically, I think it’s fine to have the story be ridiculous, but I also have a respect for the basic things any story needs to have – parts that emotionally move the player and makes the game stick around in their hearts. Having it be 100 percent ridiculous would get boring, so it’s important that you keep a sort of balance like that. It’s about 80% ridiculous, though.” While this does not relate a great deal to my final project, I believe there is a good message as a games designer in general to take away from this; you can make a game your “own” as much as you want, but there are elements that will always be required, such as those emotional points that hit a player in an unexpected manner.

Overall, I think this article, in relation to my previous reading, tells me that I must absolutely make sure that choice is one of the key components of this game. Players must have a wide range of choice available to them, otherwise an obvious strategy is going to be found, making any derived from the player’s personal choices null and void. It is also highly important that, while I can create a tactical RPG using the core elements, if I want it to stand out, I must have a unique mechanic that players can engage with, such as how Disgaea  has it’s throwing mechanics, and Geo Symbols. Without this uniqueness to it, while it may end up a good tactical RPG, it would have no real wow factor to it, instead simply being yet another bog standard tactical RPG.