The wacky world of Disgaea is back with its sixth installment and it's as bizarre as ever, with its fourth-wall-breaking dialogue, extreme level of self-awareness, and addictively fun strategic gameplay. This title follows a zombie named Zed in his quest to defeat the God of Destruction.
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Beginners and veterans alike can be taken by surprise with Disgaea 6 as the game has made a few changes to the formula that the series has relied on for so long. The game does a good job of "tutorializing" the first few hours, but it can't hurt to reinforce some of the more important points.
Super Reincarnation
Super Reincarnation is one of Disgaea 6's new features. It allows a character to restart at level 1 while gaining Karma, a new currency that allows you to boost that character's stats or unlock more significant boosts such as damage bonuses or movement increases. It even lets your generic units change class, allowing you to experiment with different proficiencies.
While using Super Reincarnation will make your units stronger over time, they will be left at a much lower level than before. In a series where the max level can be in the billions this can be quite serious, so definitely refrain from Super Reincarnating your whole squad at once to prevent Game Overs. Take it slowly and utilize the options in the Dark Assembly to help those units level up quicker.
Shop Upgrades
As it has always been in Disgaea, the shop upgrades when you pass a relevant motion in the Dark Assembly. It cannot be overstated how important this can be at the early stages of the game where any upgrade is appreciated. Money is really easy to come by in Disgaea 6, especially with the presence of an easily completed quest that grants you a nice 6,666,666 HL.
Veterans should also be aware that the shop items will now upgrade along with your Item World progress. If you bring a Phoenix Staff to level 22, for example, every Phoenix Staff that you buy in the shop will start at level 22. This is a great way to save time in kitting all of your units out.
Ranged Prinnies
Gone are the monster weapons of yesteryear. Monster units like Prinnies and Zombies can now equip any weapon that your human units can, and they will take on the properties of those weapons in their physical attacks even though it doesn't make much sense.
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It can be a good idea to start your Prinnies off with bows or guns as they can be quite fragile, and ranged weaponry will keep them out of the fray for the most part. This will let them contribute a bit more to a battle than simply being a meat shield — or worse, a living grenade.
Utilize Squads
The Squad Shop is unlocked quite early on in the game and you will unlock new squads occasionally as you progress. These Squads provide passive effects to each unit attached to them that can help their development along or give them more obvious bonuses. The Channeling Squad, for example, will boost the Mana of each member by a portion of the Mana that the Squad leader earns.
Don't miss that you can upgrade these squads to be more effective — it can cost a lot of money, but it's well worth it for a few of the squads. The squad that shares EXP among its members is great for getting newly Reincarnated units up to speed, so consider upgrading that as a point of priority.
Check Resistances
Damage types can really affect the flow of battle in Disgaea 6. If you're ever struggling with a battle, be sure to check out the resistances of the foes you're going up against and know the resistances of your units — even a 25% weakness will add the damage up quickly.
To add to this point, it would be a great boon to make sure your fighting team can exploit as many weaknesses as possible. You only have 10 available units per battle, so making sure they have a range of weapons equipped between them and as many elemental skills as possible is a great recipe for success.
Steal Your Success
Stealing has changed a bit in Disgaea 6. In previous titles, you needed Stealing Hand items. But in this game, the Thief class can steal naturally with their Cat Snatch skill. While this does mean you no longer need a stock of items just to enable the Thief's primary purpose, it is another skill that you have to level up.
It's definitely worth it though, as it only takes a few moments to check out the equipment of your foes to see if there's something you desperately need — and the sooner you can nab it, the better. This can be really helpful when diving into very high-level Item Worlds or for taking weapons away from particularly threatening enemies.
Make (Bribe) Friends
The Dark Assembly makes a triumphant return in Disgaea 6 and comes with all the trappings that we're used to. This time around, the senators each belong to specific parties that you can ingratiate yourself with. There are motions that only cost 100 Mana that allow you a great chance to bribe these senators for a long-term boost to their approval.
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Take the time to get a few parties on your side and you'll have a much easier time passing other motions. Pick parties that have easily bought likes (such as the Sea Angels or the Fighters, who like common items) and remember that bribing one senator is effectively like bribing the entire party at once.
Go Questing
Early in the game, you will unlock the Quest Shop. This is where quite a lot of the game's progress comes from — it's where you unlock new units to make, where you can acquire a lot of skill scrolls, and where you'll get a large majority of your Juice Bar resources in the early stages.
There is absolutely no downside to accepting every single quest at once apart from the annoying soundbite that plays after each button press. Take on all the quests at once and you'll end up passively completing most of them with regular gameplay — there is no need to pick and choose a focus.
Intelligent Demons
Demonic Intelligence is a complex and powerful new system introduced in this game. It is a play on Artificial Intelligence and is quite similar to Gambits from Final Fantasy 12, as a reference. DIs are activated during Auto-Battle and simply let the units act on their own, according to rules set by their action grids. This is something of a perfect feature when it comes to grinding stages or taking on the Item World for the fiftieth time.
While you can use any of the pre-made DIs, making your own is both oddly satisfying and more effective in the long run. You can come up with complicated conditionals that account for every preconceived situation and account for many different conditions. Upgrading the Demonic Intelligence system can be done at the Dark Assembly and will make the system even more powerful.
DLC ASAP
If you are a player who has purchased some of the character-focused DLC that Disgaea 6 has to offer, you may be intimidated by the sudden extra option at the Dimensional Guide. It seems obvious that the fights to recruit these special characters will be very difficult, but that really isn't the case.
Each DLC fight is scaled to your current story progress and the fights aren't that hard to beat, even with simple Auto-Battle strategies. The upside to this is that you get to recruit powerful characters whenever you want and they come with fantastic equipment that you can easily slot on to more favored characters.
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