Disgaea 6 Complete review: Insane, fun combat paired with a grind that can play itself

Disgaea 6 Complete is the latest entry in the min-maxing, comical, ultra-grindy JRPG franchise. A tactical RPG where players can get billions of damage and millions of character levels, it’s the perfect franchise for people who like to min-max everything about their gameplay experience. It’s a franchise well-known for its goofy and heartwarming stories, I hate to say it, but the latest title is one of the weaker games in the franchise.

I want to say that I adore the Disgaea franchise, and I don’t especially mind how grindy it is. The story is typically great fun, and it’s satisfying to hit millions of damage on opponents. While the presentation was good and the gameplay was satisfying, it was held back by a shockingly weak story.

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Disgaea 6 is back, with all of its original content and the Hololive girls

Originally released on January 28, 2021, Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny starred a zombie named Zed, who is capable of “Super Reincarnation.” The strongest God of Destruction ever has surfaced, and nobody can stop him. However, Zed always reincarnates when he dies, thanks to Super Reincarnation. Every time he gets a bit stronger, it's his goal to defeat this foe.

In fact, in the story, he already has! The start of the game is actually after Zed defeated the God of Destruction, and the Disgaea 6 Complete protagonist is telling the tale to the Dark Assembly.

The characters he meets are delightful, and the adventure is worth experiencing, but the story doesn't feel as compelling as previous entries into the franchise. The cast is memorable, but the story they go on to tell just isn't.

It’s a fun, goofy game despite that, and thankfully, it comes with all of the content the original game offered.

The Hololive DLC is free with Disgaea 6 Complete, which was such a cool thing to see. When I originally played Disgaea 6, I did not know who or what Hololive was, but now I understand. The VTubing sensation has really taken off, and players can get them for free. The Hololive characters, alongside the other DLC, are available by simply interacting with the DLC NPC and speaking to them.

The gameplay is familiar, but guest characters can make the early game too easy

One of the fun parts of Disgaea 6 Complete is also a bit of a weakness. I love seeing classic Nippon Ichi characters show up to join the party. All you have to do is go beat them up on their stage and recruit them. Mascot characters, previous heroes, and their love interests, there are a ton of guest characters to recruit.

However, they’re all wildly powerful. You don’t really even need to create generics most of the time. Just go into a guest character’s status menu, and change what character class they gain growth for.

The gameplay is exactly what Disgaea fans remember, that’s for sure. You bring up to 10 characters onto a battlefield in turn-based combat, put allies near each other, and watch as they hopefully combo for thousands (or millions) of damage.

It’s what I love about Disgaea, the formula doesn’t need to change. It’s a technically sound, excellent turn-based RPG. Using the DLC makes Disgaea 6 Complete much easier at first, too. Part of it is a series of boosts to EXP/Mana growth, doubling what you gain in a battle for 100 battles.

By the time I was in Chapter 2 or 3, I was already over level 300, making every fight absolutely trivial. The difficulty ramps up, though, and you can adjust things further with the Cheat Shop. That’s one of the coolest things about Disgaea 6 Complete. You can adjust so many settings, from skill growth, exp, mana, money, and so much more.

The further you progress in the game, the higher these numbers can be adjusted, but there is a set amount on each stat that can be adjusted. So you can’t just make everything 200% across the board. For example, you can lower the amount of EXP you gain to increase skill growth.

I was absolutely dominating fights between having a crew of guest characters and being somewhere in the 300-500 level range. That sounds amazing, but in the late/post-game, that’s nothing.

All of the combat options players remember are still here. Manipulating Geo Panels - little colored pyramids and tiles that change facets of combat, for example, are very much a part of the game. This makes each fight a potential puzzle to solve. Players can still stack up and be thrown around the map to get to far-away foes too.

However, this game can play itself with little effort and work.

Demonic Intelligence and Auto-Battle are available to cut the grind down

There are two ways that the game can play itself, and they vary greatly in intelligence. Why would someone want to automate any manner of a game that isn’t a mobile MMO or idler? Because the level cap is 99,999,999, and to get the most out of a character, you’ll want to reincarnate them back to level 1 and keep grinding them in a cycle like that.

It takes time and effort, but Demonic Intelligence is worth investing time into (Image via Nippon Ichi)

Players can simply turn on the Auto-Battle and let the game decide who to field and what they do in combat. They ‌play pretty aggressively and don’t really bother to heal in the default settings, but there’s also “Demonic Intelligence.” This is unlocked via the Demonic Assembly, where many upgrades and silly features appear.

Like in previous Disgaea games, the Demonic Assembly can be bribed and is where characters are created, Reincarnation happens, and several useful features can be unlocked.

Demonic Intelligence is like Final Fantasy XII’s Gambit system. You can essentially program combat moves for your various characters. You can make them aggressive, but stop using healing abilities when at low percentages of health, and much more. The computer plays the game better than I do, thanks to Demonic Intelligence!

Sometimes, you just have to cheat a little bit (Image via Nippon Ichi)

It’s a useful feature for people who want to use it, but it’s not necessary. However, there are many systems in Disgaea 6, and it can be a little on the overwhelming side.

Disgaea 6 Complete has so many ways to min-max a party’s stats

While I love being powerful in Disgaea 6 Complete, it can be a little frustrating to keep track of everything. There are simply so many different ways to increase a character’s stats that it can be a bit overwhelming. Most of this can be ignored if you don’t want to max out a character and are simply playing the game for the story.

There’s the Juice Bar, which lets players use excess Mana/Exp/HL (money) from battle to improve a character’s stats. In each battle, a bit of Mana and EXP gets stored up, which can, in turn, be converted into stats for a character at the Juice Bar. Then there’s Super Reincarnation.

The Juice Bar is a great way to inflate someone's stats, especially after they Super Reincarnate (Image via Nippon Ichi)

Through Super Reincarnation, characters unlock a new random Evility that they did not have in previous playthroughs. This means that all characters can unlock all of the common/generic Evilities easily enough. Evilities are passive abilities that increase the variety of features of a character. They’re passive abilities with a fancy name.

Super Reincarnation makes Reincarnation so much better. This feature can make grinding a bit easier with a little planning. It resets the character back to level 1, but they inherit some of their previous stats. The best time to do it is around level 800 and level 1500 to get the most out of stat growth.

Super Reincarnation is especially good for Zed since it adds 1% to his damage each time he does it (Image via Nippon Ichi)

Then there’s Karma. Karma is gained by completing D-Merits, which are special tasks like reaching certain character stats/level milestones. Karma can be used to increase stats, raw damage, counter-attacking opportunities, and more. D-Merits can be seen in a character’s status menu, and many of them are pretty easy to complete.

Like in all Disgaea games, you can also increase weapon stats, thanks to the Item World. In Disgaea 6 Complete, the Item World is ‌bland compared to previous games, but it does still contain incredibly powerful shops, events, and bosses. Item World is where you enter a weapon you own and dive through randomly generated dungeons. Every 10 floors, there’s a boss, with an Item God waiting at the bottom.

They also occasionally have Mystery Rooms that can contain difficult battles or shops that sell incredibly powerful items. Spending time in the Item World is a great way to gain exp or increase what a weapon can do in Disgaea 6 Complete.

There are simply so many ways to increase your character’s power in Disgaea 6 Complete. It’s up to you if you want to bother with any of it, but it all helps. With enough time spent grinding and mastering Demonic Intelligence, your party can be a real serious threat.

The visuals and music are exceptional in Disgaea 6 Complete

If there’s one major positive, it is that Disgaea 6 Complete is gorgeous. I wasn’t a fan of the game going 3D at first, but I’m sold on it these days. It didn’t perform as well on the Nintendo Switch version, but the PC version that was released here plays great.

The visual upgrades were delightful, and Nippon Ichi Software delivered on the soundtrack and voice acting (Image via Nippon Ichi)

I’ve heard others have problems with slowdowns or framerates, but I ‌did not experience any of that. It looked beautiful on a 4K monitor, and the music and voice acting was as good as I remember it the first time around. You can play in English or Japanese, and both voice casts are satisfying.

In Conclusion

For fans of the Disgaea franchise, Disgaea 6 Complete does not disappoint. While I’m not crazy about the focus Disgaea 6 Complete puts on letting the AI control battle, I do appreciate that it is there from time to time.

On a personal level, it’s not my favorite story in the series, but Zed really grew on me. He’s obnoxious like Laharl, but he grows and changes throughout the story. But constantly fighting the God of Destruction at the end of chapters? It fit the story but wasn’t a fun experience for me. It makes sense, though, so I can overlook it.

I love how powerful you can be in Disgaea 6 Complete and that you have some pretty wide options for how you want to strengthen. It doesn’t have as many character classes as previous games, which is a bit of a letdown, but the gameplay is solid and entertaining. It’s a lot of fun and incredibly satisfying to demolish enemies with millions of damage. This is, without a doubt, the definitive version of Disgaea 6.