Once more, with FeelingHIGH Lots of the classic Disgaea LOL humor fans love.LOW Watching and re-watching the same scenes looking for the hotspot.WTF 'Your big boobs are giving me a headache.' When the original Disgaea came out of nowhere in 2003 and made the huge splash that it did, it instantly garnered a legion of fans—and for good reason. While the strategy role-playing game (RPG) gameplay was deeper and more complex than nearly anything else out there, I suspect the real source of its presence was the writing, voicework, and cast of insanely memorable characters. Anyone who's spent time with the title will swear to the numerous laugh out loud moments and quotable lines.Nippon Ichi has turned out two sequels to that landmark title, each with less impact than the last. This time around, the developers have gone in a completely different direction and focused not on the item worlds, Geo panels or stackable attacks Disgaea has employed, and instead turned out a graphic adventure that's 99% dialogue.

It's certainly a novel approach that would seem to play to one of the series's strengths, but the result is surprisingly flat.While the story itself is convoluted and wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if I tried to explain it in detail, the basic premise is that the Lord of the Underworld is 'assassinated' by eating an exploding pudding cup. It's up to one penguin-like Prinny to save the Lord by traveling back in time and re-living the day over and over until he's able to unravel the chain of events leading to the deadly dairy going boom. After the game explains this Groundhog Day ­ concept, it's also revealed that the player has the ability to 'possess' characters that make appearances, and influence their decisions in order to change events in the timeline.I'm actually a fan of graphic adventures and something like this should ostensibly be right up my alley. However, I do have to admit that even with the stellar cast, great vocals, cute art style, and everything else Disgaea Infinite has going for it, it left me fairly cold.The biggest problem is that while the characters are still just as great as they ever were and there are plenty of truly hilarious moments, the gags are only funny once— maybe twice. Unfortunately, the game is very obtuse about which events influence what outcomes and too much of the game seems to rely on sheer trial and error.

Disgaea Infinite is a spin-off game in the Disgaea series. Unlike the main series titles, Disgaea Infinite is not a strategy RPG but is instead a text-based Visual Novel. The Japanese version was released on the Playstation Network for PSP November 1st, 2009 while the US version was released on June 9th, 2010.

Despite having a very good idea about who I wanted to talk to and what I wanted to accomplish, it often felt as though I were fighting against the system trying to make those things happen. As a result, I had to play and replay the same scenes a large number of times before I was able to see more than one or two of the fourteen endings, and by that time most of the charm had worn away.To be fair, the developers do include a timeline spreadsheet which marks certain events and points at which choices need to be made, but it was never all that helpful to me. Certain paths through the game would not open until other paths had been seen, and hearing the same bits of dialogue over and over and over again lost its appeal nearly instantly. It's certainly possible to skip through the story, but in doing so it becomes easy to miss branching paths, and missing those paths mean you need to watch the same bits again.

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It's a vicious cycle, and with so little of the game under the player's control, it all starts to feel like a repetitive waste of time with too little payoff.Although I can genuinely say that I have great affection for the Disgaea characters and I had a blast going through the game once, the drive to unlock every ending evaporated almost immediately. Watching a game made of cut-scenes isn't bad if they make you laugh and bring a smile to your face, but watching the same scenes over and over and over and over and over because you can't figure out how to get to the new ones isn't an appealing proposition. Once a player knows exactly what to do, it's possible to go from beginning to end in relatively short order, but actually gaining that knowledge is a completely different kettle of fish. Rating: 5.0 out of 10.<A href="Widgets</A>Disclosures: This game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PSP. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.Parents: According to the, this game contains mild fantasy violence, mild violence, and suggestive themes. Although there's nothing outrageous on display here, the fact remains that this title is aimed at players of teen age or up.

There's plenty of sexual innuendo and other things that may not be blatantly harmful, but a parent probably wouldn't want to have children exposed to this type of content. (Besides, young ones won't have a clue as to how to navigate through the game, anyway. Steer them clear!)Deaf & Hard of Hearing: You shouldn't have any problems.

All dialogue is subtitled, and since the game is basically a methodical text adventure, there are no important audio cues. I found no accessibility issues here. Brad Gallaway has been playing games since arcades were a thing and Atari was the new hotness. He's been at GameCritics since 2000. Currently, he's juggling editing duties, being a homeschooling dad, a devoted husband, and he does try to play a game once in a while.Brad still loves Transformers, he's on Marvel Puzzle Quest when nobody's looking, and his favorite game of all time is a toss-up between the first Mass Effect and The Witcher 3. You can catch his written work here at GameCritics and you can hear him weekly on the @SoVideogames Podcast. Follow Brad on Twitter and Instagram at @BradGallaway, or contact him via email:bradgallaway a t gmail dot com.

By Review Date: June 19, 2010 I'm a casual fan of Disgaea - I've played Disgaea 2 and 3, and liked them, but didn't really obsess and try to get to 100% coverage on it. I am, however, a huge adventure game fan so I was excited at the JRPG Adventure crossover. Ultimately, the result wasn't quite enough to keep me engaged.It is a pure adventure game - there are no RPG elements to it, no combat, etc. It's dialog-driven, and involves you replaying the storyline as many, many different characters to solve the game's mystery. You can bounce between characters at virtually any time, affect dialog choices characters make, etc.

As the protagonist's 'spirit' bounces back and forth through time. It's a cool mechanic.The game has a lot of humor throughout, and the production values are terrific. My issue is that though you can fast-forward through sections you've already seen, it's still a very tedious process when you want to take another branch late in the story, hear the same jokes for the 12th time, miss a cue, etc.

It just started to grind on me after about 5 hours. I get the feeling that bigger fans of the Disgaea universe would love all the nods to the games characters, sub-plots, etc. But it wasn't enough for me.The good:. All dialog is spoken, and very well voice acted. The visuals are wonderful - it's like playing a series of cut scenes because of the high visual quality. Occasionlly the story will jump to show a bit of action using the traditional smaller sprites, and it's a really fun effect to show more cartoonish moments in the traditional game world look. Lots of humor throughout.

Very creative time-travel gameplay modelThe not-so-great:. Very repetitious play (though for the price, it's forgivable). Chock-full of inside jokes for the series, so the humor can be lost on you if you don't play that series' other games.Overall, for fans of Disgaea, it's well worth the $15-$20 you'll pay. For people new to Disgaea and just in it for the adventure aspect, rent it.