Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention

(NIS America for PS Vita)
By Mike Delano

The Disgaea games just feel at home on the PS Vita. Sure, it’s great to see the HD sprites of Valvatorez and the gang strut around inside the corners of a big flat screen in Disgaea 4, but once you’re more than a few hours into any of the entries in this series, a play session becomes a brain-consuming commitment rather than a quickie on the couch before dinner. That’s when portability becomes a welcome luxury: You can spend as long as you like strategizing, outfitting your characters with the best equipment, or grinding your levels into the stratosphere, safe in the knowledge that you can put the handheld to sleep in an instant and restore it just as fast as soon as spaghetti night has concluded. Not to mention Disgaea 3 (released on the PS3 in 2008 as Absence of Malice) looks gorgeous on the Vita’s OLED screen, its colorful characters and environments popping out just as brightly as the snappy writing and humor. The complex strategy RPG machinations of the series haven’t relented since Disgaea‘s inception nearly a decade ago and can still be overwhelming, but this on-the-go format is the perfect way to chip away at this mountain of content. Plus, having some Disgaea experience does wonders for your hardcore gamer cred, dood.
(www.nisamerica.com)