Disgaea Mayhem Review – Piece of Cake

The Disgaea franchise has built its reputation on eccentric characters, absurd stories, and eye-watering damage numbers, making Disgaea Mayhem’s switch to action-RPG combat an intriguing proposition. But how well has it handled that shift?

Well enough, it turns out, for a game where Tichelle turned out to be obsessed with flan, of all things, as was the rest of the kingdom. Having known her father, N.A. appears to be the perfect candidate to help bring her disgruntled officials back into the fold. He is soon pulled into an adventure where he grudgingly begins to see why Flan could be such a unifying force. It’s a bizarre premise, and I’m glad that the game doubles down on the absurdity of it all as it presents a story that’s confident in its identity.

"The level and mission design are a major part of that, as you’re going to be in a very predictable loop of killing a few enemies on the map before making your way to the final boss."

That’s because N.A.’s nonchalant personality blends very well with Tichelle’s sincerity and her reluctance to disclose her obvious talents. The rest of the cast backs up that dynamic quite well, allowing that bizarre premise to produce several heartwarming moments in a story that isn’t going to tug on your heartstrings, but remains fun enough to see through to its end. The English and Japanese voice performances do a good job, and while I’m team subs-over-dubs, you’re going to have a good time regardless of which language option you choose.

The world we explore might not be as visually resplendent as other games that have come out this year, but it’s functional enough to see the fantasy and the simple animations work well in combat while making cutscenes feel a little too low-effort for my taste. But with no pop-in and very stable framerates on my base PS5, that’s a minor complaint I’m willing to live with as I keep coming back to this one. However, I must say that as far as variety goes, things get familiar way too quickly for a title that takes you to different corners of Tichelle’s vast kingdom.

The level and mission design are a major part of that, as you’re going to be in a very predictable loop of killing a few enemies on the map before making your way to the final boss. It didn’t change at all over the course of the story, and while it’s simple and straightforward, I definitely found it lacking when considered with the simple animations and cutscenes on offer. The world was an opportunity to tell a good story in a better way, and it’s a pity that it isn’t used as well as it could have been in Mayhem.

The combat and endgame are kind of a double-edged sword, being addictive enough to justify longer sessions of play, but with repetition that can force you to drop off if you don’t enjoy its very precisely designed brand of chaos. N.A. is the only playable character apart from a mode involving Tichelle, and is proficient with swords, axes, spears, his fists, guns, bows, and staffs.

"There’s no lock-on camera other than for bosses, which is a good thing since you get to direct successive attacks in different directions against foes that are going to come at you from all angles."

He’s a versatile dude, but I quickly found his weapons to be a tad too annoying with their hitboxes to be my main weapon, and the spear made things too easy even in the early game. Among the remaining options, the guns were an absolute sweet spot with their crowd control potential and some devastating skills hidden away on some of them.

There’s no stamina bar, and your special abilities are on a cooldown. Both those factors work well to let N.A. be an absolute force of nature on the battlefield irrespective of the weapon he’s wielding. You have light and strong attacks, while a well-timed special acts as a sort of parry that boosts its damage by a significant amount. Combat then becomes a loop of careful positioning and timing, although it’s just way too much fun to just run amok and spam your attacks as you see fit.

There’s no lock-on camera other than for bosses, which is a good thing since you get to direct successive attacks in different directions against foes that are going to come at you from all angles. It’s an annoyance that you can’t switch weapons once you warp into a world, though, and although I kept switching between my trusty guns and a new weapon type before entering one, not getting to carry both of them on me on a run was definitely a pain point.

The Magichange ability comes into play as soon as you can bring a companion along, and transforms it into a weapon while also acting as an alternate attack mode for your melee weapons. That gives you more options in combat, getting you to think about whether to use it to take control of the battlefield when you’re overwhelmed, or perhaps save it to do some serious damage to a boss you know is coming.

I found myself tearing through enemy ranks in the first chapter’s episodes before I was introduced to the Reincarnation mechanic. I went ahead and dropped back to level 1, not realizing that things could have been much easier if I’d also unlocked the Item World at the Dark Chocolate Assembly. The game introduces some important mechanics well enough, but leaves out enough to make discovering it all a part of the fun.

However, taking on the final episode of the first chapter at level 1 was a tedious affair, even with my improved base stats, which were still too low to make a reasonable dent with a combo on the final boss. The usual grunts are going to fall to your attacks no matter your level, but the bosses take a bit of effort if you’re under prepared, forcing you to whittle away at their armor and health, staggering them multiple times before you finally finish them off.

"It’s nice that each item gets its own Enhancement Points, which you can then use to improve stats."

Of course, limited movesets and easily learnable animations on most bosses make even that approach a breeze, albeit resulting in a longer battle. However, there’s an argument to be made for playing the game this way, as I soon learned what going to the Item World before I’d taken that boss on would result in.

Let’s begin with the Dark Chocolate Assembly. It’s a place where N.A. gets to call Tichelle’s many workers together to vote on things he deems important to his quest, and it’s up to them to allow or deny his requests. It’s an interesting mechanic that requires mana you earn from combat to fund votes, while gold can be used for bribes to send a bill that’s been rejected back to the table to be passed. You could also choose to fight them all and force a vote in your favor, but that never ended well even at higher levels.

While most of the important stuff comes with a strong chance of success, other equally important Bills, like the one that lets you carry more healing items into battle, come with low success rates that you’re going to have to bump up by repeatedly passing ones that improve your relationship with a growing list of factions, and then ensure that members of those factions are going to be present each time. It’s a process that quickly gets repetitive thanks to the low yields on both bills, and the fact that you have to manually trigger the voting process every time.

Over at the Item World, things are a tad more exciting at first, but quickly fall into another repetitive loop. Any item you use can be levelled up by diving into its world and taking on five waves of enemies followed by a boss battle. Things can get a little dicey here, but unless you’re either severely underlevelled or have raised the difficulty to the maximum at the Cheat Shop, you’re going to be fine. It’s nice that each item gets its own Enhancement Points, which you can then use to improve stats.

Of course, that does mean repeated dives into the same loop, although the enemy combinations are varied enough to keep each run interesting. The rewards are frankly overwhelmingly stacked in your favor, though. A single run can make you and your gear severely overpowered for the next story chapter to the extent that you could one-shot the boss at the end. That makes the game too boring, and the option to tune things to your liking in the Cheat Shop (unlocked via progression, and not the Assembly) is very welcome.

"The odds are often in your favor, making each story mission go on for about three to five minutes. That means you could, in theory, blaze a path through the main story after doing a run for each of your best items in the Item World."

You’re probably expecting that the combat in this one is going to be as repetitive as the rest of its systems, and you’re right. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. This one’s designed to be a power trip. N.A.’s a superhero, letting nothing stand in his way, and his combat prowess ties into that persona so well, you forgive its simplicity and a distinct lack of depth to it all. You could just keep spamming light and strong attacks in varying combos at enemies, maintaining the appropriate distance based on your weapons to deal damage.

Most combos hit multiple enemies at once, and combat becomes a matter of just fending off waves of enemies with sickeningly powerful attacks. The odds are often in your favor, making each story mission go on for about three to five minutes. That means you could, in theory, blaze a path through the main story after doing a run for each of your best items in the Item World.

Add in the fact that some monsters you fight can then be befriended over at the Buddy Base and then be recruited as a companion to assist you in battle, and the combat gets even easier. My companion didn’t do enough to make me consider them an asset, but they were a viable distraction that took the heat off me in more than a few scrapes. But the fact that you can equip gear on them and find Innocents out in the world to further juice up their stats shows how Mayhem is designed to be a chaotic power trip.

And that’s exactly why this is a game I’m going to keep coming back to. It takes the Disgaea franchise’s penchant for big numbers and chaotic battles and translates it into an action-RPG experience with smooth controls and simple animations, resulting in combat that is responsive and fun, although it’s best enjoyed in short bursts or by regularly switching weapons between levels.

An interesting diversion from it all is the Chara World, where Tichelle and your chosen monster buddy dive into N.A.’s world to help bump up his stats. It’s a sort of a board game that lets you progress on a grid, collecting bonuses as you go with a big, fat reward waiting for you at the end. Of course, there are enemies in your way, but like the rest of the game, Tichelle and your companion are more than enough to devastate them in battle.

"As things progress, it becomes quite clear that the endgame is just a way to have you grinding out levels and perhaps testing out new combinations of weapons."

However, there are areas where things could be improved. The progression loop needs balancing, for starters. As welcome as a power trip can be, and despite how immensely accessible it makes the combat loop, Mayhem stands to lose out on many of its players thanks to how easy it can be to become an overpowered monstrosity, which then runs the risk of players dropping off before they get to the endgame.

The post-game balancing, on the other hand, kind of forces you into a repetitive grind that does get old quite quickly, no matter how entertaining tearing through waves of hapless enemies and bringing down deadly bosses can be. Considering that those enemies and bosses are ones you’ve mostly seen before, it doesn’t offer much replay value. First of all, it requires an Assembly vote that’s going to be quite hard to get through if you weren’t consistent in currying favor with the different factions. I lucked out, having sunk an hour of calling for votes on that front, but the reward for my time was too bland for me to invest more time into it.

You see, you get to fight challenging combinations of enemies, and even two bosses at the same time. But as things progress, it becomes quite clear that the endgame is just a way to have you grinding out levels and perhaps testing out new combinations of weapons. It’s definitely serviceable when you consider what Mayhem’s gameplay loop is trying to accomplish; however, the grind could use better balancing, as it’s entirely possible to reach the end of the story feeling like an overpowered legend, only to discover that the endgame demands a steep and repetitive level grind.

If you’re looking to the game’s seven weapons to alleviate that boredom through varying builds, think again. They don’t switch things up enough other than to influence your timing and spacing, although there is some fun to be had in putting together different combinations of specials that you can get as you keep playing. The basic combat loop doesn’t vary enough to make their varying movesets a reason for switching things up, and you’re still going to be doing light and strong attacks while shooting off skills.

The Assembly seriously needs a way to improve the process of gathering allies, as it’s currently too much of a chore to be fun to engage with. It doesn’t pay to have generous amounts of mana doled out with each run only to have to spend it repeating the same set of actions again and again, or alternatively spending massive wads of gold to get what you want. The enemy balancing when you choose violence also needs tweaking.

"If you’re a Disgaea purist, this one might have you scoffing at the combat, but franchise fans might be happy with its story and presentation."

With all that said, you’re probably wondering if I would recommend this one to you. Well, that depends on how you’d like to play it. For my part, I progressed just enough to unlock a bunch of systems and then ran amok engaging with all of them until my take on N.A. absolutely wrecked the game’s final couple of chapters without even a scratch on him.

That took about a dozen hours of play, and the postgame content was enough to keep me hanging around for another two or three hours. That’s not too bad for this one, although it feels like an experimental addition to the franchise that might be built on in the future. It’s hard to shake the feeling that Mayhem is merely a testing ground for another game that’s going to be more fleshed out than this one is.

If you’re a Disgaea purist, this one might have you scoffing at the combat, but franchise fans might be happy with its story and presentation. If you’re a newbie and looking for a fun game that you don’t have to invest too much of your time and effort into, this one’s definitely worth its asking price. However, if you’re a Disgaea veteran who just wants to see what the new combat looks like, I’d personally wait for a sale on this one, as a lower price on it is definitely going to make it a much better value proposition as it currently stands.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.