In 2007, most of the game genres we know and love have already been established, the bar-setting games released and enjoyed, the parameters of what that type of game requires have already been set, the clichés created and instilled. This status quo has caused game design to spiral into itself, with quality taking the form of a vertical spectrum; a small sect for the elite, a decent chunk filled by the above average and a majority cut for a cesspool of mediocrity, shovel-ware and every terrible thing between. Then stagnation sets in.

Every once in a while though, a developer releases a game that becomes a beacon of change, softly emitting a pure, adventurous light through the fog of yellow journalism, advertisement and imitators. I'm talking about true innovation, revitalization, the opening of clogged pours and a dozen other day spa terms - not just a clever repackaging of what already exists. For console strategy RPGs (or S-RPGs), the first that used to come to my mind, especially as an American gamer, is the first installment in the Final Fantasy Tactics series. But that game's crown was easily usurped by NIS's Disgaea, originally released on the PS2 before making its triumphant appearance on the PSP. What was once a near perfect title has become only that much more faultless with a brand new alternate storyline, multiplayer and the ability to quick save at any moment. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is the epitome of S-RPGs and any fan of the genre, new to the series or not, would be a fool to let this game escape their grasp.

Very few games will smack you over the head with dementia quite like Disgaea, especially right off the bat. Within the first thirty minutes of game time you should find yourself scratching your head, questioning the sanity of those in charge of the story. The game opens in the Netherworld (essentially Hell, ruled by demons) with Etna, vassal to the recently deceased Overlord, King Krischivskoy, attempting to wake the King's son, Prince Laharl, from his two-year slumber. That doesn't sound too weird, right? Well, I didn't have a chance to mention that she is using just about every weapon known to man with little to no initial success - including guns, axes and so forth. Real dangerous stuff. Depending on whose storyline you are pursuing - the original Laharl or the new Etna (accessible via a code at the menu screen) - this scene becomes a pivotal moment that rockets Disgaea into the far reaches of idiocy and drive it to the very end.

Though it never really strays from the obtuse and off-kilter, it does however, begin to change into a what is best described as a pack of sour Fun Dip. The zany, sour story is picked up and dipped into packets of sweet, sticky sugar - a feat handled almost exclusively by Angel trainee Flonne. But regardless of how much Laharl decries these positive emotions being forcefully integrated into his life, their inclusion solidifies the narration into the perfect mix of demons being evil and love, friendship and devotion. Yet, at the same time, this can cause the story to fall into a predictable groove, with Laharl doing or saying something 'bad' and then Flonne 'showing him the light.' Thanks to a top notch script and high quality voice acting though, these moments never significantly harm the overall experience. Having played with both the Japanese and English voiceovers, I can safely make the claim that the two are on par with each other and you will be pleased regardless of your preference or choice. I have to give some additional praise to the English voice actors though, as they more than adequately hold their own against their Japanese counterparts, which is quite the compliment considering how bad dubs can be. The actors picked up and developed their character's speech tendencies with charm and grace, meaning that all of Etna's sly comments, Laharl's freak outs and Flonne's moments of awe are portrayed naturally. The work put into every facet of this game's storytelling shows how much time and effort was poured into the whole game.

I didn't find sight of it in the PSP version, but the original U.S. publisher, Atlus, found that simply adding an English voice track wasn't enough - they had to add to the soundtrack with a track from the now defunct punk band, Tsunami Bomb. They saw this as a positive addition, but after hearing the song, I can tell you that it was not. Though I did have to track the song down online, since I couldn't remember it anywhere in the game. For the music that was already in the game, there is plenty to enjoy. Boisterous and mischievous, there are plenty of goofy, over-the-top tunes to keep your toes tapping during battle. The main theme that loops inside Laharl's Castle can grow old after a few hours of time wandering its halls, but that's a minor complaint against an otherwise fantastic soundtrack.

Now we enter the part of the review where I tackle the issue of gameplay. If you have played Disgaea before then you know just how many words it takes to explain what makes this game tick - all you need is to know how all of that fits onto the PSP. The entire PS2 classic has made the transition to the UMD, leaving nothing behind on the cutting room floor. A little texture smoothing and a proper adaptation to the PSP's wonderful 16:9 screen sees Disgaea looking sharp instead of dated and it's hard not to smile during effect-heavy attacks that are no longer hampered by slowdown (instead of what Final Fantasy Tactics PSP receives, which drowns in slowdown). Along with the aforementioned Etna story mode, returning players also have local multiplayer modes, where you can pit your team against someone else's in various battle types. Then there's the fact that Disgaea was meant to be enjoyed in a portable fashion, as you can suspend gameplay at any moment, playing right into the PSP's capabilities. You no longer have to put your life on hold to travel endlessly down into a weapon - you can just suspend and pick it up later!

For those of you not versed in the ways of Disgaea, well, prepare for a read. It takes the standard concepts in S-RPGs, namely grid- and turn-based action, weapons and magic battles, to create its foundation, builds the first few floors normally with not-so-new though well executed ideas before unleashing what were ingeniously fresh concepts and genre-altering elements to create one whacked out but hard to not stare at in awe for weeks battle system. This game is just so mammoth that it can be at times unbelievable and intimidating. Enough meandering though - let's break this down, starting with what's not new.

First up we have the Formation Attack System, the Dynamic Battle System and the Team Attack... System. As you can tell, Disgaea is big on giving everything a silly name and designating it as a system, except for the last one - it just felt lonely without system attached to it so I just went ahead and took care of that little problem! The Formation Attack System is a simultaneous attack that can involve up to four characters and can quadruple the damage inflicted, be it against your enemies or your allies, so it's pretty self-explanatory as to why you would want to use this system as often as possible.

The Dynamic Battle System is one of flexibility and preference. Each battle starts with your team off the field, hidden under a shiny 'home base' panel. From here you can pull out however many characters you want to (up to a certain map-specific limit) and arrange them around as you please. This means if you are immediately forced into a corner, you'll want to rush out guns a blazing; or if slower tactics are necessary, you can send a couple characters out to test the waters or lure enemies back to the base. Find yourself on the wrong end of a weakness? Simply return any of your characters to the 'home base' - as long as their HP is above 0 - and swap in someone more suited to your current situation - and at full health! To keep this from becoming a huge point of abuse, the amount of characters you can have out at any time decreases every time one of your allies dies, so this isn't a game of throwaway armies.

Team attacks allow you to tag-team an enemy with up to three nearby allies - as long as the initial character is using a regular attack. The catch is that whoever is going to form up a team attack has to be right next to the attacking character - diagonal does not count. This can really come in handy when a situation where a weak attacker is needed to deal some damage and normally could not do so alone. Prop them up against some stronger allies and if the numbers play out in your favor, those additional attacks can more than make up for one non-existent one. You won't be able to use these team attacks every time you have the proper characters lined up though, as its activation is based on chance, which is based on an affinity level, which is...well, based on a couple more parameters!

Having made it past the familiar floors, we have finally reached what can be considered the bottom of the uncharted territory - the Dark Assembly, item inhabitants, the ability to pick up and throw things and the Geo Panel system. At this point, especially to S-RPG fans that jumped on the NIS bandwagon after this (including titles such as Disgaea 2, Makai Kingdom and Phantom Brave), these are not so mind blowing. But at the time that I, and many others, first played through Disgaea, they were quite revolutionary. S-RPGs had fallen into a comfortable, simplistic vein that led many of them to bleed together into a blur of anime armies moving around on squares - something that this game would have become if it stopped right here. An amusing story and working strategy components can only go so far when you've played a decent amount of games that fit under the same light.

The first, and possibly strangest, of the unknown floors belongs to the Dark Assembly. Here, your characters spend earned mana to take placement tests to increase their ranks, create new characters (who consider the creator their 'reporting officer') and attempt to pass bills that affect everything from the types of items and their prices in the store to enemy difficulty to experience to be gained in future battles. With the bill-passing system, you select a proposal you would like to attempt to pass and ask the Dark Assembly to cast their votes. If you are lucky enough to land a yes then your work is done and you can reap the rewards. If your proposal is voted down - the most likely event early on in the game - you can choose to either walk out with your tail between your legs and try again later or take up arms and beat a yes out of all those who disagree. Now that's diplomacy at work!

I realize that the picking up and throwing concept being integrated in a S-RPG is rather underwhelming in text form, but it ends up sneaking its way into your battle arsenal and becoming an integral move. At first, the most obvious way to use this ability is to throw around your allies to other parts of the map, some that are inaccessible any other way. Some examples of how that can come in handy is you could throw an ally ahead to expand their attack or healing range, throw an ally out of the heat of a battle so they have a chance to recover or, if you are feeling a bit evil, throw an ally onto your 'home base' to kill everyone within (highly recommended if you want to unlock some of the hidden endings).

As you progress through the game, even more strategic possibilities make themselves known, with the Geo Panels taking the cake here. If you have seen any screenshots of Disgaea then you may have noticed the rainbow coloring if many of the squares on the battle grid. These colors correspond to Geo Panels, little pyramids that, if placed on a colored square, can imbue all other squares of the same color with battle-changing attributes. Geo Panels can do everything from increase the damage dealt or defense of all that stand on the right color to causing damage and inflicting status effects. That's not all they can do for you though; by destroying a Geo Panel on a colored square of a different color, all the squares take on the color of the now defunct Geo Panel. Anyone standing on a square while it changes color takes damage, including other Geo Panels. With careful planning and maneuvering, it is possible to take out all the colored squares in a level, dealing huge damage to everyone standing on them while also pumping up the bonus gauge, which rewards said pumping with additional experience, money and items post battle. Regardless of how you approach the Geo Panels, take note that failure to learn how to manipulate them even moderately effectively will lead to a quick demise in this game.

Picking up and throwing is the only way, other than just flat out destroying them, that you can use the Geo Panels for your own benefit. Found a panel with a helpful effect on plain ground or on a color that isn't close to you? Want to do the opposite and remove an effect? Either way, just pick the Geo Panel up and throw it on another color or no color at all. If you want to nullify the effect of a Geo Panel temporarily, just pick it up and hold it in your hands - though you take damage for every turn you still have it in hand. Those are just a handful of the examples I pulled off the top of my head - spend some time with the game and I am sure you will create more of your own!

Inhabitants are enemies that make their homes within nearly all of the game's items, weapons and armor that add special effects and stat bonuses - randomly selected from 25 types - to the user of said items. These inhabitants can raise attack power, hit points and resistances to the equipper to increasing the amount of experience and money gained from defeated foes. But that only scratches the surface of Inhabitants! By entering the Item World, an area accessible through any item, Inhabitants can be subdued, allowing them to be combined with others of the same title and then moved between items. This means you can fill up an item with inhabitants and easily make even the most mediocre item into a demon smashing machine or impenetrable armor. Now take that and add it to a rare item and hot damn!

At first, this system is overwhelming, especially Item World, the 100 floor deep 'dungeon' embedded into every item. Essentially, every item has a set rarity when it is acquired, based on what and how many Inhabitants exist within it, giving it stats that are unique (trying to get the same item twice is near impossible). By entering Item World, not only can you gain the Inhabitants, but you can level up the item by clearing floors. The more floors you clear, the higher the item levels up, not to mention your characters keep all the items and experience they earn along the way. The catch is, you can't leave with all your progress at any time - you can only exit every 10th floor unless you have a certain item, you don't gain full recovery after every floor, enemies grow stronger with each level and every 10th floor has an extra tough boss character.

But don't let all those parameters and depth keep you away from it, as spending time learning what each of the inhabitants does and how to effectively traverse the Item World and how they can help will pay off in spades and take the edge off the game's slowly increasing difficulty. If anything, at least just focus on acquiring and leveling up Statisticians, the experience-raising inhabitant, and watch your characters level faster and more frequently. The Item World may not be a feature that could be implemented into every S-RPG as it is, but the idea of leveling up your items instead of just casting them aside when you buy better ones is one that even today, five years after its original introduction, is phenomenal. While this was originally a feature that forced players to choose between their lives and their game, as time between save points can very easily last into the hours, the PSP's ability to suspend gameplay allows Disgaea even more freedom to tangle you into its web. If you are into level grinding or a completest then be prepared to invest far more time into this game than you may have planned to - it can suck your life away and there are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay in the Item World alone.

Finally, we reach the last of Disgaea's gameplay revolutions - transmitigation. This is where you take a character, switch their class to a higher one, then start all over at level 1. Now you might be asking yourself, "why would I want to do that, especially with this character I raised to a high level?" By doing so, not only can your character change to a more powerful class, but transmitigated characters keep their weapon and spell levels, and depending on how much mana you spend, you can inherit up to 100% of the stats earned beforehand. And no, level growth from new level 1 is no different than original level 1. Transmitigate a character with items stacked with Statisticians and you'll be back to your old level in no time, better than ever! The ability to transmitigate in any class-based game, regardless of genre, makes so much sense now and it becomes hard to keep the crave for it quiet. Just as the Item World personalized items, transmitigation personalizes characters, which is important here as created characters have no bearing on the story at all and is often the case in nearly all games featuring a character creator.

When I first sat down to write out this review, the plan was to crank it out with little delay, as I already had a rough draft for the PS2 version for a year or two now. But the deeper I reached into the game for my second adventure in the Disgaea world, the more details that I'd forgotten began to reemerge from the dust in my brain. As I continue to reiterate, this game is obscenely deep - far deeper than any console title I had played before it and it easily rivals the only other game I have played with this much replayability, which is the mighty Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. There is so much in this game that I know for a fact I didn't experience all that it has to offer, even after a second play through. Yet it is this near endless replay value, pushed even further with the newly included multiplayer modes, that will leave nearly every player it enamors playing it for years to come. Sounds like $40 well spent to me.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is one of those once in a console lifespan type of games, the kind that set the bar far too high for the remainder of the generation - and even for itself - leaving a new console war to (hopefully) reignite the ingenuity and innovation of developers and lead to the next great genre revolution. Despite being five years old, the dust has hardly settled on this title, leaving it just as engaging as it was in 2002. The move to the PSP works wonders for it too, with the ability to suspend the game at anytime and the crisp widescreen picture fitting perfecting over the existing product. Whether you have played the hell out of Disgaea on the PS2 or have yet to stare into its hypnotic glow, there has never been a better time to dive down into the Underworld.

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).