Game live Japan, the TGS 2020 streams of Famitsu and Dengeki Online, revealed new details onDisgaea 6: Defiance of Destinycoming toPS4andSwitch, with first live gameplay. The stream featured Nippon Ichi Software President Sohei Shinkawa, commenting and explaining the game. Be sure to read thepreviously revealed info onDisgaea 6before delving further in. All the details and gameplay sequences are included below.
Disgaea 6has its introduction in media res, with some narration stating that the strongest god of destruction, which protagonist Zet is trying to defeat, was actually just defeated by someone else. And no one knows who did it and how.
The game then quickly introduces Zet and Cerberos, and throws you into the first battle. It’s a tutorial battle where your only unit is Zet, with an hidden level, but very high stats. The enemies are all level 999. President Sohei Shinkawa explained this is to show you how strong Zet could become later on in the game.
Zet owns a skill titled Thunder Rush, and oneshots the Level 999 enemy with it, dealing over 4 million damage. He oneshots them by counterattacking too. Zet also has an 3x3 AOE called Plasma Drive.
Shinkawa also explained the protagonist, Zet, is named after the letter “Z” of zombie. Meanwhile, his little sister Beeko, is named after the “bie” in zombie.
Disgaea 6new characters, new gameplay systems
Following that first gameplay sequence, we got to see another battle, with new characters in action too.
Princess Melodia who is one of the game’s Heroine, as in a character important to the story.
Piyori is also an Heroine and first appeared inDisgaea 1. She’s appearing as a main character for the first time. She owns a skill named Nijidynamite, which is a parody of Super Hero Time. The Sunday morning TV blocks in Japan, when Tokusatsu and Toku inspired shows likeKamen Rider, Super SentaiandPurikyuaall air.
Majolaine is a Magical Girl. Shinkawa noted that many JapaneseDisgaeafans on Twitter noted she looks too cute and too nice and thatDisgaeacharacters always hide something. Apparently the most popular theory now is that Majolaine is actually a boy crossdressing. Shinkawa didn’t deny or confirm it. Either way will be good for true otaku anyway.
Long story shortDisgaea 6is filled with otaku culture references as usual.
Shinkawa also explainedDisgaeadidn’t change that much from 1 to 5 and everyone might get tired of it, that’s why there are multiple new elements inDisgaea 6. Starting with switching to 3D during battles. With 3D models for the characters. Using 3D also allowed the development team to make the special attacks and skills much flashier. They can show the characters much closer, use multiple camera effects, etc.
Next, President Sohei Shinkawa explainedDisgaea 6will be for both players who just want to enjoy the story, and those who want to grind like onlyDisgaeaallows you to grind, and 100% the game. The game is also built in a way to introduce newcomer players to the joys of grinding. First off, there’s the new Auto Mode. Next, usually when you finish the main story inDisgaea 1-5by playing normally, your characters' levels will be in the hundreds. However,Disgaea 6main story is built so once you finish it, your characters' levels will be in the thousands. This is to show newcomer players it’s not that hard to grind, and how interesting and fun it is to deal so much damage.
All these ideas to make grinding easier were initially thought up forDisgaea Refineon mobile. Nippon Ichi Software decided to reuse these ideas onDisgaea 6, becauseRefineworked pretty well, and players who playedRefinewould be disappointed if futureDisgaeagames didn’t includeRefine’s improvements.
Sohei Shinkawa said that’s whyDisgaea 6: Defiance of Destinyincludes an Auto Mode, and even a Repeat Mode. If you activate both Auto Mode and Repeat Mode, once the map is cleared, it will automatically restart the map to automatically grind. Shinkawa said this could easily break the game balance for the main story, so they’re considering restricting Auto Mode and Repeat Mode. Most notably how fast you may set the game speed, until you cleared the main story once.
You can set the speed of Auto Mode in the options. We saw the maximum you can set it up to is 32 times the normal speed. Shinkawa said they’re considering letting players go up to 64 times the normal game speed. Nippon Ichi is also thinking of adding AI customization for Auto Mode. With possible features like “focus on weaker enemies” or “prioritize opening treasure chests”.
Sohei Shinkawa explained Nippon Ichi Software understands some players actually like spending tons and tons of hours grinding. But they also need to adapt as not everyone can grind for hundreds of hours anymore. They’re adding all this so, if you want to, you can grind while reading manga or using your time for something else. “Those are the times we live in” Shinkawa said.
As a side note, while Shinkawa explained all this, the Auto Mode and Repeat Mode were activated, and kept clearing the same map over and over in a few seconds. Thanks to that we got to see plenty of the ultra cute Stage Clear illustrations ofDisgaea 6:
Lastly, Sohei Shinkawa explained all the changes in gameplay ofDisgaea 6,be it the 3D character models, or making grinding easier, are all experimental. Nippon Ichi Software will look at players' feedback after Disgaea 6 releases, and will make changes accordingly when they eventually make aDisgaea 7. Judging from the comments on stream, most JapaneseDisgaeafans are pretty happy about the easier methods for grinding.
Disgaea 6Gameplay timestamps:
3:21:31 - 3:30:00: Intro, first battle / tutorial.
3:33:24 - 3:48:05: High level battle showing some of the characters and their special attacks.
3:50:12 - 3:38:37: Auto mode and Auto Repeat in action. You can check 32X speed gameplay starting 3:57:50.
Be sure to check ourTGS 2020coverage andour scheduleto keep track of everything happening.
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destinywill launch on July 29, 2025 in Japan on PS4 and Switch. The game is coming later in Summer 2021 in the west. You can preorder it onAmazon to support DualShockers.
