When Disgaea 6 hit Nintendo Switch last year, it was in a pretty rough state and no amount of post-launch updates have managed to improve the situation. While the game is fun, entertaining and sporting a fresh 3D art-style, it’s also stuck with choppy performance and blurry visuals on Nintendo’s hybrid console, regardless of the graphics settings you choose. With the new Disgaea 6 Complete release for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, the game finally has the solid framerate and resolution it needs to be a consistently compelling tactics RPG.
The graphics settings and performance options for Disgaea 6 Complete are very different depending on which generation of PlayStation hardware you’re playing on, but both are a massive improvement over the sluggish Switch release.
On PlayStation 4 Pro, Graphics Mode targets 1440p and a locked 30FPS. Performance mode, meanwhile, caps out at 60FPS but maintains a 1440p resolution – the only noticeable alterations is some minor changes in lighting/shadow quality. PlayStation 5 sees a huge bump in both modes, as both offer 60FPS and 4K, and I only noticed some minor frame pacing issues on Graphics Mode. Whatever the console and settings, the difference from the Nintendo Switch release is like night and day – this is a game full of beautiful 3D models and snappy attack animations that, for the first time, can be properly seen and appreciated.
Typically, these Disgaea re-releases pack in not only previously released DLC, but a metric boatload of brand new content – new characters, bonus stories, additional modes, quality-of-life updates, and so on. By comparison, Disgaea 6 Complete is surprisingly barebones. The graphical and performance improvements are a godsend, but aside from that, the game just packs in previously released DLC and offers a single set of new colour palettes for your main characters to swap between. Sure, the DLC included in Disgaea 6 Complete is great – the returning characters are always a delight, and the pack of brand new units based on famous Hololive vtubers speaks directly to my weary weab soul – but all of this is available on the Nintendo Switch version.
If you weren’t picking up what Disgaea 6 was putting down when it first came out, I doubt Disgaea 6 Complete will change your mind. Despite being a solid game, it’s hard to ignore how much smaller and narrower in scope and breadth it is compared to previous entries. There are fewer character classes, fewer side-modes, a slightly shorter story, and a new take on the Item World that pales in comparison to previous iterations of the feature.
I was a fan of Disgaea 6, and the Complete edition makes it a lot easier to enjoy it – but even with a positive outlook on the title, it’s still clear that the game is a stepping-stone entry that goes back to the basics in order to, hopefully, prepare for bigger and better things with a potential Disgaea 7.
