I have always had a love-hate relationship with the Disgaea series. At its core, the series has deep and addicting strategy RPG mechanics and more ways than ever to max out your characters to create the most elite party to rule the netherworld. Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny expands all of this and more to its absolute limit. Did I forget to mention the new level cap is 99,999,999?

Disgaea 6 stars, Zed is a hotheaded zombie who wants nothing more than to destroy the God of Destruction threatening the netherworld. Zed must use his unique ability of Super Reincarnation to stand against this menace. The story is highly entertaining, with a significant focus on its narrative thanks to a strong cast of likable characters. You meet many throughout the game, like Zed's dog Cerberus and Piyori, the Ultra Chroma Power Squad Prism Rangers leader, who accompany Zed on his journey. On top of that, the voice acting, available in English and Japanese, is a nice touch no matter which one you choose. And it gets even better with excellent audio design and some of the best music tracks the series has to date.

The Disgaea series has been known for its multiple battle systems and different ways to manage your party. Disgaea 6 improves on these and more with new bells and whistles and a handful of new techniques to play around with; the most exciting one being Demonic Intelligence, allowing characters to act independently, allowing the player to assign specific skills to any ally unit. For example, I can have my healer class unit follow my main attacking units and keep their HP topped up if it falls below a specific percent or have a unit run around on the map targeting treasure chest to collect gear and items. Although it's a lot to manage, it provides many options and a great variety of strategies. Combined with the new auto-battle and high-speed function, this allows for a lot of replayability and an easier way to grind your characters to the max level.

Visually the game looks slightly different from its predecessors but still manages to retain some of its charm. The in-game characters are no longer hand-drawn but instead rendered as 3D models. Overall I miss the look of the hand-drawn sprites; however, it did not ruin the experience of the game for me. The characters are still beautifully drawn during games, many cutscenes in the campaign. One interesting feature was the three different graphics modes the game offers. There are modes for quality, balanced, and performance. I found the performance mode to be my preferred mode when playing the game. However, it was nice to see a graphics mode for players who want cleaner visuals.

Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny continues its formula and even manages to add an even deeper layer of strategy and mechanics. I've spent at least 100 plus hours grinding my units, super reincarnating them over and over, trying to create the perfect party with their stats pushed to the limit. With the season pass and more content on the way, I know that this game will keep me entertained for months. This will be my new favorite strategy RPG game for a very long time, and I am excited to see how they will top the next game.

SCORE: 9.0

Review copy courtesy of NIS America