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On July 23, 2026, NIS America will be releasing Disgaea Mayhem to the world. This action title strives to combine the fun and satirical world of NIS’ turn-based strategy series Disgaea and the fun hack-and-slash gameplay of the musou sub-genre of action games. While this may seem like a match made in heaven, as Disgaea has always been over the top with its attacks, many have been skeptical about the game’s quality from the trailers and recent do. So, is this title worth playing, or should gamers cast themselves into a different Netherworld? Let’s dissect the game piece by piece and make the decision for ourselves.
A Solid Foundation
Unfortunately, anyone expecting a title where you play as a variety of Disgaea characters will be disappointed, as the only playable character in this game is the game’s original protagonist N.A. In fact, the game isn’t even labeled as a Disgaea game in Japanese despite taking place in the same setting.
While not being able to play as anyone but N.A. can be disappointing, this man is at least able to wield up to eight different weapons, which all have their own unique movesets to help give the game some variety as the player switches their equipment around between each stage.
We’ll start by discussing an aspect that the game could live and die on: The weapon movesets. If the weapons aren’t fun to use, then it would be difficult to justify taking the time to fight through hundreds of enemies with them.
Attacks in Disgaea Mayhem do not follow typical Musou archetypes, such as having your character perform a wide-reaching AoE attack if you press the heavy attack button in the middle of your combo instead of near the beginning or end of it. Instead, both the spear and gun movesets seemed to have an emphasis on having your heavy attacks either move you toward or away from enemies. This isn’t necessarily a bad way to design a moveset (in fact, I was glad to see the game not fall into too many genre conventions), but it might take some getting used to for genre veterans.
Every weapon type also has four different attack skills that the player can use to knock out enemies quickly; however, weapons at the start of the game only have a single skill, while later game weapons will have all four.
Some weapons are pretty simple with no unique gimmicks, such as the sword and spear, which control exactly how one would imagine as the player slices or stabs through enemies with attack animations that reference various anime and other popular media.
The most unique weapon in this game is easily the magic staff. Unlike every other weapon, you cannot attack enemies repeatedly with the staff. Instead, you need to wait for orbs to passively appear around your character before launching them directly at foes for massive damage. This weapon is fantastic for greater difficulty Item World stages where the player may not want to run directly into danger.
Overall, I think the basic gameplay and moveset design of Disgaea Mayhem is a pretty solid foundation that could have led to a great NIS-developed musou-like game. Unfortunately, the player is never allowed to take full advantage of these foundations due to the game’s stage design.
Short of Stage Design
Disgaea Mayhem’s biggest kneecap is unfortunately its stage design. Instead of letting the player let loose and kill swarms of enemies, each stage has multiple objectives centered around killing a small number of enemies, typically around 15, before all enemies vanish until the player approaches the next objective location and does the same thing until the stage ends.
Seeing a map of the entire stage, which all look large and like they have multiple ways of navigating around, but only being able to move around the tiny segment of the current mission, which will always have you fight three waves of enemies before a boss appears, will slowly eat away at the player’s motivation and make them crave more.
This objective structure, combined with how the player is never able to run around a full stage but rather just a cut-off portion of it, results in the game feeling much more repetitive than it should. As someone who loves this genre of game, I feel bad for saying this, but mishandled level design can drag down even the most unique and interesting moveset designs.
The game may have seven story chapters, but when each stage within them is over in a few minutes, the actual playtime for the story rounds out to about seven or so hours. Anyone expecting a lengthy adventure in this universe’s Netherworld will be disappointed by this aspect of the game as well.
The stages and story of Disgaea Mayhem offer very little for fans of Disgaea and fans of this genre of game, but the game does have one surprising saving grace: The post-game grind.
The Item World Grind
While the story stages of Disgaea Mayhem are a disappointment due to how small they are and the lack of enemies to fight, the game does make up for that with the Item World levels, which have the player fight waves of hundreds of enemies that progressively get stronger over time. The arena you fight them in might be small like the story stages, but at least it feels more honest as a floating platform in the void instead of a cut-off section of the world.
With every wave of enemies that the player defeats in the Item World, the item that they’re fighting within will gain dozens of levels and become a much better piece of equipment. Needless to say, your lvl 568 gun will be doing much, much more damage than your level 1 guns.
In a way, the Item World grind is the true game of Disgaea Mayhem. Fighting against hundreds of enemies in order to make your current gear stronger, then challenging tougher item worlds for better gear as your level rises by hundreds and the amount of damage you do becomes incalculable, is an incredibly satisfying experience.
Grinding in the Item World and watching your character get stronger and stronger is fantastic, but this compliment comes with the caveat that there isn’t anything you’ll really be grinding for. The short story of the game can be completed within a few hours with decent equipment and a recommended level of about 70.
The only reason to grind and become stronger in Disgaea Mayhem is if you find the process of grinding itself and watching the number grow bigger to be fulfilling in itself. It’s a grind with no reward, and while I do find that experience to be fun as I love this genre of game, I also know that many people will crave more from this experience than the game sadly cannot deliver upon.
However, even the joy of pure grinding can wear off quickly when there are only a few enemy types and bosses that can appear in the item world. Even the game’s biggest strength is dragged down by repetition and a lack of design intent.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, Disgaea Mayhem is an incredibly hard game to recommend to anyone. Fans of the Disgaea franchise will be disappointed by the lack of characters and story content, while action game fans will be saddened by the title’s short length and minimal stage design. While I can enjoy and appreciate the foundations of the game, there isn’t anything beyond those foundations that makes this a title worth recommending.
Disgaea Mayhem
Bottom Line
Disgaea Mayhem is a game which is next to impossible to recommend. While the game's combat fundamentals could have served as the foundation for a fun game, the complete lack of any stage design and incredibly short length make this experience feel very shallow and disappointing. Fans of both the Disgaea franchise and action games in general will find very little to enjoy in this title.
