At this point, the Disgaea RPG Gacha has been out for about a week or so, and people are starting to find their legs, so I thought I'd contribute a little coverage quickly.
The launch was, as expected from publisher Boltrend, an unmitigated disaster that surely hurt the game's long-term prospects. There were intermittent outages, which were generally fine and within the acceptable limits for a new gacha, but a couple days in, there was a real disaster. Somehow, there was a problem, and for whatever reason, Boltrend didn't take the game down, they let it run, and eventually rolled back the server... causing people to lose any gameplay during the time, but also caused them to lose their gacha rolls, including paid rolls.
What... the... actual...
Then, they announced some pretty lackluster compensations - they did restore lost purchases, but it seems as though people still lost their rolls, even if they were super lucky. I wasn't playing during the time (and I haven't spent yet) so I'm not fully up on the details, but all in all it was pretty gross overall.
I've posted this online elsewhere, but my theory is that Boltrend had some sort of SLA they had to meet, and figured if they took the game offline they would have lost more than the disaster that the rollback caused, which is why they handled it like they did. Still, this is one that will probably be remembered for a while, if nothing else for the sheer audacity of it all.
As for the game itself, there is good and bad. On the bad side, Boltrend has followed its model for Idola and launched the game with a very popular event from the JP server even though it makes no sense for the game - with Idola it was the Summer Beach event which was released in like November and also referenced a lot of story that never happened in the main game, for Disgaea, its a Christmas event in... April... But - to Boltrend's credit there are some good gacha characters to pull, basically Santa versions of the regular ones. But again, why do I need regular Florine if I already have Santa Florine? The event itself has been noted for being a pretty much impossible grind for all but the most dedicated/biggest spenders, but this doesn't mean "only the most dedicated can clear the rewards" it means "only the most dedicated can get the character reward that is kind of baseline even if they don't get the other bonus items." I've spent a fair amount of time with the game and will not even clear the character rewards.
Also in true Boltrend fashion, there are some pretty serious issues with the event - the bonus points stack in a way that the in-game text specifically says will not happen - but it works out to be better for players so I guess it gets a pass.
Ok, so that's the news, what are my initial thoughts on the game? I'll likely do a full review later but from where I sit right now, its solid but a bit forgettable. This game is a G R I N D in the same way Saga Re is - not only is there near unlimited progression with the characters, but there is progression with each of the 8 or so weapon types. Each character has both character specific and weapon specific skills, and those skills each have their own progression. Individual pieces of equipment also have their own levelling progression (which I admittedly have only scratched the surface of).
One thing I am a bit worried about is how this will play out when new characters are released in 6 months... will my current team be so far over-levelled that it doesn't matter? Will I have to put my regular progression on hold for 6 months to bring up a new character?
On the other hand, I really like the "reincarnation" mechanic, where essentially your characters hit a level cap and can reincarnate like an idle game. They start back at level 1, get a stat boost and a new higher cap. To help keep things moving, the game also scales down the exp requirements some. This game gets the idle game "THE NUMBERS ALWAYS GO UP" thing very right, which feels good. Also the sheer amount of things to level means there is always something to do. On the other hand, there is no true "auto until out of stamina" and each battle requires 6 or 7 button presses to start, so you need to commit time to play, or have a job where you can tap your phone once a minute all day.
Like many gachas I play, I don't have any experience with the Disgaea IP, so I'm not that excited about the characters to collect (I'm actually enjoying the Santa set I have just because they look cool in Santa hats...) nor does the story interest me. I'm skipping it all for the most part. The graphics are simple but the game does present nicely in portrait and the menus are... fine (the character screens are a little crowded).
How much will I invest? At this point, probably $0 real world dollars. I didn't even bother with the "any spend get a character" unlock. How long will I play? Maybe for a while - its an easy grinder that fills that "I WANT PROGRESS TODAY" emotion.
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