Note: This review concerns the Switch and PC versions as regards technical details and only covers base game content. Certain features involving online functionality could not be tested as this was a pre-release game review for which other players were not available to test said features.


I would like to thank NIS America, Inc. for the review key for this title.

As both a Disgaea fan and a fan of strategy RPGs in general, Disgaea 6 was a letdown, feeling like a dumbed-down, sub-par effort in terms of plot, game balance, and voice acting quality. Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless fixes what it did wrong while doing many new things right as well.

Disgaea 7 takes the series to an unusual setting. While they usually parody many Western-themed concepts, this setting takes place in Hinomoto, a place loosely modeled on late Bakumatsu Japan (end of the Tokugawa Shogunate period). As someone who enjoyed Ryu Ga Gotuko Ishin, set in a more serious take on the same setting, I was rather amused by the sardonic take on a lot of real-world history from that period as interpreted through the lens of Disgaea parody.

The plot focuses on two characters, a ronin named Fuji who is saddled with a crippling debt and a big problem with the current Hinomoto shogunate, which is corrupt and has abandoned any concept of bushido or honor in general. He meets a Hinomoto fangirl named Piriko who did not get the memo that her naive foreigner-level knowledge of the place does not match it's current regressed state. This odd pair winds up on a journey to figure out what went wrong. In the process, a lot of Japanese history is sporked, and the usual Disgaea strategy RPG hijinks ensue.

Before continuing, this game continues to use the new engine pioneered in Disgaea 6 with an overhaul. While retaining and improving the rough jump from hand-drawn sprites to 3D models for characters, it takes a more measured approach to the changes Disgaea 6 made to gameplay. It does away with the bloated and generally poorly received leveling curve of 6 and restores many gameplay mechanics that were watered down, simplified, or outright omitted from earlier Disgaea titles. It also takes a halfway approach to some of the better, if badly implemented, quality-of-life mechanics in Disgaea 6, such as the mindless auto-battle mechanic, and improves the maps to not be brainless exercises in level grinding. The end result is a game that requires far more strategy like earlier Disgaea games did while still not throwing out the ability to grind as Disgaea games encourage.

My only complaint is that they may have gone a bit too far with reining in autobattling. In Disgaea 6, due to boring level design, auto-healing between maps being free, and the ability to set characters to auto-battle and repeat maps, it became very easy to just power grind through the main game by finding a good map to level grind, putting your controller down as soon as the auto battles started, do something else for most of the day, and come back to find yourself so overpowered you could brute force the rest of the game on level grinding alone.

Disgaea 7 tries to limit grinding to maps already completed, which is a good fix but also forces the player to build up surplus "Poltergas" points by manually beating levels, and 1 point is expended for each auto-battle level grind run. Honestly, I would have considered it less annoying to simply make the Disgaea 6 system not possible until the post-game (where you will need to compulsively level grind), but that's my only major complaint with how they backpedaled on the dumbing down of Disgaea 6.

On the plus side, they finally have a retooled version of the Overlord Powers from Disgaea 5 again, a good idea Disgaea 6 butchered. There is also a mechanic where, once the party incurs enough damage, you can "Jumbo" them, meaning they will get three turns to grow to Godzilla size, hit huge chunks of the map, and have giant monster-style battles with any Jumboed enemies that decide to pull the same stunt. Since it can happen in any battle and Jumbo Characters have huge stat boosts (albeit with some drawbacks like no item use and a limited move set), it keeps battle maps from becoming a predictable slog.

The gameplay loop in general follows a story told in a visual novel style. In between, you have a hub world with various services for powering up your characters that serves as an intermission area between story scenes. In combat maps, you command characters like chess pieces on a square grid to achieve various objectives until the map's completion, usually by defeating all enemies.

Graphically speaking, Disgaea 7 retains the shift to 3D models as opposed to hand-drawn HD sprites, but unlike Disgaea 6, these have smooth animations and are well-optimized. Even on the Switch one can run on "Quality" settings nigh constantly with barely any hint of slowdown, and I was able to max out all settings on PC and it still ran smooth as silk. I did get one weird issue in one level with some shadows for some character models glitching out and displaying overtop their models at one point, but I was unable to replicate the issue. That aside, the art style remains true to the anime aesthetic that the series has carried since the first game, with hand-drawn art for the visual novel-style story scenes. The shift to a Japanese-style setting for this game (a marked change from the more Western look in most other Disgaea games) is also well done with many interesting set pieces.

Sounds and music have a decidedly Japanese flair as opposed to the rock and synth styles of other Disgaea titles. Given it's set in a setting based on the Bakumatsu (1857-1868) period of Japanese history (as filtered through Disgaea's traditional parody), the music styling reflects many Japanese musical instruments that were vogue in that period like flutes and shamisens. There are also some gothic vocals and mild rock infusions later on though, albeit given a decided tweaking to fit the Japanese theme. The voice acting is great across the board in both English and Japanese. I was especially pleased that the somewhat phoned-in secondary voice acting from Disgaea 6 was fixed.

Game control can be done by keyboard and mouse, or by any Steam-compatible gamepad. While the former is generally serviceable, zooming can be a bit tedious. It plays best with any type of gamepad, though you can switch between the two at any time if need be.

Stability is much better than with Disgaea 6. The formerly choppy framerate of Disgaea 6 and stiff animations, as a result, are gone now. Even on Switch the Quality setting (which generally had to be set on Balanced or Performance to remain consistent on Disgaea 6) can be left on by default. Load times are brief and I encountered no crashes or other anomalies. It will run out of the box on standard Steam Proton on both Linux and Steam Deck. It's worth noting the slightly lower max internal resolution of the Steam Deck will degrade quality ever so slightly on some semi-transparent objects, but this is a minor issue, it still looks good enough to be more than playable.

Morally, this has some definite issues.


Violence is generally RPG level "give orders and watch it happen", rendered rather cartoonishly most of the time. Some blood is seen from Fuji (due to a curse that causes him to expel blood from the mouth whenever he shows empathy), albeit this is generally not drawn beyond the bare basics. There are some cartoony skits with what looks like dead bodies with absolutely fake-looking blood (the context is comedic or imagine spots drawn ridiculously on purpose), but they are quite brief.

Language is about moderate Teen level at worst. You will see at least every one of the milder Teen-rated swears like s*** and b**t**d at least once throughout the story, a rough estimate is about a dozen or so prominent instances can be heard. It's worth noting one voiceover of the character Yeyasu saying "Back off" sounds a bit garbled due to the way the character is voiced, so it can, in some cases, sound like f*** off, but this is due to the voice actor affecting a drawl to their words to convey the character's laid back personality in general that garbles this particular phrase.

Sexual content is a bit higher than usual, with a LOT of exposed cleavage and bikini-like outfits on display from the various female characters. Many are generic NPCs, though a few are playable prominent cast members. There is some mild sexual innuendo (especially from the monsters that are succubi-themed, per their concept) and a few gags involving objects like spears getting rammed where the sun doesn't shine (thankfully, we don't get any onscreen depictions, just confirmation from one character that it did happen once for real).

The occult and supernatural are quite prominent elements, given the Disgaeaverse parodies things like angels, demons, and everything in between in a fantasy kitchen sink-like world. The God of the Disgaeaverse is generally 1:1 consistent with most traits of the Christian one and is regarded with clear respect even by most demons (most who have the good sense to not antagonize Him) even if some admit not liking Him. Otherwise, Christianity is generally portrayed in a somewhat generic Catholic style, albeit with a variant on reincarnation for demons, though most material regarding angels and Celestia (i.e. - Heaven) broadly conforms to Christianity theologically speaking.

That said, there is a lot of negative stuff, including depictions of necromancy and tampering with souls (a prominent plot element albeit negative in portrayal). There are also depictions of demonic beings, and playable zombies and sorcerers are in profusion as well.

Morally and ethically, the quirky parody of Japan aside, the responsible authority is obeyed and generally respected, and only corrupt authority is questioned and fought by the cast. There is a brief "casino" arc, but aside from implications of activity of that nature, the player cannot partake, though it's shown the cast does, albeit briefly and for story-related purposes only. There are references to sake and other alcoholic beverages, but this is not something the player sees aside from background information and briefly as an item to manipulate the game's "Dark Assembly" feature.

The Hospital has a new ability to provide "Wickedhancements", essentially temporary combat boosts between maps. They do mention it would be considered "doping" in the real world (the illegal practice of doing steroids before athletic competition), but they also make very clear in fourth-wall-breaking language that the real-world practice is illegal and unwise as well. Ingame, the enhancement is roughly similar to the option in Disgaea 5 to make custom forms of curry by mixing different ingredients for similar enhancement effects. One character also has something of a gunpowder fetish, admitting they get high off the fumes. This is portrayed as a psychosomatic quirk as gunpowder cannot get anyone intoxicated in reality.

There are some commendable moral lessons of note. An estranged father and child, both who admit wanting to reconcile and having sinned before God, they both humble themselves before Him and this is rewarded with their redemption and reunion as a family. Conversely, they also show a villain who, despite knowing his actions are in defiance of God's Will, squanders his every chance at redemption. In the end, they are forced to accept all they earned is God's wrath and that their deeds against Him were worthy of judgment.

Overall, Disgaea 7 is a huge improvement on Disgaea 6, fixing what that did poorly while adding a lot of things it does well on its own merits. Morally, it has some concerns, but nothing a reasonably mature teenager and up couldn't handle. Unlike Disgaea 6, which I find hard to recommend, I heartily endorse getting Disgaea 7 if you enjoy strategy RPGs and the Disgaea franchise.