It has been nearly five years since the original Disgaea came out on PS2. That game changed the way that most gamers looked at strategy RPG's. Since then, there have been many entries in their universe and many competitors for its throne. Starting last year, Nippon Ichi Software decided to re-release the original on handhelds starting with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness on the PSP and now we have Disgaea DS. Yes... it is a port of a port.

The original Disgaea wasn't known for its stellar graphics, but it was known for its art direction. Cute and quirky anime characters are presented with just the right amount of detail to make everything look unique and different. Unfortunately, because it is on the DS, Disgaea DS suffers from a large amount of jagged edges. They don't ruin the game by any means, but they are a little tough on the eyes (especially coming from the stellar PSP port). Another problem worth mentioning is that if there are too many enemies on screen at once, the game slows down significantly which causes undue frustration.

The sound design has become one of the most identifiable aspects of the Disgaea series over the years. The same catchy themes return and so does the solid voice acting. The only minor complaints are that a few songs that were present in the original version were dropped because NIS didn't get the rights back for those songs, (Goodbye, Tsunami Bomb,) and the voice actress for the main character, Etna, was re-recorded. The function is the same though, the music finds its way into your head and stays there while the voice acting makes you laugh at the right times.

It feels silly describing the story of Disgaea DS because the story IS silly. The main character is young boy named Laharl who has been asleep for over 2 years. While he was asleep his dad, the Overlord of the Netherworld, died and he became the new heir. Etna was sent to awaken Laharl and help him claim his throne as the one, true Overlord. Along the way, they meet fallen angels, zombies, ghouls, robots, cartoon heroes, and an evil demon who is actually quite a charming gentleman. All part of being the Prince, I suppose.

Most of the game is spent in battle. Disgaea DS is a very traditional turn-based game with one exception. The game wants you to cheat. That's right... cheat. Learning how to exploit even the most basic function is essential to victory. For example, moving character A next to character B while he is attacking initiates a team attack combo. As long as you don't assign character A any commands, you can always reset his actions after the attack to move him somewhere else. This is just one of the smaller exploits that can be found in the game.

The geo-panels are a major system for the battles too. All of the tiled squares can be changed to a different color that may hold a certain status effect or boost. The source of the tiles' powers come from geo-prisms that are littered all across the map. If you move the prism onto a different color, that new color will have the prism's effect for every other tile. If you destroy said prism however, then every same colored tile explodes and causes damage to anyone unlucky enough to be standing on top of it.

A large chunk of Disgaea DS is invested in the leveling up system. Every character you acquire can be leveled up as high as you like. At any moment, (after requesting permission from the Dark Assembly,) you can re-incarnate a character and keep the skill proficiency and abilities and start over from level 1 to increase their base stats. At this point, you can let loose and create some truly brutal characters. There are around a hundred classes to choose from and plenty of monster type classes as well. Your army will never be puny if you don't want it to be.

The most popular aspect from the Disgaea series is the Item World. Basically, you can travel inside of any piece of equipment you own to level up the properties of that item. It gets much more complex as you go further, but every item has a randomly generated 100 level dungeon inside of it. This is a great place to take your army for power leveling and if you are lucky enough to get an invincibility geo-panel, even skip a few levels if you play the cards right.

NIS didn't want Disgaea DS to be just a quick and dirty port. It has several front end User Interface tweaks to accommodate the DS' capabilities. But the main bonus is that Etna Mode and two new unlockable characters are included this time around. Etna Mode poses the question: "What if Etna killed Laharl at the beginning of the game and became the main character?" While it is slightly shorter than the main game, it is just as funny, if not funnier, at certain moments.

Disgaea DS is one of those games that is completely open-ended in difficulty because it leaves the choice up to the player. At any moment, there are plenty of other maps to practice on and the item world opens up infinite possibilities for power leveling and grinding. You don't have to complete the game with a level 800 Majin if you don't want to, but it's always an option if you want.

Disgaea DS does an excellent job at keeping all of the main story battles within a reasonable reach. The difficulty curve is fairly even all the way throughout until you reach the endgame. After the main game is completed, you have new options available that make for some of the toughest boss fights in videogame history. One infamous boss, Baal, makes a return and is undeniably just as hard as he ever was.

One of the major features for Disgaea DS is the use of the touch screen. You can use the stylus to move all of the characters around the main castle and the battlefield. It is functional, and if you are so inclined to use only the stylus, then it is used effectively. However, I found that it didn't offer any sort of advantage over the standard D-pad and face buttons.

Since this is the first entry to use two screens, Disgaea DS splits the important information onto the top screen, with all the action on the bottom. Some minor gripes rise up, such as having to hold down the (Y) button and then press the (R) button to cycle through my troops, or still having to sort through pages of stats when it should be presented entirely on the top screen. Again, these are just minor gripes that could be fixed with a trip to the settings Menu, but it would be nicer to default to more natural settings.

Disgaea DS is a good game because Disgaea on PS2 was a good game too. It would take a lot to ruin this game, but this version is very well done. While this isn't the "de facto" version of the game, it is still good enough if you are the type of gamer that needs your strategy RPG on the go. I hope that NIS is done porting this great game. I would much rather see a fresh new take on the wonderful world of Disgaea than to have to play the same game again on another device.