The Disgaea series is going back to basics with Vows of the Virtueless
Two-thousand and three was an absolute banger of a year for the video game industry. In that 12-month span, players got their hands on some absolute classics of the medium. Games like Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Tony Hawk’s Underground, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Beyond Good & Evil, Warcraft III, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, to name a few. Several franchises that are still going strong today got their start that year. Franchises like Disgaea. Arguably the first title people think of when they think of Nippon Ichi Software, Inc., Disgaea: Hour of Darkness landed on the PlayStation 2 in Japan in January 2003 and in North America that August. It had the unfortunate timing of launching the same day as Soulcalibur 2 and less than two weeks before Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in North America.
Both titles would ultimately suck all the air out of the room, but Hour of Darkness managed to strike a chord with players. IGN named it the “Best Game No One Played” during its yearly awards. And while it wasn’t the first title Nippon Ichi Software, Inc. released in the West, it was the first to establish the developer as a niche favorite outside of Japan. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness helped the company get its foot in the door. At the end of 2003, it established NIS America. It would no longer rely on established publishers to localize its games. NIS America would quickly become one of the most frequent publishers of AA and single-A games from small Japanese developers. Some titles were more successful than others, but the company’s crown jewel would always be the Disgaea series. With each release garnering solid reviews, it seemed like there was no stopping Nippon Ichi Software, Inc. or its prized IP.
Bu
Read more on destructoid.com
