Description:

It might just be that the entirety of Absence of Justice, the third instalment in Nippon Ichi's Disgaea series, is a morality tale about not leaving your handheld games console lying around. Or is might be about the perverted values of a high school in the demon underworld where black is white and up is down. Either way, Mao (not that one!) is really cheesed off. His father has gone and stepped on his SlayStation Portable (sic), eradicating four million hours' worth of hard-won progress. You might be able to relate.

Where most of us would shout a lot and maybe forget our careless parent at Christmas, however, Mao has an altogether different plan. See, Mao's father is Dean of the Nether Institute Evil Academy, where honour students never attend classes or do their homework, and bad students arrive early and always get their work in on time. So it is that, inspired by a super hero in his manga, Mao decides to become a hero! This is his story.

Disgaea 3, like its predecessors, is most definitely one for the hardcore. It's a turn-based strategy RPG so deep you could drop a rock in it and that rock would take an entire cycle of the moon to reach the bottom.

While returning fans of the series will certainly recognise the sprite-based graphics of the first two games, the series has certainly been enhanced in other ways. The most obvious change is in the Evilties, special augmentation abilities that improve how a character performs in battle. These are purchased using mana points, a kind of currency that can also be used to upgrade battle skills before you level up naturally.

An additional layer of complexity has been given to the inter-relationships between characters. No longer is there the likelihood of them teaming up in battle at random; now it is manually set in the classroom area of the hub. The Geo Block system has also been the subject of a radical overhaul, expanding into 3D objects rather than just panels on the play grid.

There are potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had in Absence of Justice, so if you're looking for a deep, new RPG to sink your teeth into, this could be the game to fulfil your needs.

Information:

• Number of players: 1
• Development Company: Nippon Ichi
• Software House: Nippon Ichi
• Video Dimensions: 2D
• Publisher: Square Enix
• Point Of View: Isometric, Scrolling