Hinomoto Ichi! To Hell, with honor!
The Hinomoto Netherworlds. This cluster of diverse Netherworlds believed in a highly venerated code: bushido.
The inhabitants of Hinomoto were honorable warriors. Though demons elsewhere loathe honor, those here regarded it highly.
However, that’s all in the past.
Hardly a trace of honor remains in the Hinomoto Netherworlds today.
Their pride, their livelihood, their bushido… All these were taken from them by a cunning Netherworld invader.
Our tale follows a girl who adores bushido and a man who despises it. Now, they must join forces to fight for their beliefs.
The inhabitants of Hinomoto were honorable warriors. Though demons elsewhere loathe honor, those here regarded it highly.
However, that’s all in the past.
Hardly a trace of honor remains in the Hinomoto Netherworlds today.
Their pride, their livelihood, their bushido… All these were taken from them by a cunning Netherworld invader.
Our tale follows a girl who adores bushido and a man who despises it. Now, they must join forces to fight for their beliefs.
Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless is the eighth game in the silly but hardcore Turn-Based Strategy series Disgaea, developed by Nippon Ichi. It is the second game to use the 3D engine introduced in Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny.
The Hinomoto Netherworld Cluster is a collection of different Netherworlds who had united together and strictly adhere to the Bushido Code, something unusual for demons. But things changed when the Demon Admiral Opener arrived at the head of a massive navy, took control over the Cluster's Netherworlds and began enforcing a new set of laws, known as "Hinomoto Destroy Hatto" that started to lead the cluster's demons astray and abandon the virtues of Bushido.
The story proper stars Fuji, a roughly-spoken demon samurai who tries to earn cash, doesn't approve of the Bushido code, and is allergic to positive human emotions like love or kindness. One day he comes across Pirilika, a sheltered cat demon who is a huge otaku for Hinomotonese culture...though her knowledge of said culture comes mainly from films and manga. While their views on Hinomoto differ from one another, the two team up and fight to overthrow the Ooedo Shogunate and deal with the issues that have befallen the Cluster and its honor.
The game was released in Japan on January 23rd, 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, and later released in the west in Octobernote 2023.
Trailers: Reveal trailer
This game provides examples of:
- Act of True Love: Fuji proves he truly does love his daughter Ao when Ao is about to die thanks to her unstable body. Fuji hugs his daughter Ao and using his knowledge of Infernal Weapons, stabilizes her body to save her life. But because of the Empathy Killer curse on him, this act of saving another's life will surely kill him. But Fuji ignores that and Ao's cries as he's determined to be the father he should have been to Ao.
- All Crimes Are Equal: Fuji claims that Yeyasu buying games in bulk is about equal in guilt to Higan devouring a billion calories in food a day in bankrupting Pirilika.
- All for Nothing: Ceefore laments that this might be the case when Sea Again gleefully points out how she didn't think her plans through and was banking on a demon keeping their word.
- All in a Row: One of the customization options at the Dark Assembly lets players set up to three characters to control while navigating around the base. Choosing multiple characters means the other selected ones follow the 'leader' around in this fashion.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Jumbification allows your and enemy units to grow so massive, they don't even fit on the stage anymore. These giant characters can then do stuff like attack multiple enemies with a single attack or open giant treasure chests. Every class has a unique perk, a Jumbility, that applies whenever it is jumbified, as well.
- Several main game and postgame boss fights have battles where the main boss of the map is giant for the entire fight.
- Broke Episode: Chapter 5 sees the group heading to a local casino with what little money they have left due to a slight increase in food expenses in hopes of striking it rich once more.
- The Bus Came Back: Pre-release material shows that many of the mainstay generic demons who missed the Video Game 3D Leap in Disgaea 6 like Skulls, Healers, and Felynns are set to return in this game. Also along the list are classes that went missing for several games, such as the Gunslinger and Ranger units from Disgaea 3, and male Thieves, who seem to have gained a catlike makeover to match the female Thieves since they were last seen in the first game.
- The Cameo: In the On the Next segment after Chapter 12, Pirilika complains about the lack of "traditional" samurai or cuisine in Hinomoto, with Yukimaru and Fubuki ordering udon in the background.
- Chinese Vampire: One of the new monster classes is a Jiāng-Shī demon called "Zombie Maiden" that has a unique evility that lets them revive once per battle.
- Competitive Balance: Disgaea 7 continues the series' emphasis on each character type having their own niche in terms of stats and and abilities, unique or generic. Let's take Archers as our example: male ones have a bigger emphasis on defense, with a defense increasing buff and a Jumbility that applies an effect where those on higher elevations always dodge those on lower elevations. Female ones, meanwhile, have an emphasis on strength with a strength increasing buff and a dobility that does the opposite of what the male Archer's Jumbility does. Given that multiplayer is going to be notable facet of the game, this may not be a coincidence.
- Continuity Nod: The ending creates a massive lore dump grade example by implying all game exclusive techniques such as monster mounting, Overload Skills, and Magichange are regional secret arts. Takes a dark turn when Mugai reveals Infernal Treasures are a corrupted variant of Magichange.
- Clever players can infer that Maritsu and Hades are geographically relatively close neighbors due to Magichange’s shared existance.
- Didn't Think This Through: As Sea Again points out to Ceefore, her plans hinged entirely upon the idea of someone keeping their promise to her when she knows full well that most demons don't care one whit about honor... and that she herself has been betraying the trust others put in her.
- In chapter 6 when the protagonists defeat Tenbuyer, this leads the magistrate's employees without jobs. Sure they were heavily exploited and paid little, but it was the only job former warriors like them could find and the defeat of the Demmodore would not improve their lives, especially since the protagonists have no plans for what comes next.
- Empty Room Psych: Various bonus rooms may pop up between levels in the Item World, presented at random. One such room contains a knight with some dialogue explaining that this is his private room and apologizing for there being nothing more to it. It stands out as the only room without a purpose. Diligent players may discover that this room actually has two versions that appear identical at first, with one featuring an invisible path to a secret duplication shop.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The game's presentation from the reveal trailer and material makes it clear that the Hinomoto Netherworld Cluster is very, VERY Japanese. Indeed, the name itself is an archaic name for Japan itself, and some locations share a spoken name with actual Japanese locations though the written form is different. For example Shikoku is 死国 (Death Country) instead of 四国 and Sapporo is 殺滅 (Kill and Destroy) instead of 札幌. The plot with Demon Admiral Opener specifically brings in mind the Meiji Restoration.
- Field Power Effect: One of the benefits of Jumbification is that the battlefield is affected by the Jumbified character's "Jumbility". These Jumbilities can turn the tide of battle by increasing certain stats, applying special effects (like, say, all thrown party members gaining the explosive properties of Prinnies minus the fatal aftermath), or switching defense targeting stats, among other such effects.
- Freudian Excuse: Largely Played for Laughs in that Pirilika is a firm believer in the existence of these — nobody is evil purely For the Evulz, and everybody has some reason, some justification for what they do. Even if she makes it up completely by herself. That she turns out to be right a lot of the time dumbfounds her friends.
- Gameplay Automation: Auto-battles return from Disgaea 6, but this time, it requires the resource "Poltergas" to activate, which can only be acquired by playing stages manually, and that the stage in question was already cleared manually. When allowing Demonic Intelligence to take over, the game will run the DI and see how many turns it takes to clear the stage with it, consuming one tick of Poltergas per turn. Afterwards it asks if the player wants to Auto-resolve with it, consuming the turns' worth of Poltergas per clear.
- The "Demon Shogi" mini-game in Casinomoto revolves around using Demonic Intelligence to clear increasingly complex puzzles, with better rewards the fewer turns are needed.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Midway into the game the emotional stress that Yeyasu goes through causes his staff to stop responding to his calls. For the next two chapters, Yeyasu is unable to go into Hell Mode. When he goes through his character development, the staff responds and his Hell Mode returns with a bigger upgrade than the last.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: In one episode, Higan drives Pirilika into bankruptcy by spending all her company's money on junk food. Thankfully, this doesn't clean out whatever HL you've built up before this point... but you still have to go through the casino plot to restore Pirilika's cash flow even if you've been grinding the Item World enough to have literally millions of HL in reserve.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: The protagonists collectively become this in Chapter 12, after Mugai broadcasts that he's just saved Hinomoto from Demmodore Opener's oppression and now Fuji's group is rebelling against him.
- Hot Springs Episode: Chapter 7 sees the group invited to the Gero Onsen Netherworld. Mind you these are not "hot springs"* but "haunt springs"* and have healing powers so great they could raise the dead. Cue the chain of battles against previously defeated bosses.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Among the main cast, Ceefore and Higan.
- The Gunslinger, Kunoichi, Felynn, and Succubus classes (all female) combine Stripperriffic outfits with the Most Common Superpower.
- The new Maiko class is this tenfold. Their gimmicks include such things as dealing extra effective damage to male enemies, buffing male allies, and having a Jumbility that allows opposite gendered combatants to charm each other.
- On the Next: As per usual for the series, this is regularly Parodied: Episodes typically end with characters teasing the 'final episode' of a series that doesn't exist.
- Scunthorpe Problem: Comes up with the weekly online challenge that has you register teams for AI-battles. If you rename any pieces of equipment with the Item Worlder, the game will check those names against a list of restricted words and identify them as problematic, telling the player which ones fail but not why. Because it only checks items that have been renamed, the late-game item "Trapezohedron"note is only flagged if the player attempted to personalize it. Returning it to its original name still fails the check, so you have no choice afterward but to rename it something different or avoid equipping it to your online team.
- Take That!: Chapter 6 is dedicated to dunking on scalpers; cathartic and accurate representation of gamer sentiments about scalpers during their exceptionally awful conduct during the PS5 launch (buying out all available consoles for months to prevent consumers from being able to buy even a single copy at retail price while excusing their actions as just fulfilling a demand).
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Fuji casually threatens to combine this with Unhand Them, Villain! when Yeyasu demands to be let go after arriving on Pirilika's ship.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Every scene with Fuji, as he never wears a shirt and is quite buff.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Sea Again cheerfully informs Yeyasu that without the Tokugawa Tenge, he's now considered completely disposable, nothing more than a loose end that needs tying up. It turns out that Mugai was waiting for this to happen and wastes no time trying to kill him once the staff is stolen.
