Three additions serve up the bulk of new features in Disgaea 3: skill merge, geo-blocks, and magi-change. As you'd imagine, skill merge enables you to combine two different skills to create a single hybrid ability. Naturally, the range of skills that you can create increase as you develop more and more abilities through the course of the game with hundreds of combinations being claimed. The increased number of skills comes with a bump in maximum damage and attributes. It's now possible to exact millions of points of damage against a foe and raise characters to a maximum level of 9 999. These increases are a direct answer to fan cries to up the difficulty and expand the range of character development. As Niikawa puts it, "We have some stupid hard level in there."

During battles geo-blocks and magi-change offer new elements that spice this third installment up. Geo-blocks share similarities with the geo-panels of Disgaea 2; instead of affect a single plane however, geo-blocks work in three-dimensions. Specific status effects and bonuses are awarded to characters standing on a geo-block, just as with a geo-panel.

Additionally, geo-blocks can be flipped like a geo-panel by attacking a switch to alter the color. The key change, however, is that geo-blocks can be moved and destroyed as three-dimensional objects. For example, a series of green geo-blocks stacked into a wall could be hit for a cascading effect that crumbles the wall and damages any characters standing on top. Any adjacent geo-blocks also switch, so like geo-panels you need to be careful how you toy with blocks. In many ways, geo-blocks add an element of puzzle-solving to the game's tactical battles.

Magi-change provides an equally dramatic addition to battle, enabling characters to transform into powerful new figures capable of devastating attacks. Forms differ among characters, as do the type of attacks; nonetheless, these new abilities easily wipe out enemies in a single hit. This addition comes with a slew of new abilities, magic, summons, and equipment. Although it wasn't available in the levels we played, one particularly over-the-top summon involved pulling the moon down from space to crush a line of enemies. And thanks to the return of item worlds, you can enhance the power of special items and equipment by battling through tiered stages

With everything promised from hundreds of stages and characters, downloadable content, and a slate of new features, Disgaea 3 plans on justifying that $60 price tag. It's hard to be enthusiastic about the outdated visuals, but given the focus on fine-tuning the series' phenomenal gameplay we're willing to let it slide when it hits in August.

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