Disgaea: Hour of Darkness - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tactical role-playing game

A tactical role-playing game is a type of video game which incorporates elements of traditional role-playing video games and strategy games. In Japan these games are known as , a designation which might seem peculiar to native English speakers...

video game developed by Nippon Ichi Software

Nippon Ichi

is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. They are responsible for such titles as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Phantom Brave, La Pucelle: Tactics and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure.-History:Nippon Ichi Software was founded in September 1991 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, as an entertainment...

and published by Nippon Ichi Software in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Atlus USA, Inc.

Atlus

is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...

in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, and Koei in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

for the Sony

Sony Computer Entertainment

Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. is a major video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry, and is a wholly owned subsidiary and part of the Consumer Products & Services Group of Sony...

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

video game console

Video game console

A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...

. It was first released in Japan on January 30, 2003, and was later released in North America on August 27, 2003, and in Europe on May 28, 2004.

Nippon Ichi has also licensed or produced a wide variety of Disgaea merchandise, including a manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...