Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When was Disgaea: Hour of Darkness first released?
The first two "Disgaea" installments were released for the PlayStation 2. The series debuted in Japan with "" in 2003 on the PlayStation 2 and has since been re-released on the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS with new content. It was known for many uncommon elements previously unseen in the strategy RPG genre, such as complex gameplay, extremely high maximum stats and a maximum level of 9999, and humorous dialogue. "", released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 in Japan, has been re-released on the PlayStation Portable under the title "" with new content. Both of these games were later ported to the PC as "" in 2016, and "Disgaea 2 PC" in 2017 respectively. Both are based on the PlayStation Portable versions, with additional content and redone graphics. The series then moved on to the PlayStation 3 for "", released in Japan in 2008, and was re-released on the PlayStation Vita as "" in 2012. "" was released in Japan in 2011 and re-released on the PlayStation Vita as "" in 2014. A direct sequel to the first game, "" was released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013. The latest entry in the series, "" was released in 2015, moving the series to the PlayStation 4, and was ported to the Nintendo Switch as "Disgaea 5 Complete" in 2017.
A new installment in the "Grandia" series developed by Game Arts was officially announced on June 1, 2001 with the tentative name of "Grandia X". The game, later retitled "Grandia Xtreme", was to be published by Enix as they had just invested capital in Game Arts for a total of ¥99.2 million, or 15% of the company. The game was the first title Game Arts developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2. While previous installments in the series were traditional role-playing video games, the developers took the new title in a different direction and designed it more as an action role-playing game or dungeon crawler to make it more accessible to casual gamers. They nevertheless kept and enhanced mainstays such as the combat and magic systems, as well as the "enchantment" aspect of the story. To design the characters of the game, Enix and Game Arts selected Kamui Fujiwara, the character designer of "Terranigma". Development for the game spanned roughly 18 months.
Grandia is a role-playing video game, developed by Game Arts and published by ESP Software for the Sega Saturn console as the first game in their "Grandia" series. Released in Japan in 1997, the game was ported to the PlayStation in 1999, with an English version of the game appearing on the platform in North America in the following September by Sony Computer Entertainment, and in Europe in 2000 by Ubi Soft. The game was produced by much of the same staff who worked on the company's previous role-playing endeavor, the "Lunar" series, including producer Yoichi Miyagi and composer Noriyuki Iwadare.
Three video games were released based on the manga and the film. All three of the titles were developed by Technopolis Soft and published by Technopolis Soft and Tokuma Shoten. "Nausicaä in the Nick of Time" also known as "Nausicaä's Close Call" ("Naushika Kiki Ippatsu" or "Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu") is a Japanese shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Technopolis Soft for the NEC PC-6001 computer system in 1984. The game marketed as "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and known by its title screen as , is an adventure game developed by Technopolis Soft for the NEC PC-8801: it was released in the 1980s, most likely 1984. The third game, for the MSX is the most well-known of the releases and has been frequently and erroneously referred to as a game where the player kills the Ohmu. These games signaled the end of video game adaptations for Hayao Miyzaki's films. The only other games based on Miyazaki films were the LaserDisc arcade game "Cliff Hanger" and the MSX2 platform-adventure game "Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro", both of which were based on "The Castle of Cagliostro". Luke Plunkett describes these "two awful adaptations" as the reason Miyazaki does not allow further video game adaptations of his films.
The idea for "Final Fantasy Agito" originated with the early origins of "Type-0". Originally, "Type-0" was a game for mobiles titled "Final Fantasy Agito XIII", but eventually changed platforms and title. "Type-0"s director Hajime Tabata still liked the "Agito" title and the original concepts for the game, which included an episodic storyline that hinged on player choice and day-night cycles linked to real-world time. With this in mind, Tabata decided to revisit it and began development of "Agito": eventually, they settled on smartphones as the release platform of choice, partly because the platforms' progress since "Type-0" started development. One of Tabata's wishes for the title was that players unfamiliar with "Type-0" would download and play it. Development on the game began in September 2012. During development, Tabata considered "Type-0" to have become the prototype for "Agito", although it did not share much with its predecessor. The game's story grew out of what he originally conceived for "Agito XIII" before it evolved into "Type-0". In contrast to "Type-0"s dark and serious storyline, the team decided to give "Agito" a lighter atmosphere, although serious dramatic scenes were still present. Along with returning staff, mobile developer Tayutau K. K. helped with development. The previous game's level designer, Masayasu Nishida, returned to direct, and original character texture artist Sayako Hoshino became art director. To create the characters' portrait animations for the smartphone environment, the team used Silicon Studio's Motion Portrait middleware. The game was developed using the Unity engine. The game's designer was Kensuke Shimoda, an industry veteran who had experience with Unity, and was in charge of designing the game's battle system. His involvement with the game ended after its release.
A radically altered version of "Silent Hill" was released for the Game Boy Advance. Titled "Play Novel: Silent Hill" and released only in Japan in 2001, it is a gamebook-style visual novel. It contains a retelling of "Silent Hill"s story through text-based gameplay, with the player occasionally confronted with questions concerning what direction to take the character, as well as the puzzles, which are a major part of "Silent Hill"s gameplay. After completing the game once, the player has the option of playing as Cybil in a second scenario, with a third made available for download once the second scenario has been completed. When the game was exhibited, Western critics were unimpressed, and criticized the lack of any soundtrack as severely detracting from the "horror" factor of the game.
When Silicon Knights began work on "Eternal Darkness", their intention was to create a game "that was in the horror genre, but not categorized as survival/horror", with then later labeling it as a "psychological thriller" during an early interview with IGN, as opposed to, what they referred to as, the "B-movie horror plots" of "Resident Evil". At the same time, Denis Dyack remarked during an interview about his decision to design the game with the intention of "messing with people's heads", after being inspired by media reports. The game was initially planned for the Nintendo 64 and to feature several characters, including "a Special Forces commando deep behind enemy lines", with the developers showing off the early builds during the 1999 E3 Expo; Silicon Knights later changed their mind and rebuilt the game in order to make it a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube. It never made it as a launch title, as development was delayed.
Clock Tower is a survival horror point-and-click adventure video game series created by Hifumi Kono. The series includes four games in total. The first entry, "Clock Tower" (1995), was developed by Human Entertainment and released on the Super Famicom exclusively in Japan. Human Entertainment developed two more entries, "Clock Tower" (1996) and "" (1998), which were released on the PlayStation and localized outside Japan. The fourth and most recent title, "Clock Tower 3" (2002), was by Sunsoft and Capcom for the PlayStation 2. Gameplay in the series generally involves the player hiding and escaping from enemy pursuers without any weapons to defeat them. Scissorman is a reoccurring antagonist and sometimes the sole enemy in the game.
On September 20, 2002, Blizzard Entertainment announced the development of "StarCraft: Ghost" in conjunction with fellow video game company Nihilistic Software. Nihilistic aimed to release the game for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube video game consoles in late 2003, which elicited positive reactions from the press. The game was consistently delayed, and during the third quarter of 2004, Nihilistic discontinued their work on the project. Blizzard stated that Nihilistic had completed the tasks it had been contracted for, and the game would be delivered on time.
Pokémon Sun and Moon are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. They are the first installments in the seventh generation of "Pokémon" games. First announced in February 2016 through a special Nintendo Direct, both "Sun" and "Moon" were released worldwide on November 18, 2016. commemorating the franchise's 20th anniversary. Two follow-up games, "Pokémon Ultra Sun" and "Pokémon Ultra Moon", were released for the same consoles on November 17, 2017.
A novel series written by Tatsuya Hamazaki and illustrated by Yuzuka Morita of the same name retells the story of the games with slight modifications, such as depicting Epitaphs as weapons instead of physical Avatars and a further exploration Haseo's background who gains a new armor. It is composed of a total of four volumes published by Kadokawa Shoten between April 1, 2007 and August 1, 2008. Tokyopop published the novels in North America between February 10, 2009 and April 26, 2011. Cyberconnect2 also produced ".hack//G.U. Trilogy", a computer animated film adaptation of the games that takes numerous liberties with the story. The film was first screened in Japan in a Tokyo theater in December 2007. Bandai Visual later released it in DVD and Blu-ray format on March 25, 2008. In May 2011, Bandai Entertainment announced that they licensed the film for an English release but only with Japanese audio accompanied by English subtitles on August 18, 2009. Following the closure of Bandai Entertainment, Funimation announced at SDCC 2013, that they have acquired 4 .hack title including G.U. trilogy. 
The games' sequel is ".hack//Link", a PlayStation Portable game that takes place three years in the future with a new version of "The World".
The Nintendo DSi (abbreviated to DSi) is a dual-screen handheld game console released by Nintendo. The console launched in Japan on November 1, 2008, and worldwide beginning in April 2009. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP). Development of the DSi began in late 2006, and the handheld was unveiled during an October 2008 Nintendo conference in Tokyo. Consumer demand convinced Nintendo to produce a slimmer handheld with larger screens than the DS Lite. Consequently, Nintendo removed the Game Boy Advance (GBA) cartridge slot to improve portability without sacrificing durability.
Numerous video game titles based on the "Fist of the North Star" have been produced since the 1986 release of the Enix adventure game, simply titled "Hokuto no Ken" for the PC-88. The earlier games in the franchise were released by Sega for the Mark III and Mega Drive and by Toei Animation for Nintendo's Famicom, Game Boy and Super Famicom. These titles included side-scrolling action games, role-playing video games and competitive-style fighting games. The two Sega titles were released overseas without the "Hokuto no Ken" license under the titles of "Black Belt" and "Last Battle", while a couple of the Toei titles, namely "Fist of the North Star" for the NES and "Fist of the North Star: 10 Big Brawls for the King of Universe" for the Game Boy, had American releases with the license intact. Further games were released for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Arcade, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS among other platforms. In 2000, Konami released an arcade game based on the franchise titled "Fighting Mania". Another arcade game, a 2D fighting game simply titled "Fist of the North Star", was produced by Sega and Arc System Works in 2005. Both games saw international distributions, although the PS2 version of the fighting game was released exclusively in Japan. Tecmo Koei produced a "Dynasty Warriors" spinoff focusing on the events from the first half of the manga, titled "". It which was released in Japan on March 25, 2010, and later in North America on November 2, 2010, and Europe on November 5, 2010. A sequel, "", expanded on the first game and incorporated the events from the second half of the manga. It was released in Japan on December 20, 2012, and in North America on February 5, 2013. On August 25, 2017, Sega announced a new game, "", for release in 2018 on PlayStation 4. The game was released on March 8, 2018 by the team behind the "Yakuza" series and features similar gameplay and elements.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, known in the PAL regions as Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King, is a role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. It was first released in Japan in 2004, and was later released in North America in 2005 and PAL regions in 2006, making it the first main series installment released in the PAL region. It is the eighth installment of the popular "Dragon Quest" series and it is the first English version of a "Dragon Quest" game to drop the "Dragon Warrior" title. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan in December 2013, and worldwide in May 2014.
Silent Hill is a survival horror video game for the PlayStation published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a group in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The first installment in the "Silent Hill" series, the game was released in North America in January 1999, and in Japan and Europe later that year. "Silent Hill" uses a third-person view, with real-time rendering of 3D environments. To mitigate limitations of the console hardware, developers liberally used fog and darkness to muddle the graphics. Unlike earlier survival horror games that focused on protagonists with combat training, the player character of "Silent Hill" is an "everyman".
The original "Dragon Slayer", released for the PC-88 in 1984, is considered to be the first action-RPG. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes, "Dragon Slayer" was a dungeon crawl RPG that was entirely real-time with action-oriented combat. "Dragon Slayer" also featured an in-game map to help with the dungeon-crawling, required item management due to the inventory being limited to one item at a time, and introduced the use of item-based puzzles which later influenced "The Legend of Zelda". "Dragon Slayer" was a major success in Japan, where its overhead action-RPG formula was used in many later games. The game's MSX port was also one of the first titles to be published by Square.
Most major characters from previous games make a cameo appearance, or lend their services to characters in later ones, due to the large number of different Netherworlds being magically connected. Characters from other Nippon Ichi games and series, such as "", "Marl Kingdom", "", "Phantom Brave" and 
"Soul Nomad" (as "Disgaea 3" EU DLC), have also appeared in "Disgaea" games.
Persona 4 is a role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the "Persona" series, itself a part of the larger "Megami Tensei" franchise. The game was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in March 2009. "Persona 4" takes place in a fictional Japanese countryside and is indirectly related to earlier "Persona" games. The player-named protagonist is a high-school student who moved into the countryside from the city for a year. During his year-long stay, he becomes involved in investigating mysterious murders while harnessing the power of summoning Persona. The game features a weather forecast system with events happening on foggy days to replace the moon phase system implemented in the previous games.
Konami's "Silent Hill", released in 1999, drew heavily from "Resident Evil" while using realtime 3D environments in contrast to "Resident Evil"'s pre-rendered graphics. "Silent Hill" in particular was praised for moving away from B movie horror elements to the psychological style seen in art house or Japanese horror films, due to the game's emphasis on a disturbing atmosphere rather than visceral horror. The game also featured stealth elements, making use of the fog to dodge enemies or turning off the flashlight to avoid detection. The original "Silent Hill" is considered one of the scariest games of all time, and the strong narrative from "Silent Hill 2" in 2001 has made the "Silent Hill" series one of the most influential in the genre. According to IGN, the "golden age of survival horror came to a crescendo" with the release of "Silent Hill".
Dragon Quest is the first role-playing video game (RPG) in the "Dragon Quest" media franchise. It was developed by Chunsoft for the Family Computer (or Famicom for short) and published by Enix in Japan in 1986 as "Dragon Quest" and by Nintendo in 1989 in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) as Dragon Warrior. "Dragon Quest" has been ported and remade for several video game platforms, including the MSX, PC-9801, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4 and mobile phones. In play, players control a hero character who is charged with saving the Kingdom of Alefgard and rescuing its princess from the evil Dragonlord. "Dragon Warrior"s story became the second part in a trilogy. Several more anime and manga series, which revolved around this overarching plot were created.
Hugues Giboire, art director of previous Ninja Theory game "Heavenly Sword", returned to work on the game. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was announced on January 9, 2015. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, and was made by Ninja Theory with a team of around twenty developers. Its subtitle, "Senua's Sacrifice", was announced in March 2016. "Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis", a short documentary film included with the game, details the concept behind its story and inspirations, notably the team's study of mental illness. It was written and narrated by Antoniades, and edited by Juergens.
In addition, "Afternoon of Darkness" includes a complete dual language option and the option to turn off battle animations. Most of the silent Japanese cut scenes now include voice acting. However, when set to English, the scenes that were originally silent in the PS2 release are still silent. To reflect Etna's recent voice actor change, her lines have been re-recorded to match Michelle Ruff's portrayal of Etna in "Disgaea 2" and the anime. One notable omission is the theme song "The Invasion from Within" by Tsunami Bomb. As Atlus was the publisher of the original PS2 version and arranged for the licensing of the song, and NIS America (Nippon Ichi's American branch) published the PSP port themselves, they did not retain the rights to use the song and did not renegotiate for them. Also missing is the song "One With the Stars" which, like "The Invasion from Within", was added in the original PS2 release by Atlus.
"Disgaea DS" was released in North America on September 23, 2008, through distributor NIS America and in Europe on April 3, 2009.
There were two different styles of boxart for the American release.
There is one "Joke" ending, which can be obtained very early in the game, In Episode 1, if the final boss of the chapter ("Dark Adonis") defeats all of the characters in battle, a cut scene will appear showing the "Dark Adonis" naming himself Overlord and the ending credits will then roll, after the ending credits, it will ask you to save previous data and it will return you to the main screen where you can reload the data and start a new game +."Disgaea's" configuration allows the player to select the audio and soundtrack in the North American release from English or Japanese. The song "The Invasion From Within" by Tsunami Bomb was licensed for the English audio track by Atlus due to its organ opening and fast pace, and is only played when English is the selected language. The option to select the language is not present in the European release of the game, because the European release used a lower capacity storage medium (CD instead of DVD).