Etrange Overlord Review

Whenever I hear Overlord or Demon King, the only thing I generally think of is Disgaea. So when I saw the first trailer of Etrange Overlord that was being published by NIS America, I had to get my hands on it.

Game Name: Etrange Overlord
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC
Reviewed On: PlayStation 5
Developer(s): Gemdrops Inc., Supermiche LLC, BROCCOLI Co
Publisher(s): NIS America
Release Date: March 26th, 2026
Price: $49.99

Etrange Overlord follows Étrange von Rosenburg, royalty from the world. After she gets wrongfully accused of planning an assassination attempt on the rest of the imperial family, she is executed. She gets sent down to Hell and decides that she will use her innate dark magical powers to take over the joint herself. She now wants to live her life freely and eat as many sweets as possible.

Becoming The Overlord

There is a world map system in Etrange Overlord. You can travel around Hell searching for items to grab and missions to complete. Missions will be shown as towers on the map; you can walk or drive to them, depending on how far along the story you are. You can view side stories on the world map that can offer more details to the relationships in Hell, or the ongoing narrative on Earth as certain individuals deal with the aftereffects of Étrange von Rosenburg’s death. You can also go to your home base at any time by holding down the triangle button while on the world map.

The home base has a place to prepare your forces before battles in missions take place. You can have Étrange von Rosenburg’s maid prepare food before battle for your team to get passive buffs. You can also upgrade your weapons for your characters with certain items you find in the field. You can dispatch characters of your party to certain locations in Hell to get extra items after missions. You can even upgrade the items you get in the various musical lanes throughout combat.

Combat in Etrange Overlord is fast-paced. You have a party of four characters. You control one of them, and the other three will autonomously move throughout the battlefield, attacking enemies and trying to accomplish objectives. Lanes move throughout the battlefield that carry boosts. Swords increase your character’s attack power, shields increase your defense, stars give you a special attack you can use with one of the triggers, and cakes will give you health back. Later in the game, you can grab electric symbols and throw them at machines to start them up or give them energy.

Missions generally have one main objective, such as defeating all the enemies or collecting many sweets before the enemy can. There are also sub-objectives that, when accomplished, give you more experience for your Happy Life Level. It is important to accomplish these as your Happy Life Level determines your characters’ levels and what items you can buy in the shop.

Is This Disgaea?

Dealing with Hell and becoming an overlord isn’t new to fans of NIS America, as that is a very similar premise to the Disgaea games. The video game Etrange Overlord is even being created by Sohei Niikawa, who is the creator of the Disgaea series. That said, the game itself isn’t in the same universe as Disgaea. It is a brand new world and a brand new style of combat. The designs of the characters were actually done by the creator of Re: Zero, Shinichiro Otsuka.

I think the art direction is a fun one. Each character has a lot of life and personality. It also shows a great deal of uniqueness to them as well. You can see their interactions with their facial expressions, too. Etrange Overlord has a lot of fun moments that can make you laugh. The art accentuates that perfectly. That said, the world design isn’t as good as the character designs. The world is very barren and desert-based, with not a lot of ways to differentiate one part from another. The building design with the castle is great, but it does make me wish there was more thought in this world of Hell.

Etrange Overlord

Overall, Etrange Overlord is a different game than I was expecting. I thought the game would play up the more musical aspects. That said, the opera sections are great, and you get to see a bit of fun absurdist dance choreography and singing. Even though the gameplay only involves that, with the musical notes coming down the lanes. I also think the story had some nice twists in it, even if most of them were pretty easy to guess. The absurdist humor of Sohei Niikawa is present in this game, and it adds a lot to the fun of Etrange Overlord. This game is a fun time, and you can even choose a sweets mode difficulty if you just want to see the story and the characters.

Etrange Overlord will be released on March 26th, 2026, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Etrange Overlord was provided to us by NIS America for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.