Why Disgaea 5 is significantly worse than Disgaea and Disgaea 2 (some spoilers)

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

1) Poorer story. In fairness the story isn't THAT bad and the basic theme mirrors the Wizard of Oz with each of the characters growing spiritually during the game. But Disgaea mixed a sometimes complex plot about coping with grief and loss with learning to love again with some deliberate silliness and the squabbles between the central triangle of Laharrl, Etna, and Flonne being always amusing. In D2 Axell, Adell's younger siblings, and the relations betweenn Adell, Rosalin, and Tink provide the comic drama. The character in D5 were too much archetypes to be really interesting.

2) Less memorable battles. Disgaea had the Zombie with the special body parts, a retreating Flonne suddenly summoning a Dragon on the low level party, the EDF, the calmly beautiful manga angels solemnly intoning "die" like a Halloween monster as they tried to kill you. D2 perhaps less so but I always felt that each new battle was a significant challenge - or most of them were. Other than in recruiting the vampire I didn't lose a level the entire game until the end of the story and it was only the very final battle where I only had two characters standing at the end of the level.

3) There's no doubt that the DLC in D5 completely unbalances the game. Metallia in particular is a monster of destruction, having all variants of elemental spells meant she was devastating in attack, and her Overload skill was great at clearing a battlefield of wounded but still fighting opponents. Nisa was stronger than Seraphina for most of the game and Laharral and Zetta meant that bunny girl (with effectively one special for most of the game) and Zeroken didn't make the roster. I didn't even take the million HL. Notably I never used a restorative item the entire main game because having two specialist healers in my squad meant I didn't need them.

4) Whilst the base was a good idea the ideas were limited and some actively bad. Curry was - basically a boost you rarely needed. It made life slightly easier on the worlds where the entire planet was toxic. I messed around with my base design but never actually used it for a game effect. I preferred D2's recruitment that built up families of characters but the DLC recruitment was far better in D5 where you actually had to work to get your DLC characters. I felt morally queasy about the interrogation and torture mechanic - I thought we were supposed to be the good guys ? The exploration mechanic meant that some characters I'd virtually never used in battle were twice the level of my main team. Also why was I fighting other Overlords ? I destroyed an entire planet for a rare chocolate bar. Didn't feel good about that one. Only the quests were an unequivocally fun addition to the game.

5) More is less. By the end of the game having recruited one of virtually every character class (including normal variants of Overlords)n with one accidental duplicate I had 92 characters. I finished the game only having substantially "played" with about half of them.

6) There's no obvious "after game" route. In addition the ending which is a very final one makes doing anything else with the characters seem rather pointless. Their futures had already been written. Martial Training ? Killing the same three demons over and over again ? Compared to the additional story elements from D1 and D2 they were somewhat of a let down.

7) Item world was generally better. Being smaller and often less populated it didn't take 1.5 - 2 hours to do an item run. Either my characters were tougher or the enemy was weaker because from relatively early in the game in item world virtually all my characters were one-shotting far higher enemy. The extra bonuses were good, the absence of pirates (so far), and their replacement by a huge unbeatable monster was bad. The shops in item world were disappointing because they didn't always have rare or legendary items. Items however were generally weedier than previous games. Also there was virtually no variation in comments by demons hanging around the bonus and healing level in item world.

8) Some mechanics were obscure. I completed to game without understanding how sub-weapons were meant to work, the purpose of the fun weapons, and why sometimes arbitrarily characters would either swap weapons or lose them entirely.

Going forward with Disgaea I'd like to see a far more structured post end game on future editions and "simultaneous" battles where your lesser characters could have a leading role.

S.x.

[CarThief]

1) Eh, never played other Disgea games but yeah, the story's pretty meh from what i'm told, compared to others. Less humor we came to know and love and more cheesy "growing as a person" boring stuff that wouldn't be out of place in a young kid's cartoon designed to teach those little monsters a sense of morality and to behave.

2) I can't comment on other Disgeas nor compare, but that sounds like boringness/story thing and not a gameplay thing. Gameplay-wise, D5 seems fine to me. (If a bit easy, but i take it all Disgea games are, in their normal non-bonus/non-postgame content?)

3) I guess it's a case of "use it if you want to tear apart the game"? I abstained from using DLC units until the story was over. They're a nice addition, though, having extremely fun/useful skills for you to copy via the Chara World onto others.

4) Disregarding the torture thing (eh, its a part of war, and what else would demons do with POWs?), the Curry boost is really more of a late-game thing for bonus fights. Trust me, it helps getting 100% critical rate and immense HP, SP and HP/SP healing from the x3 Elixir & 100 thimbles curry combo.

5) Fair enough, more units to gather then to grind up and play with. Most games have this issue. Atleast if you like their (non-unique) Evilities, you could copy em onto your units. Heck, the Overlords you encounter in the story using evilities like the regen even allow you to give a non-unique unit their overloads to catch up with the unique characters a bit.

6) I cannot compare to other Disgeas, but there's additional post-game story bits to unlock. Like say, the restoration of Toto Bunny, that mirage netherworld, the Carnage Dimension , etc. Most of it seems unlockable via the Dark Assembly as bills. Could also fight a (really hard) boss if you want. It's basically just optional goals.

Think there's more to Martial Training, too. The last level has 5 XP/Mana/etc boys in it. Keep at it with progress and you'll unlock more. That said, they aren't the way to level up fast once you unlock the Carnage Dimension.

What got me quick levels then was entering a Carnage-world Elixir, setting difficulty to 20 stars beforehand, and just picking up Geo Stones and throwing em onto enemies/neutrals to break them instantly. This won't reduce the XP gained as it's not considered a deathblow. You could litterally go from like 1 to 4000ish that way. Or more/less depending on XP modifiers.

7) I also cannot compare to other Disgeas, but yeah, enemies get killed pretty quick, especially if you've optimally stacked some attack-enhancing Evilities. But it kinda is meant to work this way to level up a item properly, having say, 5 allies clear out 5 enemies in turn 1, over and over and over each level. That or Sage-blast the whole thing, which isn't a full-bar i think, but it's faster. Never got to trying out the latter, personally, though.

8) Yeah, some mechanics are definitely rather obscure. Like, as a seasoned player (on the Switch), i STILL don't know why some units like the Shield Knight can shield allies 3 times, but other classes could say, only do it once or twice. WTF?

But besides a few crazy tidbits none know of, most things are kind of something you gotta explore or read about, which i guess is common for highly-technical games like these. There's just so much to unpack, but that's a good thing because you're not going anywhere anyway, with endless things to grind up and fool around with.

Honestly, i had a blast discovering more and more options when building a 10-man team with maxed out stats. Every day was a case of "oh, what if i try THIS Evility setup?" and "oh, wow, those Innocents work REALLY well together".
Think i overtuned em, though. When i finally finished em, no-one really beat em, if the map stats where anything to go by. Ah well, as a map-maker/modder, the fun is mostly in the creation aspect, so whatever.

[DragonBaldee]

Gonna Sum up my feelings with 2 Selling points.

1. Disgaea had story driven Limit Breaks and abilities, something that was only touched upon in Final Fantasy 9.

1a. The Main cast actully had really useful skills with said Limit Breaks such as Red Super Universe (Tank Mode), Balor Gaze (Thot Control) and Broken Faith Magia ("Klatu Barato.... A'hramegh..)

1b. DLC Characters could transform too, Rozilin's True Form and Valvatorez's Tyrant form are awesome to see and use in battle with OP abilities attached too.

1c. Red Magnus is friggin hilarious and to see a dude bro absorb the sun and crush/swat three planets with one swipe is next level Anime insanity.

2. It's Disgaea. Odds are if you saw the title you already bought the game and don't have time to complain when 20 Star Carnage Baal is waiting.

2a. Why are you still reading this?

2b. Go home... If you are home have a snack...

2c. ..Sardines are good

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

Hi DB,

With D2 I did main campaign, did Axell campaign, and then I redid the main campaign until final battle. I opened up the series of six challenges (Cave of Carnage ?) and did all save the last one because I wasn't prepared to grind for ages just to get a second character to high level who could throw 6. I also used online guide to open dark world which generally was fun. I was grinding towards two targets - getting enough maps to open up whatever it was the treasure maps unlocked and also the boss battles. It took an incredible degree of effort to take down a level 1,000 Laharrl with my level 350ish characters.

I totally agree that the special powers are awesome to use. My ten were Killia, Seraphina, Nisa, Metallia, Christo (healer 1), Red Magnus, Laharrl, Zetta, my own created healer that I swapped with Flonne until right at the end, and my own gunman. TBH far too many gun specialists for a balanced party but Nisa had something like a seven or eight movement (used a slot for shoes) and for the gunman the sniper power that could hit at 12 squares was too good not to use. Metallia and Red Magnus were responsible for the majority of my kills, particularly Red Magnus in Overload mode.

Having finished the main game though there's a definitive "The End" mapping out the life thereafter of each of the main characters which makes playing on kinda pointless. Also the bill to open up the lowest access play area beyond the present currently stands at roughly 16% which is too low to bribe a victory from.

The exploration mechanic was kinda depressing because of the number of worlds "accidentally" destroyed. It happens once it's an accident, after that it's recklessness at best. Also if there was a boss there you could pick a fight with him which invariably destroyed his planet. I wasn't sure how this was supposed to help anything.

So basically thereafter you're just left with grinding item world and occasionally Chara world which is just grinding ...

S.x.

[bobhome2]

The New Game+ portion of Disgaea is always just grinding. Nothing surprising that D5 is the same.

The exploration aspect is pretty meh, and balancing it out so you don't simply destroy the world is something you, as a player, need to handle.

But I think it's pretty cool that you don't have to start a whole new run in D5 to access that endgame stuff, and there's more story, too - so that's cool.

But I absolutely share your opinion on gun users: Disgaea's been in love with guns and fists for a really, really long time now. I'm not a big fan.

[Nexodas]

I disagree but you are entitled to your opinions

[BiggieTheDog]

Use cheats and invest in xp gain and increase the strength of enemies. Go to a straight forward stage with the people you want to level. Stack in a tower. Use tower laser and insta kill the enemies. Profit.

[Sad Cat]

after playing D4+ for over a hundred hours and maxing out valvatorez, as well as playing D1 and 2 beforehand, I can say D5 is the least interesting of the 4. the main cast just seems kind of cobbled together for no real reason. the events in each episode are the same thing (oh no, another netherworld is about to explode!) rather than the gradual increase in scale that the other games progressed through. I'm considering just stopping since i'm not enjoying it, guess i'll wait for disgaea 6.

[Edifier]

1: From what I remember of the story of Disgaea 1 it's basically summed up to "Laharl: I'm gonna become the greatest Overlord!"
He then proceeds to do just that. Beating enemies stronger and stronger. I can't exactly remember any major plot changes that was worth remembering.

It isn't the great story people make it out to be.
The second game was a bit better because there was some love story involved and actual stuff going on.

For Disgaea 5. There was quite a lot of stuff going on. Story kept growing and more and more stuff was revealed to you.

2: That was quite meh to be honest.All battles get pretty similar and in end game it's just about Sage wiping the area.

3: I recall DLC characters being powerful before too.

4: You're playing Demon Overlords. Who quite happily hits and shoot each other for the most minute thing. Torture chamber fits right into all of it.

5: Basically every Disgaea ever made. You stick with the few powerful ones because it takes a lot of time to grind up other characters to ridiculous levels.

6: It has more end game than the previous games had. Places where you can sink in a ton of hours into.

7: Not all of Item worlds maps are large. I've had plenty of small maps when doing item runs.
Also this was the case before as well. It's hard to find a balance and for me I'm wiping each floor in about 2-3 spells most of the time.

8: I'm quite sure they explain the mechanic as they have explained most things. You just ignored it and didn't use it.

[Péricles Maximus]

Why do some people consider their opinion to be the absolute truth and feel the need to show how everyone who thinks different is wrong?

[DragonBaldee]

Originally posted by Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder:

Hi DB,

With D2 I did main campaign, did Axell campaign, and then I redid the main campaign until final battle. I opened up the series of six challenges (Cave of Carnage ?) and did all save the last one because I wasn't prepared to grind for ages just to get a second character to high level who could throw 6. I also used online guide to open dark world which generally was fun. I was grinding towards two targets - getting enough maps to open up whatever it was the treasure maps unlocked and also the boss battles. It took an incredible degree of effort to take down a level 1,000 Laharrl with my level 350ish characters.

I totally agree that the special powers are awesome to use. My ten were Killia, Seraphina, Nisa, Metallia, Christo (healer 1), Red Magnus, Laharrl, Zetta, my own created healer that I swapped with Flonne until right at the end, and my own gunman. TBH far too many gun specialists for a balanced party but Nisa had something like a seven or eight movement (used a slot for shoes) and for the gunman the sniper power that could hit at 12 squares was too good not to use. Metallia and Red Magnus were responsible for the majority of my kills, particularly Red Magnus in Overload mode.

Having finished the main game though there's a definitive "The End" mapping out the life thereafter of each of the main characters which makes playing on kinda pointless. Also the bill to open up the lowest access play area beyond the present currently stands at roughly 16% which is too low to bribe a victory from.

The exploration mechanic was kinda depressing because of the number of worlds "accidentally" destroyed. It happens once it's an accident, after that it's recklessness at best. Also if there was a boss there you could pick a fight with him which invariably destroyed his planet. I wasn't sure how this was supposed to help anything.

So basically thereafter you're just left with grinding item world and occasionally Chara world which is just grinding ...

S.x.

I had been taking a break from steam to play the Remake and I just played through D4 on PS4 not knowing that Steam just came out with it a little while ago. I have yet to tackle D2. Are there a boat load of DLC that would make waiting for the Complete+ version worth it?

Aside from that I can say where every Disgaea game breaks down in fun factor for me is only when I beat the second to last hardest boss in the game and after collecting a couple legendary weapons and leveling them to Max in item world. I should say its not the fun breaks down its just the game naturally come to and end when you reach or approach the end of accessible content (storywise).

I find whenever I reach that "feeling" of pointlessness as a sign of relief that I can put the addiction down and move onto another in knowing the game has been beaten even if a level 9999999999 Baal still exists. Beating that would require me to listen to a longwinded narrow fixed method by a fun killing "mathmatitician" youtuber. If I wanted to listen to that garbage I'd watch WOW faboss guides. Nope, Blast Baal in his face with a Zetta Beam for 10 GaJillion damage and I'm good.

Carnage Liezerota, Legendary Overlord at 20 Stars, Carnage Baal that is normally what the endgame is all about in Disgaea and its no small secret that making a Glass Cannon that can oneshot the boss first turn is what the game is all about. Essentially you are making your chosen character into a Desco like Final Boss.

If I could change one thing it would be how only the one who kills the enemy gets EXP and levels up. That really makes it impossible to continue having a Tank, support or misc benefit character and lead every player down the glass cannon route. Only the damage dealer gets the levels needed to be relevant. Unfortunately that won't change anytime soon, but thats my only gripe about this franchise.

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Originally posted by DragonBaldee:

If I could change one thing it would be how only the one who kills the enemy gets EXP and levels up. That really makes it impossible to continue having a Tank, support or misc benefit character and lead every player down the glass cannon route. Only the damage dealer gets the levels needed to be relevant. Unfortunately that won't change anytime soon, but thats my only gripe about this franchise.

I mean, healers do get exp from healing (that was introduced in D2) and in D5 you get exp from using items. Yes, it's much easier to get exp by killing things, but that just means spending some time as damage dealers then changing to healers or tank once you're max level.

There's also team and tower attacks that can help level up weaker characters.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

Hi DB,

I'd give a cautiously strong recommendation to D2 for a D5 fan. The story is enlivened by some fun interactions between the PCs in cut scenes and some NPCs. There's a decent percentage of levels require definite careful planning on how to beat them rather than just powering through. Item world is far more like the D1 original than D 5 but the rewards are more generous.

It's advertised as D2 complete - there's no DLC and it's been released for ages so I imagine that the D 2 you get now will be complete as if gets. After beating the main campaign there's an automatic connection to a follow-one campaign that's actually a prequel for an NPC.

There are approximately a dozen DLC characters but none of them are as game breaking as some of the DLC characters in D5. Indeed in D2 Pram is annoyingly limited if left to her basic skills. Indeed at first her only use is taking on two enemy in a column directly adjacent to her with ice vulnerability. Which made her extremely less versatile than my ice skull.

Again with D2 like D1 you need three mages all of the same type - skulls or mages - one of fire, one of wind, and one of ice and once they've been raised to an adequately high level you can recruit a Star Mage. I used my main healer to recruit the Star Mage because they can use any spell their apprentice can use when they are adjacent to them and once they've used a spell 10 times it becomes one of their skills. My healer/ Star Mage was an engine of destruction as I went ahead.

Virtually everything in D2 has a 50% vulnerability to one of the elements (although for Dragons (and the other element immune classes) that 50% vulnerability can be on the element to which they are fully immune). A lot of my destruction in D2 was done by mages because they can do huge AOE damage at range. They remain squishy however so you do need fighters and healers to finish the boss battles.

After the two campaigns and re-doing the first campaign to nearly the end to get your characters back there's a series of six battles that open up but the final one is a b...it tough -demanding, inter alia, a second heavy knight for throwing duties.

In item world you can gather 16 maps from pirates that unlock a different set of maps.

There are also boss battles - some of which give you recruitable characters. Flonne and Laharrl come into this category. Laharrl at Level 1000 made a mess of my level 250 -350 characters so more item world grinding was required.

I've heard that D4 has a far smoother post game. Is this right ?

S.x.

[DragonBaldee]

Hey Gallifrey

D4 is a pretty faithful precursor to D5. I can see why people love it as the characters are crazier, the story is more like D1 in that you are trying to take over the Netherworld and later everything else. etc. etc.

It's post game is a little complicated.

D4 Complete won't allow you to get DLC Characters until after you beat the game. There is only a short scene with them in a small room and you basically one shot them and they join your party. Being so close to D3 there are alot more of those characters than others and if you haven't played D3 you WILL be confused as to who they are.

So you might want to look up a guide before trying to continue from there because a lot of characters and story must be unlocked by passing bills. Only after those scenarios are unlocked can you even access other DLCs. Prinny Kurtis is a rare encounter in Item town that must be found found times before you can recruit him and Finally meet Baal.

Charaworld will level up aptitude MUCH slower 1% at a time and you can only use it 6 times. Making the 300% Aptitude in D5 impossible. Item world is still a thing though.

After that there is Dimension X which you can only access after a getting a random Mystery room in the item world 50+ floors in in a vaulable item. Which gives you a map you must buy to access one Dimension X board per map that you must then use to find a character that you must capture and interogate to have a random chance to find a Piece of Flonne's ship that comes in 3 colors and you need only the green ones and once you you complete the ship and beat 40% of Dimension X THEN you can access the Carnage Dimension which ... is just slightly higher level mobs and the kicker is for the top Tier level 40 Equipment you have to beat other people's maps because level 200+ Legendarys don't guarantee the next best weapon.

You can see where D5 made life alot easier. I've played D1 and beat Baal and Priere but this endgame would not have been possible without a boat load of guides and patience. If you are a true veteran it won't phase you much though! ... But seriously you will need gamefaqs.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

Thanks DB,

As with D5 I waited for the price to drop before I bought it but D4 is on my wishlist. From the intro video it looks more like D2 where reincarnation is key to grinding out the highest powers. I'll miss D5's "open" recruitment where it was very easy to get monster classes if D4 still has the older system for recruitment. I think I got put off with what I felt was a huge difficulty spike in the post game in D5 with what is not only a very difficult but very tedious battle against all the duplicates. Just before I uninstalled I came close with taking out about half and nearly killing the big boss but finally was whittled down and overwhelmed. It's a battle where your guys have to be taking out all enemy within range and are able to withstand that special power which involves the running battle with guns and a rocket launcher with virtually no damage to win.

What are you after in the sale ?

S.x.

[Brightside]

To be frank its very hard to go back to D1/D2. A lot of QoL changes were implemented in D4/D5 and no semblance of balance existed between the classes/weapons and item world. If you started with D4/D5 I would not reccommend going back.

D1 - Every class under performs compared to Laharl, Skulls, Majins. Weapon variety is extremely poor also as everything is bad outside of Swords/Staffs when going into the post game.

Item world - Understandably the first and most unrefined item world. While the item world isn't as RNG heavy as D2 the amount of bad setups you can get is a bit of a nuisance.


D2 - Slightly better class balance with the introduction of class abilities. Has the same problem as D1 though where most of these abilities were not well thought out rail roading options going into the post game. (I.E more then likely using some combination of Adell, MK, someone holding a sword)

Item World - While the item world was greatly expanded the game suffers from the most heavily RNG dependent weapon growth system. If you want to make decent equipment you need to reset/reload a comical amount of times.

Don't even need to go into how dumb felonies were also