Thread 724522920

Why is Disgaea 4 so much more polished even though 5 is newer?

It was the last Disgaea game with SOVL. 5's mechanics are good but it's story and characters suck ass. 4 hit that Spirit Halloween netherworld vibe perfectly, but 5 feels too much like a modern shonen anime. Flonne won btw

>>724523260
kill yourself, the characters in four are unbearable with Fuka's dream shit,Valvatorez's sardine gimmick, and Emizel's everything

>>724523260
Disgaea 5 just seems like a stripped down version of 4 with shittier characters, cutscenes, design, music, and mechanics to me.

never played past 2. what am i missing?

>>724523686
The grind.

>>724523686
A massive downgrade, then the best game in the series, then a slight downgrade, then a huge downgrade, then an upgrade

>>724522920 (OP)
>D4 has the most representation of any of the series in the newest games DLC characters

They know what sells. 6/7 of the D4 MCs can be purchased. No other game goes past 4

Playing Disgaea 5 now, still mid story. My only complaint is having to buy spell areas for Mana instead of getting them as part of leveling the spells.

>>724522920 (OP)
They should make a new restart of the Disgaea series.
Make a new one set in the future about the son of Laharl and Flonne.

>>724522920 (OP)
Should I play 4 or 1 after I beat 5?

>>724524225
You should play 1 then 4 for the lore. 4 has D1 cameos.

>>724523543
At least you remember SOMETHING about them. The characters in 5 have NOTHING memorable going on. Killia is bad at drawing and can cook, wow. Red Magnus is like, a strong dude. Seraphina and Usalia are boring, aside from their sexy designs they're unlikable. 5 added a few good new ideas in terms of gameplay mechanics, but in terms of vibe it was way off.
>>724523686
Not much honestly, the gameplay loop is pretty much the same in every entry. Cool mechanics like Magichange, Fusion, and dual wielding weapons get added, but also shitty mechanics like chara-world get added, so it's an up-and-down experience.
>>724524014
Laharl's only memorable trait is that he turns into a girl now. His story is so old the writers don't even know what to do with it, like Toriyama forgetting DB subplots and characters

>>724523260
Four's cast/story was pretty bad too, but it still had a lengthy post game to enjoy. 5 onward said fuck that and became a boring slog.
>>724524353
I remember Usalia saying "don't kill the murderous loli that has genocided countless netherworlds or we will be as bad as she is!" and everyone agreeing with her, which makes me hate them even more than 4's pokemon speak cast.

Disgaea 1 still has the best cast and story. They should update it with gameplay mechanics from the newer games while keeping everything else the same.

>>724524353
Laharl is great and so is the rest of the cast.

We can all agree 3 is the shittiest, right?

>>724525220
No, because Mao and Almaz's character growth was enjoyable to watch unfold. You could make an argument for worst setting or something like that, but the cast itself was fine.

>>724525470
What about the graphics making your eyes bleed?

>>724525220
Nope it actually had a good story. 5 is the worst and its not even close. Im not even counting 6 and 7 cause disgaea died once it moved to 3d

>>724525470
No. Mao a shit. Almaz was cool but the plot revolved around retarded Mao.

>>724522920 (OP)
Did not realize how shitty this art is. Dragon Ball Super level of bad.

>>724525701
Did you finish it? Mao arguably had the most character development out of all protags.

>>724525654
Its just 2's sprites again. Not really bad in my book.

>>724523260
>story and characters suck ass
This has been the case for every Disgaea since 2. 1 was a complete fluke success when it comes to characters and story.

>>724524947
Laharl is great in D1, but the fact that he never grows up or has his story progressed in any subsequent game is a letdown. One of the more difficult to obtain endings in D1 involves him leaving his overlord title to Etna, saying he needs to go on a journey to mature before he claims the throne. Perfect setup for a sequel. Then DD2 happens and not only is the setup thrown out the window, but then the entire story of DD2 is a fucking nothingburger too. Laharl gets turned into a girl, and that's all anybody remembers. The gacha makes this even worse, there might be more girl Laharl alts than his normal form now.

>>724522920 (OP)
Something about 5's grind made it feel so rewarding than 4. 4 also has way more content and easily the best out of all the games.

>>724525801
I did. The whole heart vault hiding his trauma of getting his dad killed was neat and explains his behavior but it doesn't make me like him or the awful chemistry he had with most of the cast.

JC Flonne slop
d.uguu.se/GjfvfgZv.mp4

>>724526082
Don't look, it's inflation shit.

I almost loved Disgaea4. Like a lot, a lot.
But I am genuinely allergic to the stat-growth modifiers. Not stat-modifiers, but stat-growth modifiers.

The game actively punishes you for doing any grinding or anything extra, until you've gotten all the stat-growth modifiers.
So optimally you should just speed-run the entire game until you've got all the stat-growth modifiers, but the problem is, that by the time you've got them, you'll already be in the post-game.
Granted that the "post"-game is like half the game. But it still genuinely sucks that it punishes anything that isn't story progression prior to that point.

It just feels very anti-Disgaea considering how core the wide variety of ways to grind and do extra stuff was to game design of all the games. Where realizing where, when, and how to do it, was a large and core element of the game. And to do instead punish the player because they hadn't already acquired and optimized their stat-growth modifiers.

That just really sucks and it sadly kind of killed the entire franchise onwards for me.
Maybe I'm just too autistic (though I always had the impression Disgaea used to appeal to autists), but I just can't enjoy them for as long as they've got stat-growth modifiers.

>>724525927
They should just go aggressive and have a sequel set in the future with the son of Laharl and the descendants of Gordon

>>724526143
You can literally just kill the item bosses infinite times by gencying out for mostly max stats. This just leaves hp and sp to max, which you can do with serums on your final Reincarnation though that shot is ass.

Better off getting unique innocents on your perfect items than serum grinding imo.

>>724526323
There is a LN that is a few hundred years in the future, where Gordon's great granddaughter? Joins up with demon gang, and they go on to stop some sort of conspiracy to take over Makai.
It's probably not canon though.

>>724525860
I wouldn't consider them "suck ass" for 3 and 4 at least. But you're right. Looking at the rest of NIS's game catalog, they really are a "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" kind of company. Nowadays they can't throw as much shit, but they're still trying.
>>724526082
Looks like ass

Sex with Fuka, then telling her it was a dream the next morning

>>724526791
I think the entire message of D1 gets thrown out the window with the infinite number of Makai Realms, and planet Earths?
It's just really odd having to get the message about how demons aren't all assholes by going through Laharl's journey, only to have demons pop up in D2 not at all being evil dickheads.

>>724525801
character development does not make a character good

>>724525927
I hate girl Laharl and the blatant disrespect he gets during the cameo scenarios. They did him dirty in every game after

>>724527027
In D2 the demons are humans who have been transformed, so it makes a little sense for them to not be outright evil. I get what you mean about D1 though, it feels like Laharl's netherworld is supposed to be kind of important in some way. But in later games it's pretty much never mentioned in any noteworthy fashion again. The ending of D1 made it seem like some huge advancement was made with angel-human-demon relations everywhere, but if there are 1000 other netherworlds out there does it really affect them? Disgaea could have some amazing world-building if NIS writing wasn't so ass.

>>724526605
I didn't know about that. But I just imagine the main trio middle aged and the kind of personality that the son of Laharl and Flonne would have.

>>724522920 (OP)
The optional base theme song is a banger and elevated it to the best Disagea for me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6K_7E5qkPk

>>724522920 (OP)
My problem with D5 aside from Usalia (and maybe Christo) being the only one I like is the setting. The previous games have what feels to be a completed world with it's multiple biomes whereas 5's multiple netherworlds are just gimmicks of the biomes, whether it's an all ice NW or all fire NW, etc. It tells you that you explore a gorillion NWs but it doesn't feel that way.

>>724524225
If you're going to play the series, start with 1 and work your way up because unless you're masochistic, 4 and 5 will spoil you with it's QoL improvements.