What should the next theme for Disgaea be?

[ZekeFreek]

I guess the Disgaea series will end once they run out of different kinds of clothinghairstyles to flow dramatically in the wind.

As a side note, I think D3's story was fine. I actually think D2 is the weakest link in the series.

[Rhuen]

Well they are all RPG parodies, Disgaea 2 just played it straighter than the rest did (the parody elements were subdued compared to the other games); but I personally felt that worked to its advantage.

Disgaea 3 bugged me, the characters worked fine, but only together *I can't imagine tolerating any one of them alone* some elements were barely alluded to (Sapphire has a thing for cute stuff, but it doesn't come up all that often and if you weren't paying 100% attention you'd miss it and wonder why she was falling for a teddy bear on the ground). The plot flow felt a bit jumbled and disconnected at times. The concept of school is hell isn't bad but the reverse psychology that becomes double reverse psychology on the demons felt more convoluted than it needed to be.
and it felt at times it was trying to parody the cosmosphere stuff from ArTonelico (Heart Bank) but it felt forced; like if you can't really fit the element into the world in a way that makes sense. So glad the Heart Bank is unique to that Netherworld and hopefully we never see another one like it again. I guess my biggest complaints were it tried to force the parody elements in a way that they didn't feel fluid with the world.

D4 definently subdued the theme a little so it wasn't so completly blatant and worked with that Netherworld; demons using government as a way to control their otherwise chaotic society. Feels natural, heck its pretty much what we do to control the chaotic nature of humans.

It is why I could see a Corporation theme, an overlord as CEO, controlling an Endless Labyrinthion city of Buisinesses and red-tape, and meetings, and work work work work. (I actually have in my own universe a Hell world like this (The city of Endless Buisiness); in the Black Netherworld it floats about like a space station made of buildings, hallways, going in all directions around a central core, there are structures dating back to ancient money changers, bizaars, clear up to modern factories and sky scrappers, buisiness of all kind and the demons, as well as soul bodies (human souls trapped in new forms as punishment) working here indoctrined into a system. With a scary buisiness woman (Cechantis) in charge of the whole thing.

Of course on the Disgaea side, I could see the "hero" being a demon who realizes demons are meant to be chaotic and opposes this system, seeing no point in it, (maybe a demon who has been in the mail room for centuries).


However I am also partial to the idea of a Movie makers Netherworld where demons make their own horror movies to send to the human world to collect fear energy and the main character is an up and coming Actor or Actress out to be the latest horror villain; "I will BE THE NEXT GREAT HORROR MONSTER!"

[dood]

I guess the Disgaea series will end once they run out of different kinds of clothinghairstyles to flow dramatically in the wind.

As a side note, I think D3's story was fine. I actually think D2 is the weakest link in the series.

In terms of story it was the weakest but I think it shined in terms of characters.

[ShadowJetX]

I think the next "theme" should be about respect... in a sense.

[SiftRock]

I guess the Disgaea series will end once they run out of different kinds of clothinghairstyles to flow dramatically in the wind.

As a side note, I think D3's story was fine. I actually think D2 is the weakest link in the series.

I've never seen more wrong in my whole life, I'm so mad about video games!

Disgaea 2 had a fantastic cast, each of them had a purpose and played a part in moving Adell and Rozalins plot along in some fashion, if you remove Zenon from the plot and think about the story being about those two in specific you'll notice how every character plays a part in showing traits and flaws within the main 2, while being interesting enough on their own. Everyone gets their own shared amount of screentime and while it may not of been as "lol random" as Disgaea 1, it knew what it was setting out to do with it's story and had a clear cut start and end with proper direction and some pretty decent writing.

Disgaea 3 characters on the other hand are a fucking mess. I warn anyone reading that there are spoilers that follow.

Mao is the worst character and honestly Almaz should of been the MC, there's no excuse for how badly written he is, through literally the entire game they constantly say "Mao opened his heart he's totally good now" but never reflect that, not once does he ever change his attitude, and unlike Laharl he never matures and stops being a brat, from the start of the story to the end of it he's a total asshole, and you have to depend on other characters to tell you he changed because they didn't bother to actually do any decent writing for him. I truly think he's the WORST RPG protag in any game I have ever played and is one of the most shameful examples of bad writing in video games. The Vita version doesn't help at ALL as it once again has to resort to Almaz popping in on scenes "Oh don't worry Mao isn't being mean he's really opened his heart!!" no. Bad writing, show don't tell, ugh, I could go on for hours on how he's honestly just a shitty Laharl clone who never matches up to the original.

Almaz as I said is about the only one that's written slightly well, he starts out hating demons and by the end of the game he's changed to accept them and be friendly with them, his speech around them changes, and he learns it isn't safe to judge people just because of a tag on them, he has character growth and characters don't have to keep spamming "Almaz totally trusts demons now." to get it across, it also helps I like his English VA

Sapphire gets a pass from me as well, because she has a established character arc and she and Almaz help each other grow as characters, though if Almaz wasn't around she'd fall on her face. They establish that she has problems with how careless she can be, and use that as a actual fault that she and Almaz have to work through (due to the whole teddy bear thing.) After that scene you see her more cautious of cute things and more willing to fight them or get rid of them if she thinks there's trouble, it's small but it's growth in character.

Mr.Champloo is literally just a shitty rip off of Vyres/Mid-boss, I cannot stand his awful VA, his stupid laugh, and his overall shitty personality. I hate that his character goes nowhere, he has no meaningful impact on the story (He shows up and states the obvious and then gets called a genius a lot, what) and if you tear away his cooking gimmick then he's as boring as stale soup.

Raspberyl would be a good character IF Mao changed at all, she's constantly trying to get him to improve his ways but due to never changing, she herself never changes, and has no meaningful growth as a character and as a result becomes a one trick pony, what she says the first time you meet her doesn't change at all by the ending, and every scene has her, in a nutshell, just saying the exact same thing over and over again. There is 0 improvement or change.

Her Cronies are the worst though, I don't even know why they're in the game, and it bothers me I'm not allowed to delete them, flatter then cardboard and lacking there own personality Kyoko and Asuka are honest to god shameful. Not only are they just slight recolors of generic classes, they're totally shitty characters as well, there is not a single good thing I can say about them. Least with Mao it's "he has a cool coat I guess" the story would literally not change at all if they were removed, and I hate that I can't throw them in the detention room and get rid of them forever.

Overall Disgaea 3 is a mess, on it's plot, it's only got 7-8 chapters to work with, and has no clear goal and bumbles around aimlessly trying it's hardest to convince you that some kind of change has happened and there's a lesson about opening your heart, but it just isn't there. The writing for the game and how bad the cast is almost kept me from purchasing D4 because of how awful it is, and it physically hurts to see someone praise Mao or 3's story at all.

It honestly feels like Disgaea 1 was goofy but had evolved to fit the more serious endgame featuring character growth and cast that was fully changing and improving up to the final scene, when Laharl was ready to trade lives with Flonne, they didn't have some guy in the back farting and laughing going LAHARL I GUESS YOU REALLY ARE A GOOD PERSON AFTER ALL YOU DID IT YOU LEARNED ABOUT LOVE YOU KNOW WHAT LOVE IS GOOD JOB DISCOVERING LOVE, it was a natural progression and when he made his choice, it made sense,

Disgaea 2 was far more subtle in it's humor, it had a clear goal (defeat zenon) but ended up pulling the rug out if you noticed and became all about changing Rozalin and showing her the outside world, there's a lot of subtle touches like her team attack chance slightly growing with Adell through the story (First fight in the game with the two of them it's 1%, by the end it's 99%) All of the characters put the two in interesting situations that they have to work together to get through, you can see character faults and they get called out on it several times for not being perfect and they work to change it and become better, and when the climax comes along you can realize that the Zenon was just the framework for the plot. Yeah it wasn't like OH SUDDENLY POWER RANGERS and and and MID BOSS!!! or anything like that but the dislike for the game is retarded like that.

Disgaea 3 set up a problem, and proceeds to never address it, characters are totally fine with never improving, and it feels like they just ripped off Laharl, but instead of maturing into someone the crowd can like just left him to be the same. It forsakes any kind of story for shitty high-school humor or whatever, and the plot never takes itself seriously, even to the end of it's main campaign, the characters have to tell you that changes happen and hope that you just believe them blindly and overall it's just total shit. How anyone can like this over 2 is baffling as Disgaea 3 is the biggest disgrace to writing I've ever seen.

[mario_0345]

Ehh... while you are entitled to your opinion so are other people and in my opinion D2 had the worst cast and story everyone just feel so generic and Etna got exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness. Adell and Rozalin just came off as such a generic tsundere couple and I was barely interested in them at all. Then there was Hanako and Taro both of them were just so annoying and flat. About the only good thing in that game was Axel and even then he was iffy. I enjoyed Disgaea 3's arc and humor much better it was about dealing with guilt and moving forward, it was much more interesting to me than a generic love story. And then there was that horrible system, with crappy felonies, crappy cave of ordeals, and that stupid way of getting into the land of carnage. Disgaea 2 in my opinion is definitely the weakest link.

[SiftRock]

Ehh... while you are entitled to your opinion so are other people and in my opinion D2 had the worst cast and story everyone just feel so generic and Etna got exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness. Adell and Rozalin just came off as such a generic tsundere couple and I was barely interested in them at all. Then there was Hanako and Taro both of them were just so annoying and flat. About the only good thing in that game was Axel and even then he was iffy. I enjoyed Disgaea 3's arc and humor much better it was about dealing with guilt and moving forward, it was much more interesting to me than a generic love story. And then there was that horrible system, with crappy felonies, crappy cave of ordeals, and that stupid way of getting into the land of carnage. Disgaea 2 in my opinion is definitely the weakest link.

That's kind of the point though, remember the part where I said all the characters served to strengthen the main story?

Really, think about it like the Adell and Rozalin are totally empty, flat characters, and every supporting character has a pump to fill them out
Super simple breakdown
Taro: He exists to show how overprotective Adell is, and how Adell panics in tight situations (when he's swept away and in the monsters cavern) Adell totally loses it and goes straight after him. He has the whole Rozy's slave thing as well, but that's mostly played for laughs.

Hanako: She's Rozalins Taro, she's the one who starts to defrost Rozalin's attitude with her cooking, and starts making her more dimensional in accepting outside life.

Tink: He's a representation of her ego, and gives insight to how Rozalin has lived her life, the way he talks to her and is super overprotective totally helps show how sheltered she's been

Yukimaru: Is a key to making Rozalin question her heritage, the fact she knew Rozalin's mother, the eyes and everything gave her the key role of advancing Rozalin even further and plays her part in that way.

Etna: She's around because she's a powerful figure, and players can understand that she's strong as hell, so her attacking Rozalin and Adell refusing to stay down shows his kind of determination to keep his promises no matter what. As for her being more "overdone" or whatever, did you expect her to start moping about now or something? She's moved on and gotten over it, she became pretty carefree, I thought it was a pretty great change as it showed her having moved on successfully from her trauma from the first game.

Rozalin: She advances Adell himself and helps him realize that he's actually a demon, it's implied by her starting to notice things like him wanting to jump to violence at first, despite being smarter then he looks. Throughout the game she realizes that she WAS treated like shit and with the entire groups support moves past it and accepts who she is.

Adell: Not much to say as the entire game focuses on him and if you can't figure out I'm sorry for you.



Disgaea 3 is full of awful anime stereotypes, no urgency whatever, hamfisted characters and the plot is just stupid.

Disgaea 1 was goofy, yeah, but it had moments like the Red Moon Chapter, Laharl's invasion on the EDF ships (How he'd give time to let humans escape) and the Celestial Raid. It was handled, it was able to have comedy and a good plot at the same time

Disgaea 2 also had it's goofy moments, returning prism ranger gags, Etna being a huge troll, and still managed to have serious moments as well, with the escape from the arena, getting meds for Yukimaru's brother, and having to strike down Adell's brainwashed parents to get to the final boss

Disgaea 3 uh... lol cooking? Gotta open that heart gotta make jokes about omlettes, what's pacing I have no idea, oh no something serious is happening better crack jokes at it Lol the final boss is letting me save my game what a wacky video game!!

It's total shit is what I'm getting at and, there's a line I'm willing to accept, but saying D2's plot/characters is worse isn't a opinion, it really is just wrong, and for complaining about the departure of Etna's attitude, D3 destroys the atmosphere of the previous games entirely, so not sure how you can even stand for that.


Not talking about game mechanics btw, I agree felonies were retarded and so was the LoC, D3 has D2 beat in gameplay, just not in story/characters.

[mario_0345]

Except it is an opinion, it is how I view the characters and story of each game, just because you say that one is undeniably worse than the other does not make it true. In the end that is just your opinion and you are entitled to it just like I am entitled to my opinion.

[ZekeFreek]

I think your problem with D3 is that you don't like that kind of story. There are many kinds of stories and many kinds of characters that don't all have to conform to the same kind arc or story structure.

Your not wrong, having to literally tell us that Mao changed is no where near as effective as showing it. But I don't think it was as severe as your making it sound. Mao genuinely felt guilty about exposing his father's weakness to Aurum. I could see that clearly, his lack of change is due to how he operates. He suppresses things he doesn't like to admit to. That was the whole point of the Heart Bank segments was to uncover the memories he suppressed. Even after he opened his heart, he denies it, ergo "suppresses it".

It's strange, but I liked D3 for the opposite reasons I like D1. It is fairly static, but entertaining. It clearly lacks character development, but it works. If Disgaea is a parody of RPGs, I think D3 was a parody of Disgaea itself. And to be fair, that's a really meta-concept to wrap your head around, but I think it might have been what they were going for.

Just wondering, what are you plot-related thoughts on D4?

[dood]

I know people are going to be appauled at this but I think D1 had the weakest cast of characters. I am not saying they are bad at all (that's ignoring the fact that they annoy me of course). I liked D3 and D4 equally in regards to how much I like the characters and I like them both more than D2 for the most part.

[SiftRock]

Just wondering, what are you plot-related thoughts on D4?

I'd tie 4 for one of the best to be honest, there's another target and the plot actually goes somewhere, and it feels like you're accomplishing things, only problem I really have with 4's cast is Emizel, he's a strong character for the first 3-4 chapters then, amusingly enough, after Death Emizel's Death he just kinda drops out of the plot, only showing up to panic and nothing else. He kind of just became "That kid in green that has funny animations" to me.

Valvatorez was a genuinely good character, though do admit the sardine thing kinda wore on me, Fenrich was what I feel Mao should of been for the most part (shows moments that he genuinely cares about characters even though he puts on a act), Fuka's dream thing well... I admit I felt let down when she admitted it wasn't a dream and went right back to it at the end of a fight, because I thought that would be a great turning point for her, Desco was Desco, and Artina's backstory with Nemo was cliche, but still nice.



Also D1, I regard it's plot to be the best but I do agree some of the characters aren't that good, besides the main 3, vyres, and the seraph I disliked everyone else being "main" characters, Gordon and the EDF came out of left field entirely and while important to the plot they really bothered me for some reason, shame they'll never get updated sprites though, it sure is jarring having them use D1 sprites in D3.

[Rhuen]

I know people are going to be appauled at this but I think D1 had the weakest cast of characters. I am not saying they are bad at all (that's ignoring the fact that they annoy me of course). I liked D3 and D4 equally in regards to how much I like the characters and I like them both more than D2 for the most part.

Well I would like to disagree, but considering I only really like three characters from D1
(Laharl, Etna, and Flonne) I have to agree to a certain point; Although I do like the whole old school sci-fi parodies with Gordon (the overblown defender of Earth), Jennifer (the super-smart and barely dressed science girl side-kick), Thursday (the generic swiss army knife robot), and of course Kurtis (the generic rival) all being nice parodies of old science fiction; they wouldn't have held up on their own (but the whole running gag of them kind of stealing the spotlight for that one story arc was funny...but after it they weren't really needed anymore).

Which is the first game's one weakness, only the main three carry over from story arc to story arc well. Maderas and Hoggmeiser serve no purpose outside their story arcs; hell they don't even have anymore speaking roles (I honestly think the original script intended to kill or remove them both completly, and it was a last minute thing to make them playable).

General Carter is generic and forgettable, and Mid-boss while amusing had this darker back story that ended up needing artbooks and guides to explain (never a good thing) *one reason Darkstalkers by Capcom bothers me; you read the guides and you get this elaborate RPG like backstory and setting that barely comes across in the actual games...I have told Capcom several times they should just do a Darkstalkers RPG...but they always came back *yes Capcom came back with this* talking about and trying to get people interested in a Street Fighter RPG...Capcom...no...just...no; as a long time RPG player it wouldn't work the way they think it would.

but back to Disgaea; that said...Disgaea 2...the whole story really is carried by just Adell and Rozalin; like I've said its just my opinion; but everyone else felt like straightmen and jumping off points for their story; and Axel...I guess just as Disgaea 2 its self is hate or love with fans (which surprises me because i loved it) same too can be said of Axel...that said I detest this character type, the oblivious egomaniac...just ehhh...
He was just a running gag, I kind of thought he was a mascot from some other game I didn't know that was being shoe horned into this game like a not so subtle add.

Disgaea 3; it might just be that I am older and havn't been in school for ages; but the humor was just...lost on me. I felt like they were making nudge nudge jokes about education, the educational system, teachers, the way kids think of school, but...I graduated over a decade ago
(I guess in the same vein if they did a Disgaea about corporations and the working world, the humor would appeal more to my demographic but be lost on those still in highschool and college who arn't out full time working).
But the story when re-going through the game its like (So Mao forgot his dad was dead? That he revealed the weak point? If he didn't what was all that at the beginning about beating his dad for the sake of his stuff? Even if he had pushed it all down and only remembered after the whole heart bank thing it didn't change much about him. But I guess again; its just I don't care for his character type either. I kind of felt like he was supposed to be a dark and twisted version of Harry Potter mixed with the creepy doctor type character seen in Anime. But that just doesn't appeal to me; again just me.

[Rhuen]

Just wondering, what are you plot-related thoughts on D4?

I'd tie 4 for one of the best to be honest, there's another target and the plot actually goes somewhere, and it feels like you're accomplishing things, only problem I really have with 4's cast is Emizel, he's a strong character for the first 3-4 chapters then, amusingly enough, after Death Emizel's Death he just kinda drops out of the plot, only showing up to panic and nothing else. He kind of just became "That kid in green that has funny animations" to me.

Valvatorez was a genuinely good character, though do admit the sardine thing kinda wore on me, Fenrich was what I feel Mao should of been for the most part (shows moments that he genuinely cares about characters even though he puts on a act), Fuka's dream thing well... I admit I felt let down when she admitted it wasn't a dream and went right back to it at the end of a fight, because I thought that would be a great turning point for her, Desco was Desco, and Artina's backstory with Nemo was cliche, but still nice.



Also D1, I regard it's plot to be the best but I do agree some of the characters aren't that good, besides the main 3, vyres, and the seraph I disliked everyone else being "main" characters, Gordon and the EDF came out of left field entirely and while important to the plot they really bothered me for some reason, shame they'll never get updated sprites though, it sure is jarring having them use D1 sprites in D3.

With Fuka; I got the impression that she did learn she had died, and accepted it; but when Valvatorez starting going on about her promise; and that not being her character type but knowing how Valvatorez is about that sort of thing took the first oppertunity she could to pretend she still thought it was all a dream so Valvatorez wouldn't pressure her to (be a proper prinny).

[ZekeFreek]

With Fuka; I got the impression that she did learn she had died, and accepted it; but when Valvatorez starting going on about her promise; and that not being her character type but knowing how Valvatorez is about that sort of thing took the first oppertunity she could to pretend she still thought it was all a dream so Valvatorez wouldn't pressure her to (be a proper prinny).

I agree.

Valvatorez was a genuinely good character, though do admit the sardine thing kinda wore on me, Fenrich was what I feel Mao should of been for the most part (shows moments that he genuinely cares about characters even though he puts on a act), Fuka's dream thing well... I admit I felt let down when she admitted it wasn't a dream and went right back to it at the end of a fight, because I thought that

Interesting. You don't like Mao because he showed no obvious character development, but Valvatorez is fairly static the whole game. Mainly because he was in the right all along but still, it's not like he learned any life lessons or anything... if anything, he was the one teaching everyone else, which is unusual for a protagonist.

[SiftRock]

Valvatorez was a genuinely good character, though do admit the sardine thing kinda wore on me, Fenrich was what I feel Mao should of been for the most part (shows moments that he genuinely cares about characters even though he puts on a act), Fuka's dream thing well... I admit I felt let down when she admitted it wasn't a dream and went right back to it at the end of a fight, because I thought that

Interesting. You don't like Mao because he showed no obvious character development, but Valvatorez is fairly static the whole game. Mainly because he was in the right all along but still, it's not like he learned any life lessons or anything... if anything, he was the one teaching everyone else, which is unusual for a protagonist.

Which is why I liked him, he was loveable, tolerable and surprisingly deep, there's a lot of little things through bad endings and good endings that teach you what kind of person he is, and the fact that he's genuinely smart and capable as a leader is new and fresh.
Through bad endings you can even tell how devoted he is to his comrades, one example would be the A-virus, normally he refuses Artina's blood, and makes sure everyone changes back first then fights it off with sheer willpower. In the bad ending once everyone transforms and gives up, he panics and succumbs as well because losing his friends to it effected him THAT badly. He's a neat character.

Mao on the other hand is a total asshole throughout the entire story good endings or bad endings and never changes despite what the others claim and I just can't stand his attitude.