By the end of the game, does Fuka really still believe she’s in a dream? Or does she know deep down that she’s dead, but absolutely refuses to aknowledge it out loud? Or is she merely Obfuscating Stupidity to get out of her promise to Valzy about going through Prinny training if she accepted her death?
Is Artina secretely a masochist? She always seems really chipper whenever Valvatorez talks about sucking her blood or bringing her to the dephts of fear and despair, almost as if she’s really looking forward to it. Not to mention that she almost always seems to take any pain and suffering she experiences in stride. And then, there’s the end of Chapter 6, where she seems pretty eager to bleed herself dry to cure the A-virus victims. Sure, those could just be the result of her being a Determinator and being an all-loving heroine, but it still makes you wonder.
Ass Pull: One of Disgaea 1's endings indicates that God is actually a decent guy. Come Disgaea 4, He's suddenly portrayed as an uncaring asshole. How this Face–Heel Turn came about isn't really explained or expanded upon beyond a vague explanation of "God is neutral" — which is a shame because it's arguably a wham moment given where it appears. The Vita version, however, gives clues that whatever unleashed Fear the Great wasn't "The Real McCoy", given some dialogue Valavatorez says after punching him in the face.
Base-Breaking Character: Some people like Fuka for her spunkiness and how humorous and delusional she is, bringing many of the funnier moments in the game. However, some people hate her for the very same reasons, being delusional to the point that it comes off as stupid especially later in the game when she is still denying that she died when her killer told her she was killed. She also denies her own character development after you beat up her killer. Add to the fact she's part of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad causes a lot of grumbles in the fandom.
Captain Obvious Reveal: Turns out Vulcanus is Artina. The game holds the tension for all of five minutes of course, and half the characters make the connection before she even becomes a party member. The first time Valvatorez mentions the girl he made his promise to, it cuts to Vulcanus, doing everything short of outright saying they're the same person.
Designated Evil: The game hammers its Humans Are Bastards theme in again and again, and while it is true that the human world isn't in the best of shapes in the game, one can still get the feeling that this judgmental attitude comes across as extremely hypocritical when Demons routinely do far worse things to each other and never get called out on it since its Played for Laughs. It becomes even worse when one finds out how the Netherworld and Celestia truly operate: humans are basically condemned to sit at the bottom of the cosmic food chain, terrorized by Demons so that they can get Fear Energy and Angels can get mankind's awe and belief in them. Overall, the whole situation can come across as the game condemning humans for daring to rebel against that situation (for example, by building anti-Demon weapons).
This system may actually be unique to 4, for it is never mentioned again in 5. Likely due to how badly the twist was received for being uncharacteristically mean-spirited and the fact that Disgaea 5 might be a prequel to the entire franchise.
Die for Our Ship: Between those who support Val x Artina and Val x Fenrich.
Episode 7. Always outnumbered, flooded with Reapers that hit hard and eat your SP, and crippling geo symbols everywhere.
Then you go to the X Dimension of Episode 7. Ouch. To make matters worse, you need to capture one of the Reapers to obtain a part needed for the Land of Carnage.
One could make the argument that Episode 8 is even worse. Same problems as Ep. 7, outnumbered, crippling geo symbols, but also Geo Puzzles and enemies with long ranges. And at the end, you have to fight the boss once, and then a giant version of her a second time without the opportunity to heal up in between.
Many fans have resorted to calling Valvatorez "Val". A bit of an In-Series Nickname as well since Fenrich occasionally calls him "Lord Val".
Many called Fenrich "Fenfen" which eventually made its way into the English version as Fuka's nickname for him.
Fridge Brilliance: The Ho Yay behaviour of Fenrich and his vitriolic hatred of Artina becomes such when you understand canine psychology. Canines tend to hate their master's new mate, perceiving her as an infringing threat on his territory and as taking said master from them.
Fridge Horror: Valvatorez's status as an Almighty Janitor takes a scary tone when it's discovered that Zetta (generally considered one of the most powerful entities in the Nipponverse alongside Zenon and Gig) of all people considers him a Worthy Opponent (post game fights starting with Disgaea 3 are canon). What kind of monster was Val when he was at his Tyrant state?
The flashback episodes confirm this: Tyrant Val is probably the biggest Game-Breaker and most powerful character in any Nippon game to date. However, it manages to avert the concept a bit too, since old Valsy is still a big goof and only treats being a Tyrant as a job, but he takes it just as seriously as he takes being a Prinny Instructor. He's just really, really strong.
Good Bad Bugs: Like previous titles, the original version has an Item Duplication glitch; this time involving entering the Item World with a full inventory, and rebuying the intended item in a particular way. Not only was it very useful to clone rare or unique pieces of equipment to begin with, but it also cloned specialists, allowing for some truly obscene stat increases and other bonuses. It was too much of a Game-Breaker to be left in, and was patched out via an update and in the Vita port (though it can still be used in the original version if the update is deleted).
An episode of the Disgaea anime had the Disgaea trio disguised as Prinnies. However, Laharl just gets a Prinny head piece slapped on him due to a "miscalculation of the budget" according to Etna. Fast forward to Disgaea 4, where Fuka similarly gets a Prinny hat slapped on her instead of a full Prinny suit due to the inability to keep up with the rising Prinny population.
In Cross Edge, there is a gallery image depicting the results of Demitri'sMidnight Bliss on the cast. Prinny becomes a normal looking girl with a Prinny hat. This was about two years before Disgaea 4 brought us Fuka.
Johnny Yong Bosch as Prism Blue in "The Fuka and Desco Show" DLC in two ways. First, Johnny played as Almaz in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, who, during the pre-fight cut scene with Prism Red, wanted to be the "somewhat-dashing Prism Blue" when the cast tried to claim Prism Ranger color. Second, Johnny used to be a Power Ranger himself.
The Vita version has all the trappings of the Complete editions that were released for the later games, including such things as releasing on a portable system and the Downloadable Content being unlockable in the post-game.note Or with the Disgaea 1 Etna Code When it gets a release on Switch, Playstation 4 and Windows, it's called Disgaea 4 CompletePlus, since the Vita version was already complete!
Moe: Desco, as far as the Disgaea series goes. Not only is she physically adorable, looking like a cute little girl, but she's just so eager and determined to become a proper Final Boss that she becomes Adorkable.
Polished Port: The Vita port is the full game, plus all the DLC, plus new content, as well as being portable.
Porting Disaster: The Android port of Disgaea 4 Complete Plus, which has abysmal touch controls and, due to it's online functionality, also has to be played always online.
Replacement Scrappy: Averted with Valvatorez. He's been very well received by fans of the series.
That One Attack: Baal's Ultimate Force evility, which sends a giant sword straight to your character's head the moment they are summoned out of the base panel. If you're unprepared, he can annihilate your entire party before you can even issue a single command.
That One Sidequest: Opening the Land of Carnage due to the number of steps required to unlock it and the Random Number God being heavily involved in almost every aspect of it. It requires obtaining Promotionhell tickets to unlock X Dimension stages, clearing 40% of those stages, and obtaining P Flonzor X parts. The later is the most annoying part as 5 out of the 6 parts requires the player to torture specific enemies to reveal a treasure location, and there is no guarantee that the treasure chest will contain the P Flonzor X part. The 6th part requires the player to defeat Meowkin Pirates in the Item World, who have a very low spawn rate.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Considering the impact Artina's death has on Nemo and by extension everyone in the game, it's rather disappointing that nothing on Nemo is elaborated on in the Vita exclusive scenario.
