Nippon Ichi (Disgaea, Makai Kingdom, etc.)

For instance, all of the characters that hadn't been born yet managed to show up in Disgaea 5. Anyone can show up anywhere, anywhen.

Well, you could take the DLC scenarios in Disgaea 5 as being set long after the main game... but then of course they come back to fight the Lost with you. Huh.

Speaking of Flonne and D2, she is really good for the main story. She just sits back healing and ends up getting like 200% boosts. Too bad her Evility won't work nearly as well post game.

edited 14th Feb '18 11:56:08 PM by Arha

Makai Wars should be out to those interested.

Female Laharl VA sounds like they're not even trying.

I wonder if D2 will be included with the Disgaea remake.

I actually really like her flat delivery.

There are a lot of things about that subplot I don't like, but I think the voice acting is fitting.

I started Disgaea 4. Gameplay's probably going to take a while to get used to the intricacies but I'm loving Valvatorez.

Not really sure how Evilities work.

Does every new character start at level one?

Aw man Emizel wrecked me.

Oh goddammit I have to redo the entire episode now.

edited 17th Feb '18 12:30:21 AM by Mr.Badguy

Alright I grinded up some new units and wrecked Emizel. Then I got stuck on a hard map in Chapter 2 that killed Val and Fenrich, and ended up using the Geoblocks to force their mages to approach me.

I think I've caught the Disgaea bug.

@ Mr. Badguy: Newly-created characters do start at level one, but storyline characters will usually join your party at a level close to what they were when they were enemies on a first playthrough. All units are reset to level one upon Reincarnation, by the way.

edited 17th Feb '18 5:45:02 PM by CybranGeneralSturm

Oh. That's lame. Soul Nomad had that stuff down pat.

I guess I should just stick with my initial roster and level them up through the game.

edited 17th Feb '18 5:53:26 PM by Mr.Badguy

Remember that a level 1 character with better equipment is vastly stronger than a level 1 character at the start of the game. So you could, for instance, give a brand new Professor an awesome gun and have her one-shotting level 20 characters, which makes it very easy for her to catch up.

So I've been steadily ramping up enemy levels throughout the main story and so far I'm at +15 at the beginning of, what, chapter eight? The one where Grosso and the others decide to justify their existence. Unfortunately I suspect my gimmicky strategies probably won't keep working and soon the game is just going to throw a direct fight at me that I can't get around with Fortitude abuse and playing range games with my mages. I did notice that HP/SP reverse panels make you invincible if you've got Fortitude, though!

Bit tempted to just drop the difficulty down as far as it'll go, cruise through the main story, play Persona 5 once or twice and then come back for the post game later.

Edit: Speaking of Soul Nomad character creation, didn't the units end up weaker if you didn't level them properly and just bought them at a high level? I hate that kind of thing.

edited 18th Feb '18 12:15:11 AM by Arha

Okay I'm stuck at the fight against Fuka with no Ice Mages. Do I need to grind some up, and is this going to be a consistent thing? One of the reasons I loved Soul Nomad was that there was no grind.

You are at least filling the records by getting the bad endings.

There's no need to grind. Play range games, abuse the lift and throw abilities, let enemies come to you when possible so they clump up etc.

What do I do with my level 1 mages who I need for fighting Fuka?

Ended up finding a good grind spot so I beefed my Mages up to level 10. I think I can take Fuka now.

EDIT: All right beat Fuka and made some progress. Turns out there was a Geo Block that makes the fight a joke. Didn't even use the Ice Mage I leveled up.

EDIT 2: Now I'm at a stage in Chapter 3 where the entire field does 20% of your health per turn so I think I just want to play Demon's Souls right now instead.

edited 19th Feb '18 5:11:00 PM by Mr.Badguy

When do my characters learn new moves? Valvatorez hasn't learned anything other than his first special attack.

Do I need to level up my attacks beforehand?

IIRC there should be a place in the hub to learn more moves. The name escapes me since it's been years, tho.

Yeah I think Disgaea might just be too meticulous for me. I can't get the hang of its gameplay. I need something more like Final Fantasy Tactics or Soul Nomad.

Shame, since I was really digging the cast. I'll just youtube the cutscenes.

That's interesting - I experience Final Fantasy Tactics as being a lot more meticulous than Disgaea, generally. I guess different kinds of strategy are trickier for us.

I find most SRPGs other than Disgaea to be too simplified.

But either way, for the main story, Disgaea 4 isn't very meticulous. You just need to remember to check all of the various amenities in the hub after every chapter to see if there's anything you need to do or have gained access to. It's when you get to post-game that you need to min-max and the like.

I mean I haven't even used Magichange, there's outfitting every single character with gear so they don't get pounded into the dirt, messing with Geo Blocks which I am terrible at, leveling up not just the characters but their attacks, getting mana for every one of my characters, grinding new characters when I need one like I did with my new mages, trying to use the Dark Assembly, and it's just too much for me, I guess.

Soul Nomad was super streamlined, and also I'm not very smart and good at tinkering.

edited 21st Feb '18 2:02:20 PM by Mr.Badguy

You never use Magichange except to grind Desco and another character at the same time. It's usually not worth it to kill one of your own units in 3 turns.