Disgaea

>literally all of them play better.
and phantom brave/kindgom or soul cradle play better than literally every disgaea game - so why even argue? at least disgaea 1 has that kino story and atmosphere instead of "a bunch of characters who all have one gag they repeat the whole game bumble around from reference to setpiece, and then in the last bit of the game sudden drama with no buildup happens" nonsense the disgaea sequels ended up being

BUMP

I personally like how later games try to at least balance the characters and weapon types so that everything fills a nice little niche. Let's be honest. Why stick with the Warrior class when the Ronin class does everything better? Why bother unlocking the Knight class when Ronin and Mages does it's job better? Why unlock the Archer class when bows fucking suck? And don't get me started on any monster that's not a Galactic Demon or Great Wyrm. And once you get a Majin, there's no other reason to use anything else. The later games do a better job of ensuring that each class can play the role and that has only gotten better with each game.

That said, 1's advantage is stage variety. Most of the later games really put a lot of focus on really big open stages and none of those stages really stood out to me. By comparison, 1 really likes to switch it up. You could be dealing with a fairly small stage one moment and then by the next, you're with a really large stage. Some might have a lot of enemies, some might have only a few. Some might not have any geo panels, some might have a few geo panels boosting certain characters, and some have a geo puzzle attached to it.

>the only real flaw with the original disgaea compared to later games is unskipable animations
Disgaea 1 had absolute dogshit QOL and made grinding a horrible, unfun slog. You complain about felonies but it was still faster and more feasible to hit max level in Disgaea 2 than it ever was in D1. Not to mention D1's absolute joke of balance in that every single class and character was inferior to majins.
>character world shit in later games (again, more grinding)
There is objectively nothing wrong with chara world and I don't see how you can cite "more grinding" as a downside as if D1's abysmal grind is any better.
>meaning all the later disgaea games have to offer is the same gameplay for the 2nd/3rd/4th/5th time
Almost like Disgaea's gameplay is inherently great and each Disgaea game refines the gameplay to the point where Disgaea 5 is not only the best playing Disgaea, but also the smoothest playing SRPG to ever exist.

I cannot believe people are out here trying to go "hurrr d1 was best because uhh d2 had felonies", never post this awful opinion again.

>for some reason the sequels never bothered to fix any of them
Power-leveling is assloads easier in Disgaea 2 (but Felony system was garbage), and you can literally go from 1 to 9999 by destroying a Geo Symbol in 5 at max difficulty in top rank LoC items. I have NEVER reached 9999 in the original Disgaea game, or even the PC version where grinding was made easier but still a massive fucking chore that takes literal hours to go from 1 to 9999.

the second half of the game taken up by FLASH
AA AHH!
youtube.com/watch?v=MFnmT82yGpk

Phantom Brave and Makai Kingdom are heavily hampered by how awful unit and item management get in late/postgame, especially Makai Kingdom which has literally no way to organize items. Not to mention how both games have a terrible dungeon system deliberately designed to generate impossible levels making grinding even worse than it was in Disgaea 1.

Just say you don't like Disgaea's gameplay, don't lie to people and act like Phantom Brave's archaic 2004 gameplay systems can stack up to the extremely optimized Disgaeas 4 and 5.

I'd get disgaea 4 or 5 instead famalam

but if you're dead set on playing the first one, power to you. it's still good.

To be fair, power levelling, as much as it was advertised, was never a major goal in the first game, especially since pretty much all the game's challenges could be beaten long before you hit 9999. I beat Baal with a level 2000 Laharl with a rare cosmic blade, a level 1000 Flonne, level 500 majin and ronin, and everyone else either being used for raising the counter, buffing, or fodder. Later games gave you more of a reason to do so.

I keep hearing how I shouldn't bother getting attached to characters since in the endgame it makes the most sense to just replace all of them with majins. Is that true? If so that sucks, I don't like the idea of there just being one class that does everything the best with no need for the others.

I fucking love PB, but let's not pretend it isn't bogged down by a ton of stupid jank and how it has some of the most broken speed mechanics in any "turn-based" RPG. You and your party of 3 other units or more are going to use the Sword of Fast fused a thousand times over and wipe dungeon floors before they have time to react or you get your weapon stolen and get counter-wiped.

In Disgaea 1, yes. Your entire party will be rendered obsolete by a SINGLE Majin. You don't need more than one since Majins blast everything to smithereens while not giving a shit about taking hits (assuming they even connect) and you can stack status resisting Innocents on their equipment. The only other party member worth using is the Thief (who is also the worst class offensively in the first game).

good thing nothing encourages you to get even half the way to 9999 in the original disgaea because there's no stupid shit like LOC or uber mega shin neo baal

it was just a gimmick, you can beat the game with characters in the 3-4k's at most especially since bosses (just like they are in later disgaea games) die in one combo if you set it up properly

majins aren't any different than the later games, every disgaea game has "the one optimally correct character that solos the whole game better than anyone else" as the meta. like in disgaea 2 where instead of majin its magic knight

My main characters by the end game were Laharl, Flonne, a Majin, a Ronin, a Mage, a Scout, and a Majin with everyone acting as support. The Majin's stats, aptitudes, and weapon mastery ranks pretty much everyone else's and unlike later games, there's nothing like evilities or personal class skills to give each class a niche to fill, which is what leads to them making everything feel obsolete. Still, as my endgame party shows, there's nothing keeping you from using any other character in the end game.

almost like they should've made followups to these games mechanics to iron out the flaws instead of rehashing the same stupid ass disgaea gameplay of "kill everything in one turn before it kills you by having bigger attack numbers" that never changes or evolves outside of solving a geo/throwing puzzle first

stuff like confine and fusion in PB and facilities/expansions in PK are just plain more strategic/interesting mechanics in the srpg. disgaea is just a numbers game, and it's laughably simplistic compared to even other games by the same developer (let alone the greater srpg genre).
it's not that disgaea was designed as the grinding game, grinding is all disgaea has over any other game when it also has a shitty character/story/asthetic after the original

Disgaea 2 is the best game though.

>felonies
>boring map design
>grinding out pirate maps and dark world unlock conditions
>magic knight is even better than D1 majins because at least he had to walk over to people to kill them instead of killing them 100 miles away out of aggro range
>laharl, etna and flonne are one note caricatures in a non spinoff/post game gag format. it's explicitly canon now that they just throw all their character development in the trash
>the change in setting from "overlords castle" to "the demon version of nowhere alabama" means mechanics like dark assembly don't even make sense anymore
>axel is a better character than literally everyone who joins your group, to the point where the re-release made the game about him instead

sinful rose is the best intro song, cyber dance is the best item world music, but that's about all I can give disgaea 2.

Again, just say you don't like Disgaea. Phantom Brave fucking rules but don't act like it holds up against D4 and D5.

While that is true, it sticks out much more in 1 because there is much differentiate each of the classes besides stats, aptitudes, and weapon mastery rank. Only a few have some kind of innate ability like the Ninja's dodging and the Magic Knight's random magic after a normal attack. The addition of evilities and class specific skills really help differentiate the classes and have some fill a niche that others can't. Archers, for example, really benefited from this. In 1, they were only good with a bow, the worst weapon in the game, and nothing else. From 2 onward, aside from balancing the weapons, Archers gained evilities that really helped get as much from bows as possible. 4 was probably their best outing as their less limited range paired well with the Heart Cannon symbol for some really nasty combos.

>cyber dance is the best item world music,
For me, its Sailing from DD2.
youtube.com/watch?v=-DvBZg_s36k

Give us a Makai Kingdom remake or sequel please

>>felonies
Still better than D1's grind.
>>boring map design
Completely subjective, also Dark World pushed Disgaea's systems like crazy.
>>grinding out pirate maps and dark world unlock conditions
Getting D2's pirate maps is the only valid complaint and even then it's manageable, you're going to be spending a ton of time in the item world anyway.
>>magic knight is even better than D1 majins because at least he had to walk over to people to kill them instead of killing them 100 miles away out of aggro range
Magic Knight still requires setup with elemental buffs and debuffs. Plus at least other classes are viable, humanoid generics in D1 are so fucking bad that your only option is majins for postgame.
>>laharl, etna and flonne are one note caricatures in a non spinoff/post game gag format. it's explicitly canon now that they just throw all their character development in the trash
Cameos are literally just the devs having fun, imagine getting this bootyblasted over Laharl and Flonne dicking around for a grand total of maybe 3 cutscenes.
>>the change in setting from "overlords castle" to "the demon version of nowhere alabama" means mechanics like dark assembly don't even make sense anymore
Zenon had been in power for nearly 20 years at that point, the Dark Assembly still makes sense.
>>axel is a better character than literally everyone who joins your group, to the point where the re-release made the game about him instead
Axel is the best Disgaea 2 character but Disgaea has a running tradition of giving a side character their own episode with Etna, Beryl and Fuka all getting their own side stories.

D2 is great, not the best at anything but far from the worst too.