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Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited (Vita) |OT| Ultimate Complete Definitive GOTY Edition

DSGamer

Neo Member
Quick question. I usually love SRPGs. Especially on handhelds. I've finished all handheld Fire Emblem games released in the US multiple times. I've finished Tactics Ogre on GBA multiple times as well as FFTA, FF:TA2 and I'm currently 30 hours into FFT on Vita. I'm almost finished with Jeanne D'Arc and have played parts of Disgaea 1 and Valkyria Chronicles 2.

So why can't I get into Disgaea? And given that I had trouble with 1 should I skip it for 4? Is there a "best" game for those of us who don't want to grind forever or embrace the level of complexity that Disgaea offers? I already own 1, 2 and 3 on PSP/Vita. Probably aspirational of me to purchase these, I suppose, but I hope to get to one of them someday. With 4 on the horizon I'm debating buying it as well, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Holy shit, all those quality-of-life tweaks like the Innocent Warehouse. Too bad I got my plat and never looked back. Some of these DLC look awesome :|
 

Gerbs

Neo Member
Haven't played since D1 on PS2. Can you still go inside items and try to pass bills in the demon senate?
 
Quick question. I usually love SRPGs. Especially on handhelds. I've finished all handheld Fire Emblem games released in the US multiple times. I've finished Tactics Ogre on GBA multiple times as well as FFTA, FF:TA2 and I'm currently 30 hours into FFT on Vita. I'm almost finished with Jeanne D'Arc and have played parts of Disgaea 1 and Valkyria Chronicles 2.

So why can't I get into Disgaea? And given that I had trouble with 1 should I skip it for 4? Is there a "best" game for those of us who don't want to grind forever or embrace the level of complexity that Disgaea offers? I already own 1, 2 and 3 on PSP/Vita. Probably aspirational of me to purchase these, I suppose, but I hope to get to one of them someday. With 4 on the horizon I'm debating buying it as well, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Disgaea has a lot of differences compared to FFT, so it doesn't surprise me that you can be into one and not the other. Disgaea is actually "simpler" than FFT , FFTA , FFTA2 , Tactics Ogre during the actual game (it's only during the post game that you really start getting into the complexity) so there's also less attachment to any given character.

You can basically ignore all the complexity of Disgaea for the main story beyond the tutorials the game takes you through.

If you want to do the PostGame content though (and its where the real "meat" of the series is) then depending on what annoys you the most then (D3V or D4V) or DD2 are the best games to try (and Disgaea 2 (especially the PSP version) is the worst by a looooong way).

D3V/D4V have a lot of streamlining and antifrustration features but there's still a lot of RNG dependence , DD2 almost completely removes the dependence on the RNG but some of the shortcuts from D3/D4 are missing, so there's much more grinding on average but you're a lot less likely to be the statistical outlier who can never get "critical thing" to spawn.
 
D3V/D4V have a lot of streamlining and antifrustration features but there's still a lot of RNG dependence , DD2 almost completely removes the dependence on the RNG but some of the shortcuts from D3/D4 are missing, so there's much more grinding on average but you're a lot less likely to be the statistical outlier who can never get "critical thing" to spawn.

Personally, I think base DD2 had the simplest post-game since it was basically D4's post-game minus the randomness. THEN came the Rasetsu patch which changed up everything.
 
I got out of D4 around the time the initial dupe method got fixed, mind spoilering/pm'ing me the details?

D4V Easy Duping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctpSQdlQaxY

Basically, the Bio Suits have a "Unique Generic Skill" that doubles their stats but makes them neutral (yellow bar) units. This means you can stick whatever item you want onto one or more suits and then use the skill and kill them with Puppy Stick and an appropriate area skill to Dupe. Since the Suit is totally under your control, until the skill is used, you can take steps to mitigate stats (for example putting Evilities that weaken stats (like Death's Heal) or aptitudes (like Vortex) on them) and being able to debuff them / buff yourself before using it.

But since you can't use the item you're duping (unlike with Heart Conservatives / Dropouts) since the actual character becomes Neutral, you do need to be more careful not to massively overpower a piece of equipment. The worst that can happen though is that you have to hunt through Character World until you get an authentic dupe to use as a springboard though.

Not sure if you need Infinite Item God killing / stat maxing explained too so separate (this is pretty detailed, so if you're looking for a TL;DR , just read the first sentence ) :

Basically instead of double killing Item Generals/Kings/Gods/Gods 2 you can kill them infinitely , just Gency out after each kill.

This means you can theoretically max (to the equipment limit) any of the "normal" (HP/SP/ATK/DEF/INT/RES/HIT/SPD) stat at all on any piece of equipment (in practice it's nowhere near worth the time investment required to max a 0 though (since it has to be done purely through the single stat Innocent bonus), negative growth is better than 0 for this purpose, so Axes are fine).

The equipment limit is 2.1 million per stat (with no bills passed), and with a Guardian that gets multiplied by 6 , and then by 3 for 300% aptitude (on a maxed character), so you hit the 99 M absolute cap with 3 maxed out armor pieces (except for SP and HP, which have an absurdly high cap). SP is obviously not worth trying to get higher except for some very specific HP <-> SP Gimmick setups. HP has some value.

This makes a huge difference to the stat maxing program, since you can effectively totally ignore everything except passing 6 item bills and stealing from/killing the Item God (2) and collecting Gencies.

The following 2 points are unchanged from Pre-patch but were misunderstood a lot:

(Dual)-Magichanging cannot lower "normal" equipment stats but can lower Move / Jump / Range / Crit and will remove the effect of any non-Stat Adding innocents (so keep those in the last two slots (this includes Guardian and Weapon multiplier innocents, since they multiply rather than add).

For monsters who are using Magichange and Fusion Lover , these go on the monster who is using the command, not the target , the same applies to Evil Symbols that boost or effect these and Magichange Weighs.

There's total hard caps of :

Move:
31 . The worst natural move is 3 (+2 from Chara World) , and each Rank 40-2 armor provides +2 , the worst movement modifier from a Rank 40-2 weapon is +2. So that's 13 move. So there's a lot of wiggle room to spend on Move.

If you're really focusing on move though, Barefoot X are better than the Rank 40-2 armor (due to having 3 base move).

Jump:
99 (and the Rank 40-2 armor provides 30 Jmp, and the worst natural Jmp is 15 + 25 from character world (for 40)). So Jump boosting bills are useless even if you're Dual Magic-Changing.


Range: 9. This only works on weapons (monster range is fixed by type so it's useless on monster weapons too). Potentially breaking this cap is only possible for Baal Horn, Bows and Guns. So apart from the previous exceptions, this is safe. But it's use is reasonably limited since its normal attacks only (so main use is for Counterattacks and Heart's Cannon).

Crit: 100. You should use a professional instead, since you have a looot more innocent slots than you need for combat setups (you have 16 innocents when Dual Magichanging (3 x Elemental resist, 5x Ailment Resist, 1 x Guardian , 1 x Weapon Innocent, 1 x Professional and that still leaves you 5 slots for getting 'Unique Innocents" from the Mystery Innocent ).

As a result the only bills that really matter now are Move/Range/HP/SP. Which you can basically choose to taste depending on the character you're going to be equipping, due to having high base move, many characters will hit the 31 cap without having full Move equipment (and honestly there's verrry little use for having much beyond ~24 move on anything other than item world runners).
 
Disgaea has a lot of differences compared to FFT, so it doesn't surprise me that you can be into one and not the other. Disgaea is actually "simpler" than FFT , FFTA , FFTA2 , Tactics Ogre during the actual game (it's only during the post game that you really start getting into the complexity) so there's also less attachment to any given character.

You can basically ignore all the complexity of Disgaea for the main story beyond the tutorials the game takes you through.

If you want to do the PostGame content though (and its where the real "meat" of the series is) then depending on what annoys you the most then (D3V or D4V) or DD2 are the best games to try (and Disgaea 2 (especially the PSP version) is the worst by a looooong way).

D3V/D4V have a lot of streamlining and antifrustration features but there's still a lot of RNG dependence , DD2 almost completely removes the dependence on the RNG but some of the shortcuts from D3/D4 are missing, so there's much more grinding on average but you're a lot less likely to be the statistical outlier who can never get "critical thing" to spawn.
Hmm. This sounds interesting to me. I used to like SRPGs back in the 32-bit days, but I tried to get into the FFTA games and found them to be ridiculously complex. Way too much going on. Never really known much about this series until this release.
 
Basically instead of double killing Item Generals/Kings/Gods/Gods 2 you can kill them infinitely , just Gency out after each kill.

This means you can theoretically max (to the equipment limit) any of the "normal" (HP/SP/ATK/DEF/INT/RES/HIT/SPD) stat at all on any piece of equipment (in practice it's nowhere near worth the time investment required to max a 0 though (since it has to be done purely through the single stat Innocent bonus), negative growth is better than 0 for this purpose, so Axes are fine).

Ah yeah, thanks for reminding me that the bottleneck for how fast you could make these things is how fast you can accumulate Gency's. And how lucky you were with those damn mystery innocents.
 

Ryuukan

Member
I didnt really like disgaea 3 vita, but I saw this is getting a demo tomorrow. Anyone know if the demo lets you keep progress or give some kind of bonus in the full game?
 

krpiper

Member
I was a pretty casual player of D3 on the vita but I only got 20 hours into it

Any gameplay tweaks that improve D4 over 3? Or is this game easier to get into? Or should I just keep plugging away at 3?
 
I didnt really like disgaea 3 vita, but I saw this is getting a demo tomorrow. Anyone know if the demo lets you keep progress or give some kind of bonus in the full game?

From what I remember hearing of the Japanese Demo, it's basically Trial + Unlock setup, so no extra bonus but progress is kept. Take with a grain of salt though, it's been months.
 
Will probably pick this up tomorrow.

When you think about it the dlc for the console version costs more than the Vita vers!

So that alone makes it worth it.

Too bad it's not cross buy though. :(
 
Is there any way I could play through this game's storyline normally like I'm playing final fantasy tactics, using all unique characters, without overpowered grinding?

(and then maybe when I'm done enjoying the game normally, THEN go into overpowered grinding?)
 
Since I am not in a rush, I picked up the LE with free shipping. Looking forward to playing it during the weekend! (Heading home, so Vita coming with me).

Is there any way I could play through this game's storyline normally like I'm playing final fantasy tactics, using all unique characters, without overpowered grinding?

(and then maybe when I'm done enjoying the game normally, THEN go into overpowered grinding?)
You can since levels are always the same unlike FFT. I sometimes wind up overgrinding because I enjoy the battle system more than the plot sometimes (specially in the case of Disgaea 2). If I remember right, the final battle in most Disgaea games are around level 50. Since you can get to level 999 (9999) in the games, you can easily beat the story without grinding. The extra content is where you have to get massive levels to beat.
 

Dio

Banned
Is there any way I could play through this game's storyline normally like I'm playing final fantasy tactics, using all unique characters, without overpowered grinding?

(and then maybe when I'm done enjoying the game normally, THEN go into overpowered grinding?)

A common misconception about Disgaea is that it's all about grinding.

Yes, in every Disgaea game's 'main story' you barely ever or never need to grind at all, or even learn some of the mechanics.

The grinding Disgaea is famous for is in its postgame content, and there's meat there, so your 'way of playing it' is actually how it's intended.
 

SerTapTap

Member
Is there any way I could play through this game's storyline normally like I'm playing final fantasy tactics, using all unique characters, without overpowered grinding?

(and then maybe when I'm done enjoying the game normally, THEN go into overpowered grinding?)

Why would you only use unique characters? There's no sensible reason not to use a full team of 10 for story missions and it'll be a while before you get 10 uniques, and generics aren't complicated or anything, just make one of each class/weapon you like or something, or make a bunch of Mages of different elements, they're very versatile. Also unless I'm remembering wrong, playing using only uniques in FFT is suicide at the beginning as well.

Xtreme Grinding is very much NOT necessary to beat the game normally. You might not be able to beat it in a single go through per level as if it were Yggdra Union/Shining force/whatever, but grinding should be minimal unless you want to min/max, change classes/reincarnate (D2 eliminates the need of resetting levels but not D4 unless it's new to Vita). The main story of the game plays very much like a standard tactical RPG, it's mostly only the postgame/side content that lets you break out into insanity.
 

SerTapTap

Member
Yeah, the real challenge of Disgaea grinding is acquiring items/stages that make it trivial. Once you get to level XXXX once, if you know what you're doing, you have or can soon get the tools to much more easily get all the rest of your team to level XXXX. Though it's gotten a bit more complicated as they've removed (and accidentally?) readded item duplication bugs. Ever since I found I missed out on the easy D3 duping I've been too grumpy to grind Statisticians.
 
Got Limited Collectors edition on ps3 for the figures... Will double dip the game is easier to play on Vita as you can leave an Item World grind for normality by putting console on standby!
 

Ibuki

Banned
My LE is supposed to arrive today. I look forward to getting into it after work. I actually have tomorrow off as well, perfect timing I guess.
 

Kazerei

Banned
I'd recommend just focusing on 3-5 strong characters to fight with and level up, and having several other characters to use as fodder. It takes too long to level up 10 characters together.
 
Why would you only use unique characters? There's no sensible reason not to use a full team of 10 for story missions and it'll be a while before you get 10 uniques, and generics aren't complicated or anything, just make one of each class/weapon you like or something, or make a bunch of Mages of different elements, they're very versatile. Also unless I'm remembering wrong, playing using only uniques in FFT is suicide at the beginning as well.

Xtreme Grinding is very much NOT necessary to beat the game normally. You might not be able to beat it in a single go through per level as if it were Yggdra Union/Shining force/whatever, but grinding should be minimal unless you want to min/max, change classes/reincarnate (D2 eliminates the need of resetting levels but not D4 unless it's new to Vita). The main story of the game plays very much like a standard tactical RPG, it's mostly only the postgame/side content that lets you break out into insanity.

I would certainly use generics to fill out a party, but I was wondering more since there are all these DLC characters, if they would be available to use in order to create a full team of uniques throughout the main game. Or do the DLC characters need to be unlocked through some late/post game content?
 
What do you mean by "older sprites"?
The PS3 version let players choose between HD sprites and the older sprites similar in Disgaea 3.
2132428113_view.jpg
 
From what I remember hearing of the Japanese Demo, it's basically Trial + Unlock setup, so no extra bonus but progress is kept. Take with a grain of salt though, it's been months.

what's 'trial + unlock setup'? iow, what kind of progress can i actually make that'd be worth saving? won't be getting my hard copy day 1, so i'd download this if it was worth it. thanks...
 

Mononoke

Banned
I'd recommend just focusing on 3-5 strong characters to fight with and level up, and having several other characters to use as fodder. It takes too long to level up 10 characters together.

Thanks for the advice. This will be my first game in the series. I've been watching trailers and video on youtube, and this looks up my ally! Can't believe I never played this series before.

Stupid question, but I beat Demon Gaze last month. I noticed a lot of the avatar in that game, are also character from this game. Do they share the same world/lore? Or is it just the same dev putting content across games?
 

Kazerei

Banned
I would certainly use generics to fill out a party, but I was wondering more since there are all these DLC characters, if they would be available to use in order to create a full team of uniques throughout the main game. Or do the DLC characters need to be unlocked through some late/post game content?

The DLC characters are almost all post-game.

Don't spend to much time creating a "full team". You can blast through the story mode with a few strong characters and some strategic lifting/throwing and using geo blocks.
 

Quixzlizx

Member
Thanks for the advice. This will be my first game in the series. I've been watching trailers and video on youtube, and this looks up my ally! Can't believe I never played this series before.

Stupid question, but I beat Demon Gaze last month. I noticed a lot of the avatar in that game, are also character from this game. Do they share the same world/lore? Or is it just the same dev putting content across games?

Not the same world or the same dev. Both games were published by the same company (NISA) in NA, though.
 
Beat D4 on PS3 but did not dive into any of the post-game content, specifically because of the Vita version coming out.

Now, Disgaea D2 on Vita, plz NIS plz PLZ
 

SerTapTap

Member
I would certainly use generics to fill out a party, but I was wondering more since there are all these DLC characters, if they would be available to use in order to create a full team of uniques throughout the main game. Or do the DLC characters need to be unlocked through some late/post game content?

You have to beat DLC characters in combat to use 'em (so they're not Free Win tickets, I guess), and they usually start at level 100. You'd probably need to grind to be able to unlock 'em all too much earlier than the end of the main game anyway

edit:
Beat D4 on PS3 but did not dive into any of the post-game content, specifically because of the Vita version coming out.

Now, Disgaea D2 on Vita, plz NIS plz PLZ

D2 (finally) actually plays like an Enhanced Disgaea right off the bat. Love all the changes other than putting that infernal weapon levels system back in, though there's even systems to make that...less awful, anyway.
 
Are you trolling? Considering it takes double digit hours to get to that point, along with the fact that similar mechanics exist in pretty much every Disgaea.
No, but creature merging is new for Disgaea 4. The Stats being with equipment is not new, but it took longer than 2 minutes to go from 1 to 9999 in older games.
D2 and Disgaea 4 are designed to make the grind easier. It takes forever in 1 (and it is awful in 2 to grind to 9999). 3 is possible in 10 minutes, but that is because abusing cloning.
 

bobawesome

Member
If only Phantom Breaker and Danganronpa 2 weren't coming out so soon. I'm still looking forward to picking up the game eventually.
 
what's 'trial + unlock setup'? iow, what kind of progress can i actually make that'd be worth saving? won't be getting my hard copy day 1, so i'd download this if it was worth it. thanks...

Trial + Unlock is that bizarre setup where the Demo consists of you downloading the entire game but only being able to play it for so long / so far or both until you "buy the game" and it then downloads a tiny key file to unlock the game. I dunno how many chapters you get during the Trial.
 
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