So I once owned Disgaea 4 on PS3 but it was towards the time I was ready to jump ship to the PS4 so ended up selling my copy but have been interested in the series for a while now. With D5 hitting on the 16th here in Europe (or sooner if I find a way to purchase a US copy) I've been thinking about giving it a proper go. Thing is I hear these games arent just lengthy they can also last 100+ hours and feature much complexity so I want to know if its worth a new player jumping in and what might I expect. There's a demo I want to get around to playing but there seems to be so much going on in this game I'm curious to know folks thoughts on D5 and maybe even provide some tips.

I'd really appreciate it.

The games really have not changed much since the first. They still pretty much look like PS1 games, and every game has its own story. I would still probably recommend Disgaea 1 over any of the others because I think it had the strongest characters and was the least burdened with overcomplicated systems and gameplay.

I'd say it's perfectly fine if you want to just jump on with the newest game. That's what I did when I picked up a copy of Disgaea 3 several years ago. The thing is, though, it would probably be tough to go back to earlier games in the series to check out the story because of the improvements in the game mechanics since then.

As for all of the complex stuff that you can sink hundreds of hours into, that's not really anything that you need to concern yourself with when you're first going through the story. The Item World, Character World, and other stuff like that is really mostly for the post game. If you want to go through the story without touching any of that stuff and just treating it like any other SRPG, you won't have much of a problem.

I'd say it'll be fine to play for a newcomer. I put about 10-15 hours in Disgaea 1 and 2 but, the series really clicked for me with Disgaea 4. You'll probably miss a bunch of in jokes and wont notice mechanical changes but that's really it. I "finished" 4 with 55 hours, that is seeing the credits of the main story. The 100+ hours claims comes from the post-game content. I figured I'd just wait for 5 till trying that stuff. So I'm not hardcore into Disgaea but I "get it".

The games have gotten more complicated but the base game systems are pretty much the same. Its still a SRPG at its core, there's just a ton of systems stacked on top. The cool thing is that most of the systems are pretty optional in practice. They rarely force you to use most of them outside of the tutorials. You can really just play at your own pace. Also try the demo. Its only like the first 5 missions and takes about an hour and a half. But it gives you an idea of the base game.

For tips I'd say don't make a ton of characters early on, since it can be difficult and time consuming to multiple low level party(at least early on). I usually build a balanced party to start(or at least a melee,mage, and healer) in addition to the starting main characters . Exp is given on kills(and heal spells), not hits. And don't be afraid to just look stuff up. There are lot of cool tricks and strategies that aren't immediately apparent.

My copy doesn't come in till tomorrow, so not sure of the quality of the new game, but jump into any of them. The more features you get (new things introduced throughout the games), but like someone before me said, at best you miss out on some jokes if they hint at previous games, nothing major.

They're super cool games though, a lot of systems in place, and it get's pretty insane!

Thanks for all the feedback folks, its appreciated. Well I'm giving the demo a chance and to be honest I'm pleasantly surprised how in-depth the demo as been so I've been able to learn a good few of the mechanics. I'm sure there's a lot more to learn however.

Haven't decided yet if I would wait till the EU release or maybe get it off US PSN when it hits. Anyway, right now all I've been doing with the demo is the quests and story content, but its great to play a demo so filled with content for once.

Can I ask where the team attack percentage meter is in combat? Been looking for it but can't seem to figure that out and no guides or websearching shows it.

Also just found out that your progress in the demo can be transfered to the full game which is awesome and makes me want to keep playing because I was going to stop until the full release.

But I can't find where that team attack percentage is onscreen. Thanks

I've never managed to get into Disgaea despite trying numerous times on numerous systems. The grind is staggering. You grind for everything in these games. Want to gain levels? Grind. Want better gear? Grind. Want to get items to bribe the senate to make enemies stronger so you can grind them more efficiently? Grind. It's a bit nuts. You can just play them for the story and cut down the play time to something like 10-20 hours, but where's the fun in that? Not for the obsessive-compulsive. You could probably play Disgaea 1 for the rest of your life and never fill up all the progress bars.

@machofantastico: I can't remember the specifics, but try pressing Triangle a few times when you are standing next to another character when you are setting up attacks. There should be a percentage meter there somewhere. I get my copy today or tomorrow, so I will update this specifically when I can.

I would say go for it. Their might be some guest characters that you might not get why they are a big deal (not even sure if they exist in the game just it's how they rolled in the past ones) but other than that you wouldn't be missing out much.

@sinusoidal: I've actually played the majority of NIS' games just to clear thr story and had a perfectly good time. I think it's a huge misconception that these games are only worth playing if you want to get into the uber grindy post game. The main story usually makes for a perfectly solid RPG on its own. And to be honest, if I were to rank every game it would be the story and characters that would push Disgaea 1 to the top. (And 3 to the very bottom.)

About five hours deep so far, and it seems like a solid choice for new players. I'd put Disgaea D2 ahead of it in terms of how it lays things out for those new to it, but there's nothing here that would turn a player immediately away out of confusion. I like it. I don't think the characters are as good as 1 or 4, but the mechanics feel streamlined in a lot of small ways.

Pretty sure I'll get it at some point soon depending on release, I'm still trying to figure out how some of these mechanics and features work. Just only discovered Chara Worlds which is another level of confusion including something called reincarnate which is apparently required for chara worlds. I've heard about item worlds to which again, only adds to my confusion. Here's hoping I eventually get my head around it. Like I said previously the demo did an solid job of introducing some gameplay mechanics but there's areas it doesn't explain very well.

@sparky_buzzsaw: That's a bummer, the characters are what makes me keep at it since I can't get through these games without tedious grinding sessions. It's why I never got more than an hour into D3, anyway. Please tell me they're at least better than D3?

@machofantastico: I can't say for sure if the same will be true for this game, but in 4 at least I never really touched any of the stuff outside of the main story until post-game. Stuff like the Item World specifically always just seemed like insane grindy stuff you do when you're really high level (I think the level caps in these games is in the range of a million or something). You can "reincarnate" characters which basically means start them over from Level 1 but with better stat increases (again, not too sure on the specifics since I never engaged with that much. I think that stuff is also mainly for crazy people who need the highest stats on everything).

@teddie: There are some wrestling inspired characters that are pretty great. The rst are immensely forgettable.

Hi folks, so I've been playing about six to seven hours of D5 full release now and having some fun even if it does feel like I'm barely scratching the surface right now. On Episode 2 of the campaign and just got access to Squads and the assembly/government feature which seems interesting. To be honest though, despite their attempts to explain some of the more complex mechanics I'm still a little lost. Geo-panels make sense but I feel like I still don't quite get the hang of their function, which I'd thought were pretty simple but the ability to destroy them and basically destroy all panels on a map as caused me some confusion. I'm also trying to get my head around character levelling, which having put in the amount of hours now seems slower than I'd thought. I see some players being able to level up a character to lvl 100+ within an hour or so but I feel like I'm still trying to figure it all out.

I appreciate the developers attempt to be a little more beginner friendly though, I just hope some of this starts making sense the more I play. All this and I still can't figure out reincarnation :D

Any help or tips would be welcome, that includes for leveling and maybe even some HL earning tips, thanks.

@machofantastico: You'll be able to pass a bill to unlock the Cheat Shop in the next chapter, I think. That brings up an NPC at the home base who will let you manipulate percentages for EXP, Mana, and HL, so you've got that to look forward to.

Some tips for when I've wanted to get some levels early on in other games (dunno how viable this is in Disgaea 5 as I still haven't gotten my copy yet (Thanks NISA Online store)): go to a level your strongest character can handle well and take off their weapon, throw enemies at each other to have them combine and add their levels together, and then stack some weaker people on top of your strong character in order to kill the souped up enemies with tower attacks. The whole tower can gain EXP and class mastery this way.

If you delve into Item World for whatever reason, keep an eye out for an Invincibility panel for you to stand on. It does just as it says and it'll let you go nuts without any worry.

Also, if you want to do something mindnumbingly boring, get a whoooole bunch of Unopened Sodas from the item shop. Using one gives you 1/8 of a level, so go to 1-1, stand behind the portal and pop open a ton of them and you can level a character that way. I ended up using this method to unlock all the humanoid classes in the demo. I really don't recommend this as getting levels will be pretty easy for you soon, but the option is there if you're truly desperate.

About reincarnation. You'll only really make use of that for end game stuff. It has you start over at level one with some gains to your base stats, and it also resets your Chara World limit. In previous games, it was a little useful while progressing through the story because you could use it to reincarnate a generic class character into their next rank, but now the units just auto-promote. You really don't need to worry about it this early on.

Wow, thanks for that awesome reply. Didn't expect that so quickly, been doing a fair bit of research but there isn't really a good beginners guide to disgaea. I'd heard about the unopened soda item before through the demo but when I went to buy it, the shop only states it recovers SP so I thought it was maybe a demo glitch or something, I'll give it a try. I'll see about getting the cheat shop through, I'm at poinsondise now, which is episode three I bekieve. I don't have the item world yet.

Been reading up about innocents and how to better get combos for combo guage, only get about lvl 3-5 on the guage.

Thanks for the tower tip, I'll try it. Still need to practice with using throwing and tower attacks. Having fun still, I love the wackiness so far, especially though a cats in poisondise.

Appreciate the help loads, thanks. You lot are legends.

I haven't played since the first one, but I was wondering if any of you guys knew how bows work in this game. They seem to do really low damage compared to everything else. I know that guns do more damage the closer you are. Is there something like that for bows? Do I need to be at max range for more damage or something?

I don't think guns do more damage based on ranged unless that's a new feature, or an evility specific to a character. Bows are inherently weaker than guns, but more versatile. They can hit enemies 360 degrees around you instead of just in a straight line and the skills usually have more support uses than damage. However, as I recall, the Archer class does get a passive that increases damage of your bow attacks relative to the elevation difference with the enemy. (ie, you do more damage if you shoot from high up.) Also Bows have damage split between hit and spd, instead of just hit on guns, so if your character is lacking in either area your attacks won't be as effective.

Generally, go for guns if you just want damage. Bows if you want support. (Or the class specializes in bows.) I tend to give my healers bows for that reason.

So I now have the item world and the cheat shop and you were right, the cheat shop makes the experience a little more pleasant in obtaining HL, EXP etc. Just jumping into the item world to experiment I earned 100k in one run which was nice (using 160% on HL in cheat shop). Though having just hired some more recruits I can see why that money could disappear ever so quickly. The item world is interesting, though I just learnt an hard lesson. Trying to level one of the monster weapons (a legend item I believe it was) I ran into the Gorgeous Bank (think that's what its called), got about 5000HL from her but decided to go back and speak with her... BIG MISTAKE. Ended up facing LVL 2000+ monsters :D so ended up getting destroyed and losing all my progress. Lesson learnt.

I'm getting a little overwhelmed by the items now, so trying to figure that all out. Still, slowly making progress. I'm not sure if I lost all my EXP gain from that item world run but I'm guessing I did.

Yea, they did something to the items in the game. I'm about 10 hours in just got the Nether Research thing(which is really cool). In D4 I just bought all of my items but now the main shops sell not great items. So I've been stealing items more than I usually do. Also the enemies item world isn't scaling up per level anymore. The enemies vary about a level or two ,but no constant scaling up like they used to. This is waaaay easier. I remember it being like a gauntlet trying to get through ten levels early on. I guess the downside is that you can no longer skip levels for easy item levels.

So continuing to venture forth with Disgaea 5, I feel like I'm still not understanding some of the mechanics of the Pocketworld. I now have the Curry Shop (which is pretty simple to understand) and the research squads which seem useful but I still get the feeling I haven't got use to using them correctly. Right now I am facing some missions where I feel the need to grind a little in the level world. I'm not sure when the best time is to level up items so I'm levelling up items I feel I useful, though once I have I haven't come across another item to beat it so maybe I just stick to one weapon/item and keep levelling that.

Still, I know there are Pocketworld functions I haven't yet got access to including the Chara World so I have that to look forward to. I'm mainly trying to get the hang of how to best develop characters and how Disgaea works in general. It can be a little confusing at times.

@machofantastico: I usually look into upgrading my gear at the start of every chapter, or at least before the boss. Remember to pass a bill for better items in the shop every now and then. Some good items to level up would be those rewards you get from the hospital. The rewards are legendary (thankfully without having to exit/enter the rewards page dozens of times like in older games) so you could potentially go pretty deep into them and get some nice stat increases. Plus, if you have a thief, you can also just steal gear from the enemies in there.

As far as squads go, what I've been doing to start off is upgrading the Interrogation squad. That'll let you interrogate a group of prisoners at once, and also increases the effect of the interrogation technique. Once the prisoners run out of SP, you can get a magic extract item which gives an all around boost to the stats of who ever you use it on. That's pretty dark, but whatever, gotta upgrade those stats.

The research squad I've been doing one world at a time. I believe progress is made after every time you clear a stage, so if you were to grind an easy map repeatedly for a few minutes, that'd probably take care of a good chunk of progress. I think the mission fails if everyone you sent out runs out of HP, but I haven't run into that yet since the team I'm using for that is all of my overleveled characters from the demo that I don't want to use going through my first playthrough of the story.

For developing your characters, check out subclassing (which you can do from the dark assembly). You can master generic classes that you've unlocked and pick up their Evilities which can help you build out your character. For example, you can subclass Christo to Clergy and get an Evility that gives him 200% EXP boost on healing spells, Usalia can subclass to Professor to get one that gives her 200% EXP for using a support spell, and Red Magnus works very well with a Warrior subclass. Just don't subclass a generic unit because then they will stop mastering their own class in favor of the subclass.

One tip for newer players is that you can get much better gear than what's available in stores by delving deep into the item world. You can shoot right through the Item World by throwing or running straight to the "skip gate," as it's called in this game. Ignore the common chests and just aim for rare and legendary ones. Also handy are the "filler" items, which help your bonus bar fill more rapidly, which can net you some good gear earlier in the Item World if you're having trouble.

Also, in regards to training your characters, right around the eighth episode or so, you can unlock "Martial Training" in the Assembly. Do so as soon as you can. The enemies in that world are powerful, but they are tightly grouped on EXP geo panels, which will grant you a bonus to experience so long as the enemies are killed on those panels. With a few powerful characters with good group special attacks (I use an axe-centric Red Magnus, mostly), you can easily level your characters quickly. If you want to quickly level up your less powerful characters, try the tower trick @redyoshi mentioned above. Once you've stopped gaining experience on the level, you can up the difficulty in the Cheat Shop and/or combine the enemies to net you more and more levels.