Disgaea/YMMV

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: Nippon Ichi promised an evolution in its graphics for Disgaea 4. Then, the trailer was released. They exceeded expectations (See how the game matches with its predecessor). Needless to say, the fandom rejoiced went insane.
  • As for why even the They Changed It, Now It Sucks crowd couldn't turn this into a Base Breaker, you actually have the option to turn off the HD sprites and play in the style of the old games. You want big pixels, they are yours for the asking.
• Non Sequitur Scene: You can induce most of these yourself in Disgaea Infinite through mind control. For example, one scene allows you to make Laharl suddenly love sexy bodies and have him attempt to glomp Jennifer.
• Breakout Character / Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Etna, who's gotten more and more focus over the years, being made into a main character in Disgaea 2, featured predominantly in spinoff titles such as Cross Edge, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? and it's sequel, and Trinity Universe, and Etna Mode (which is essentially a "What if Laharl had never reawakened") in the updated re-release of the first Disgaea.
  • However, with Disgaea 3's Raspberyl Mode and Disgaea 4, it appears that Etna has been ditched in favor of Flonne, especially considering that's she's an Archangel now.
• Broken Base: Character and story-wise, most fans consider Disgaea: Hour of Darkness to be the best. However, fans are divided on which of the sequels had the better story and characters.
  • You either prefer the weapon mastery and Extra Gain system of the first two games or the Skill/Evility shop and Class World inheritance of the third and fourth game.
• Crazy Awesome: Most of the characters.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Pleinair was rated in the top ten most popular characters in Japan and a Disgaea 2 poll concerning its DLC rated her as the number one most wanted character (though she's nowhere near that popular in America).
  • To expand upon this—Pleinair has her own line of erotic fan comics and 1/6 scale "garage kit" figurines, sold at the popular Comiket anime convention in Japan, including one called "Pleinair Handbook" with some really big name manga artists contributing to it. Pleinair is literally just the mascot of the artist's webpage. She has no popular manga, no speaking roles, nothing to her name except a bunch of random sketches on the artist's webpages (most of which were removed half a decade ago) and a few random cameos in NIS games. The mind boggles.
  • Plenair doesn't have a large fanbase outside Japan however, everywhere else that spot goes to CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH! beacuse he's such an over the top parody of the usual western superhero. American audiences can't get enough of him, this likely baffles the Japanese as much as their love of Plenair baffles Americans, as his fandom in Japan is not large AT ALL.
  • As of the latest NIS poll, Asagi is the second most popular character of all of NIS' creations, clocking in just behind Laharl. Unfortunately, several fans have pointed out that if Asagi ever does get her own game, her main shtick goes 'poof'.
  • Also female archers, one of the only generics that clock in about as popular as main characters (#10 in the recent one IIRC).
• Fan Nickname: Raspberyl is commonly referred to as "Paddlebutt-tan" in fandom, due to the shape of her tail.
  • A few fans have begun to refer to Pleinair's game-breaking speed as "batdodging."
• Fan Nickname/Memetic Mutation: Sea of Blood!Priere will come to your Netherworld and turn it into a Sea of Blood.
  • Also SoB!Priere
• Game Breaker: Many examples of these can be found, but the Majin class in particular stands out. They're better than EVERYONE. At EVERYTHING. The highest rank of Majin, the Divine Majin, is just Flat-out broken. Then again, the requirement to unlock the class is incredibly outlandish, requiring you to have five characters of five different classes at level 200 each just to be unlocked. Seeing as the final boss is only Level 90 by default, this means that you're very unlikely to unlock the class until the New Game+.
  • Well, in Disgaea 2 (at least in Dark Hero Days) all you need to do to unlock the Majin class is beat the game once and pass a bill to create the class in your New Game+. However, that particular class from Disgaea 2 onwards has been nerfed. Despite possessing superior aptitudes and stats, their pathetic MOV makes them less useful than other classes.
  • However, the Argus, the red coloured galactic demon, is available MUCH earlier. A level 300ish Argus is damn near impregnable to anything and anyone up to level oh, 900, with the proper defensive build. You can unlock a lot of bonus levels early by taking an Argus or two with you, and either pumping them with attack (if you want to soften the target(s) up with melee) or defense (for making the enemy waste all their MP before you officially come out to play.) This troper had access to Prier by level 180 thanks to the Argus. Not that she could be beaten by such puny levels...there's quite an insane difficulty jump between the extra characters and their gate guards of course. The galactic demons, even the weakest, have such ridiculous defensive stats that you can beat the entire game using them as Schmuck Bait towards anyone a higher level than you. Their counter rate is also pretty nice. The only con against them is, beimg a monster type they will likely fall behind in damage capability, especially since that's one of their lower-end stats.
  • Special mention goes to Adell in the third game's DLC, more specifically Vulkan Blaze. An S rank fire move (the strongest elemental technique in the game) that targets one panel. Doesn't sound that broken until you realize that Adell has an evility that inflicts 30% more damage in one on one combat, which essentially gives said S ranked attack a free 30% boost. In addition, many of the boss fights have enemies in which fire is the best option.
    • Bribing Your Way to Victory as well given that he costs $2.
  • Purposefully Overpowered.
  • Pleinair is very broken in both the first game and the third game. Given the long mission you have to do to get her in the third game, she's worth the trouble.
    • In the Updated Rerelease of the second game, Plenair is a free DLC character. She starts at level 100, is available at the very beginning of the game, and joins without a fight. So long, any challenge for 90% of the main story...
• Hilarious in Hindsight: All the Prism Rangers battles become outright hilarious when you realize that in each game, they've been fighting a former Mighty Morphin Power Rangers cast member. In the first game, as noted above, they fight Rita Repulsa in order to claim the throne. In the second game, they fight Scorpina in a tournament in order to face Overlord Zenon. Then in the third game, Prism Red comes face to face with the former Black Ranger.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Etna gets paired with everybody, including but not limited to: Laharl, Flonne, Mid-Boss, Adell, Rozalin, Axel...hell, even the Prinnies.
• Memetic Badass: Pleinair isn't mute; she dodges spoken dialogue.
• Memetic Molester: Mao, whose list of targets for experimentation/dissection/molestation is rising with every appearance ^[1]
• Memetic Mutation: Captain Gordon, Defender of--Oh, screw it. If you don't get it by now...
  • "Everyone's Lolicon for Etna"
• Replacement Scrappy: No matter how awesome you are, if you are the main character of a Disgaea sequel and your name is not Laharl, then half the fandom officially hates you.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Should Laharl end up with Flonne or Etna?
  • One True Threesome shall join them all.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: It's surprisingly easy to get addicted into gaming the Dark Assembly. Perhaps the easiest way to to farm for items in the item worlds, which can power level your equipment and your characters, and gives you the mana to try even more fun bills... wait, what am I forgetting? Oh, right, the plot...
• The Woobie or the Butt Monkey: Some fans find Asagi’s suffering hilarious. Others want to wrap her in a warm blanket and assure her that she'll get a game of her very own someday.
  • Extra woobie points in that, if she DOES get her own game, her entire reason for being in these situations disappears. She is officially doomed to suffer forever, or achieve happiness once, and then never appear again.

1. ↑ Almaz, Aurum, Adell, the entire Disgaea: Hour of Darkness main cast, and Desco.