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« on: November 28, 2020, 05:44:27 AM »
So I finally got around to finishing the main plot of Disgaea 5. Standard Disgaea fare, absolutely ridiculous numbers available early (though not early enough). This was a case where I picked up a file that I started five years ago, and I'd forgotten several of the plot beats until I looked them up. This particular game suffers a *lot* from the story being too long, kind of if a Tales game had its filler third of the game right in the 3/6-5/6 point.
Killia - Bog standard protagonist. Fists and Swords are both good, and getting a skill that lets him have some range on his skills with fists, while picking up a few single target nukes way later on. Gimmick: stress eating. Afraid of his anger issues. He doesn't have very much past, "I want revenge, gotta get stronger, gotta keep my evil side suppressed." Eventually it changes to "I accept my evil side, and I want to stop others from being hurt." He almost seemed like he'd be getting over Lieze, and then Void Dark brings her back for a happily ever after out of nowhere. Just a generally forgettable character.
Seraphina - She's the driving force of the game, and the main reason the heroes are able to do anything at all. She left home because she was protesting an arranged marriage to the main villain, and instead ran away to go assassinate him. I'm going to be completely honest. She gets a lot of my ire probably undeserved, because she's a fairly strong character in her own right. She just has the issues of me seeing her being a more tropey version of Rosalin from D2, and her character chapter not really doing much for her in terms of character growth, AND said chapter coming in a point where I was already suffering from story pacing fatigue. "Nooooo, I don't want to be poor!... Wait, I don't give a shit about that." She's all guns guns guns and damage, and a little bit of turn stun with charm on male units. She honestly makes it work, since being out of range of counters with her durability is a very, very good thing.
Red Magnus - This is a character that... I don't remember much of! Seeing as when I picked the game back up I was already in Chapter 8, the very next chapter was Red Magnus's character growth, and he didn't do very much after that, aside from saying "SUPER" as his verbal tic. Axes may be strong, but none of his moves felt like they had the power or range to really justify using any of them. He wound up staying in the Capture Squad after that.
Christo - Probably the best written character in the game. Starts out trying to manipulate the party into killing Void Dark for him. Over the course of the game, he has his preconceived beliefs constantly challenged, and while he's frustrating and often showing off his racism to demons, he DOES get to a point that he's willing to consider this little dysfunctional group his allies and, more importantly, his friends. In fact, his first real friends since he never really got to a point where he made attachments to anyone in Celestia. I do like the running joke that everyone already knows that Christo is an angel, but goes along with his bad attempts to masquerade as a demon. So in combat... Staves and Bows. He comes with a Bow, but I stuck a Staff on him and found I did fine between him learning the first three levels of Heal and his uniques.
Usalia - Hey, video game writers. Need an example of a well written child character? Here you go. With (or despite) the writing... Strength... Of this cast, she immediately improves the quality of any scene she's in, even more than Christo... Though I still say Christo is the better character. Starts out a monster that you have to feed curry to restore her to her normal form. Come to find out Majorita murdered her parents and she's at wits end because she can't eat her favorite food, and has to eat her most hated food to keep a curse at bay. Really a scared little girl under all the cute. Gets her power up once she realizes that yes, her parents really did love her after Marjorita attacked. She's the token Monster-class story PC, which means she can Magichange into a Fist. Combos really well with Killia.
Zeroken - Former member of the Lost. Jealous of Killia because he got to train under Goldion directly, but he gets better. Not very smart, but decently strong and very fast. He's written to be kind of... Softly blunt, just in a way that I like dealing with people. Unfortunately, due to training mostly the same way as Killia, he's built the same way, which means they're competing for weapons for a while. Zeroken is better with AoEs, but by the time you unlock the really good ones, you have enough AoEs that he somewhat falls short of the things you'd really like him to do. The last AoE he gets is a little awkward as well, though the range is pretty wide.
I feel like for in-game use, it's... Killia > Seraphina > Christo > Usalia > Zeroken > Red Magnus...
...For character writing: Christo >= Usalia > Zeroken > Killia > Red Magnus, with Seraphina going I don't know where under Usalia, because I have to admit I'm rating her unfairly.
Finished the game with a Sage at level 800 spamming Land Destroyer every turn to build up Bonus Gauge, then a L2000 Killia cleaning up the rest. Got the trophy for getting 50 One Time Bonuses on the same stage as killing the final boss.
Just starting to get into the Postgame now, and I already have Killia at 4K, and a Rabbit at 3.5K.
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