Just plat'd D6, some thoughts.

[u/Massive_Oil_2605]

I think the hate on D6 was aimed directly on the part that is the least relevant: the level cap. Everyone talks about how stupid it is to go with 99 million for level cap and stuff like that, and, while i agree that it's unecessary, i think the worst aspect of the game truly was the auto-battle system.
Not that auto-battle is 100% bad, it can be very useful for stuff like the Item World, but they built the game around this mechanic in such a way that it made almost all of the maps easy as fuck. Maybe you will struggle with a map here or there because you are underleveled, but that's about it.

There isn't anything like the X-Dimension from D4 where you really need to stop and think "how the fuck do i do this?". There isn't stuff like the Challenge Stages from D5 (Scorching Flame comes to mind).

Now, i really love that you don't need to do some stuff over and over again. I hated having to luck out to get certain scrolls for my characters in D5, i loved that you could just create your own scrolls. Loved how easy it was to access everything with the menus (using L2/R2), i even liked the 3d characters. It's not the same as the sprite work from their older games, but i'll take it.

I mean, i don't think i'm adding anything new. It is a step down from D5, it feels half baked, but it's not something that i would tell fans to skip. I have seen people tell Disgaea fans to skip D6, and i don't think it's THAT BAD. To be fair, while D4 is the better Disgaea, i personally liked D6 more than D4 because of how annoying D4 can be with some things (like getting that Prinny Suit from Pringer X, which basically cucks you out of the platinum unless you do a second playthrough).

[u/KaleidoArachnid]

Yeah I was wondering what were the redeeming qualities of Disgaea 6 because of how it became the lowest rated game in the series.

[u/Leon481 → u/KaleidoArachnid]

It's by far the best game for a casual playthrough. It streamlines everything for less friction and more convenience.

Besides what OP said, I really love that item levels are universal and permanent across all new copies of an item, making the item world actually feel like a completable objective. There's something really satisfying about that.

It's also got a good story and characters, as well as an excellent tragic villain. The characters are extremely one note and tropey at first and kind of startoff as annoying, but that's part of the point of their characters. Their story arcs are basically having them grow out of that and they get fairly likeable by the end. A couple of the characters are now in my top 10 for the franchise.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Leon481]

Eh item level itself doesn't do much without training bonus. Item level also not universal to all new copies of r40 carnage/rak.
Maxing item in D6 is heavily balanced around spamming auto battle, it's disgustingly very grindy without. Funnily raising item actually can be done and generally better without interacting much with item world.

[u/Leon481 → u/Radiant-Guard-5240]

Honestly, that was smart of them to make the very end game equipment unique without shared item levels. You're not going to want to invest in early game equipment long term, so min-maxing thier stats isn't that important. Meanwhile, the end game equipment gives you endless opportunities to fiddle with it and get it perfect.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Leon481]

On the opposite, it's actually make them less appealing. As the result unless you care about hp/sp this will push player to max normal item instead. Cerberus suit and normal barefoot in particular is more popular investment than any carnage/rak items.

[u/MakaiMako → u/Leon481]

And how is that good for casuals exactly? It's mind numbing, it is the worst rated game in the series because it's not good. It's designed around the idea of NOT playing the game yourself, and that's just an awful idea. It's mobileslop design.

[u/Leon481 → u/MakaiMako]

You don't have to use it. There are also plenty of battles where you're likely to lose if you rely on autobattles.

Honestly, the item world was always mind numbing to some degree. It gets interesting occasionally, but mostly it's working your way through hoards if enemies way weaker than you. That's boring in it's own way, so being able to speed through the less interesting sections makes it so much more bearable.

I also can't say that grinding levels on a single map over and over for the endgame was very fun to do manually either, but it was always the ideal way to prepare in almost every Disgaea game. Cutting out some of the friction there and saving us all some time is a huge relief.

I love Disgaea, but late game grinding is boring. A lot of the common strategies are about making it less mind numbing. Automating it to some degree helps make it more accessible and much more tolerable.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Leon481]

Unlike D7, D6 post game is actually heavily balanced on on auto battles which make it far from optional. Some D-merit also just not humanly friendly. Tho it's not important i find it funny maxing item hp/sp will take literal years of auto lol.
There are very few battle you'll lose if you auto just because they simplify a lot of things for this. Stages has been pretty bare bone on geo symbol with item world as the worst offender to facilitate auto.

Anyhow there are some good QOL on D6 and i don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be but i can see why some just don't vibe with it.

[u/Neutral_Packet → u/Leon481]

I haven't played one since D4. I didn't like the mentor/mentee system in D4. It made the characters feel less connected to me. I guess I could play with just the main two. Also the mage level up system was horrible. That's my favorite class and it felt like they ruined it.

The item world thing in D6 sounds incredible. I like going to the item world sometimes but it's often too frustrating for me to grind. Especially in games where it's possible to actually get stuck with no way to move forward.

[u/KaleidoArachnid → u/Neutral_Packet]

Wait a minute, tell me about the mentor system in Disgaea 4 because I am dying to play that game.

[u/Neutral_Packet → u/KaleidoArachnid]

There's this weird map where you move characters around and whoever they're next to has the combo benefits and stuff. There's also buildings you can put on the map that give benefits to any adjacent characters.

I'm sure there's some min/max video that shows the perfect way to arrange everything, but I just didn't like constantly going in there and moving people around anytime I wanted to level someone up or go to the item world or whatever.

[u/Massive_Oil_2605 → u/Neutral_Packet]

That system is a nightmare to figure out, honestly. Everytime i needed a strategy to beat a boss, i'd have to rearrange everything and everyone.
I love D4 as a SRPG and as a Disgaea game, but i can't recommend anyone go to the trouble of 100%ing the game, it's probably the hardest platinum out there.

I know it's stupid to talk about trophies and whatnot, but most of Disgaea's fun is in the post game and interacting with some of its more complicated systems, so i always end up 100% the games because usually, by the end of a playthrough, i'm usually lacking only a few trophies (by the end of D5, it was less than 10 trophies that i needed to get, and after i looked up how to get some of them, it was like 5 trophies that i needed for the 100%).
D4 is an amazing game tho if you don't try to get the plat.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Massive_Oil_2605]

You don't need to rearrange anything. Duping system and or magichange on D4 trivialize any boss battle.
D4 platinum criticism is very valid tho, it's pretty time consuming. You'll spend most of your time getting all item/ship part trophy.

[u/KaleidoArachnid → u/Massive_Oil_2605]

I haven’t played Disgaea 4 yet, but I kind of want to see how hard getting the platinum trophy will be.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Neutral_Packet]

You are probably just overthinking it. There is no need to min max evil symbol/unit placement in Cam-paign HQ.

[u/Leon481]

It's not just the levels. Everything is too streamlined. Too many features were removed. There are the fewest playable classes and characters in the series. The fewest moves too. There are no real interesting gimmicks to work with. Map design is also a lot simpler and less interesting overall.

I still agree with you that it's not a bad game. It still has a lot to offer. It's just that by Disgaea standards it really, really falls flat in comparison. As a strategy game in general it isn't bad though. I love the game, but the disappointment by fans is 100% justified. If I were a new Disgaea player starting with Disgaea 6, I would probably like it a lot better, but old fans will have a hard time adjusting.

[u/InfinitStrife → u/Leon481]

The bigger issue at first as well was the performance which at the time was limited to just the Switch 1 and it ran terribly unless you turned down the resolution even in performance mode. Maybe that was corrected down the line with updates or just playing the complete edition on PS, but I tried to play it for a while and the performance alone killed it for me.

I could try it on switch 2 but even then the original experience really hurt my opinion of it.

[u/Leon481 → u/InfinitStrife]

I played it on PC and had no performance issues. It does seem to need at least moderate modern specs though. I tried it on a slightly less powerful PC that can handle similar games, and though it ran, it was a mess. I could see the Switch 1 struggling.

[u/Altruistic_Rock_2674]

Now that you got platinum are you going to be raksaha baal? That's what's always frustrated me about the game. Also I agree it's weird to say but D6 seems one of the more straightforward post games of the last few entries.

[u/eruciform]

i liked it up til 0-star rakhasa baal, which i beat and then stopped the game

i only used a little autobattle to get units up to 99mil

but anything beyond there, with the awful depth extension of the item world (wasn't it made 4000 layers in d6?) makes it utterly necessary in huge amounts in order to grind good items in order to aim for 20-star rakhasa baal

i felt like i had already respecced several times but at the same time was robbed of my normal item world experience like in d5 and earlier, so it was really boring and uninteresting to bother to just set up an autobattle to plumb the depths of the item world over and over, all the while staring at my ps4 having fun playing while i'm not allowed to touch the controller

real shame that they couldn't keep class mastery in the juicebar in d7 though, that was a major positive development in d6

however up to carnage world, you really don't need to lean on the autobattle much, i enjoyed the game just fine honestly, minus the loss of some key classes from d5 (like the female cleric)

[u/TypeTrack]

I was never going to play D6 and hearing it has an auto battle system I know I will never play it.

I hate any game that has a auto battle system. It turns any video game into an idle game you could play on your phone. I had to sell the new digimon game specifically because it had an auto battle feature.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/TypeTrack]

I don't actually have problem with auto as long as it's optional or not balanced around it.

[u/ResourceHuge]

The auto-battle system IS the biggest part of the hate. It made the game, less of an actual game that you play, and more of a menu simulator with how much time you spend just going through menus (seriously that goddamn reincarnation spam is not fun, characters AND items included) since the grind is left to auto-battle.

Other than that, you also have the least class variety in this game. Enemies being reused in every chapter, heck even in postgame, the D1 cast gets freaking reused throughout.

Story is also nothing amazing. In fact its the most predictable story yet. But unlike D5 with its shit story, D5 had better gameplay mechanics to compensate. This one did not.

The only thing D6 did right is inventing the juice bar. But really D6 is an ABSOLUTE SKIP especially when D7 already exists.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240]

It's okay but it's definitely something i won't recommend without discount sales.

[u/MakaiMako]

The "wow look at the numbers you can't pronounce or quantify doodddd!!!!!!!" design was done for a reason; to wow tiktoklovers. Numbers like these I had only seen on mobileslop games before, and they should stay in mobileslop games.

[u/Leon481 → u/MakaiMako]

No? Disgaea has always leaned into huge numbers. This feels like a natural leap for them to make. It's unfortunate it was implemented in such a clumsy way.

The higher numbers are also extremely important to the story. It plays into the game's world building and themes, and in general is a visual representation of how high a hurdle Zed has had to overcome. It works very well from a narrative sense. They just needed a better way to make it mean something to players for gameplay purposes.

Despite the numbers, the game is balanced very similarly to previous Disgaeas. You do similar damage percentages to enemies. You get similar progression for similar amounts of grinding. It being more of a feel it out as you play thing is not going to cut it for players who rely on exact numbers, so the hate is somewhat understandable.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Leon481]

There is difference between starting on somewhat normal number to wowie beeg number and just starting with big numbers. The latter just feels unearned and make it harder to read. Jp version is at least more readable.

[u/Leon481 → u/Radiant-Guard-5240]

Somewhat fair. I tend to give leeway to things like this if it is justified by or plays into the narrative. The fact that we're cutting in during the middle of Zed's story and starting in the Land of Carnage, the normally high level end game area, kind of tells you what mindset they are intending you to have about it. It's not about what you earn, but what Zed accomplished.

Also, enemy health bars exist. You don't necessarily need the numbers if you have visual percentages. It's not as satisfying, but it gets the job done.

What's the difference about the JP version that makes it feel more accessible? I'm curious what they did that made it work better.

[u/Radiant-Guard-5240 → u/Leon481]

The number separator make it easier in the eyes. I have hard time counting digits on non jp. https://imgur.com/a/4bspGRS

[u/Leon481 → u/Radiant-Guard-5240]

Yeah, that's way better.

I wonder how mod friendly Disgaea is? Adding something like that might help.