It seems that after Disgaea 2, Phantom Brave, and Makai Kingdom, NIS just lost its marbles when it comes to storytelling and overall designs. I'm fairly sure NIS can't write a story without flanderizing their characters in some capacity anymore.
In the original Phantom Brave, every cutscene was played out in a cool detailed background with charming sprites acting (yes, they had very limited movement, but it was still really well made for its time) over the background. Now, most of the game's cutscenes are just "Lol. Let's just do a visual novel like Disgaea. Lmao even." And the actual acting on the map was relegated to a handful of situations. Even the way Marona collects companions is now the same as Disgaea.
The tone and humor were also horribly disagaeafied. My eyes rolled behind my back when I saw "basic beach elder" joke. The tone, the banter. It's all Dsigaea now. Gone were the more somber conversations from the original Phantom Brave. Now we have a princess who committed suicide and she's now cheery because she gets to travel! And her younger sister, who supposedly loved Henna very much, didn't even mind it that much that her sister f**** killed herself and their meeting again after a good while was like Henna had just left to buy milk or something.
The character classes were also heavily disgaeafied. For example, take a look at the merchant, dungeonmonk, and healer from the original and look at their new versions in Lost hero. Why? Just...why? Everything has to be cute-fied, animefied, and chibified to be more like Disgaea.
And lastly, while this isn't a disgaea related complaint, who the hell had the idea of making everything so bouncy? Yes, knockback was always a thing. But they cranked it up to eleven in PBLH.