Leveling Up and Experience

One of the main things in Disgaea a new player should know in terms of gaining experience and ultimately leveling up is that characters do not gain experience for inflicting damage on the enemy. Experience is only given by landing the killing blow. So having a stronger / higher leveled character soften an enemy unit and letting a lower leveled character finish off the enemy unit allows you get the lower level characters up to speed.

Casting Healing spells also earn experience. The experience gained is generally based on the level of the target that is being healed. Higher level allies being healed will provide a higher amount of experience points. Also using items whether they are healing items or offense items will always give approximately 1/8th experience points to a character's next level. Any character with an empty EXP gauge using items 8 times will gain the necessary exp to gain one level.

The Cheat Shop

The Cheat Shop is another important tool for players to take advantage of gaining additional levels. Early on many features of the Cheat Shop are unavailable but as you progress through the game you will unlock more options. The most basic functions of the Cheat Shop is being able to modify how much Experience, Mana, and HL you earn by a series of points that can be allocated or removed.

This allows you to effectively adjust how much EXP, MANA, or HL is earned in battles. At the start you only have 300 points to work with. 100 in EXP, 100 in MANA, and 100 in HL. Each point acts as a percentage. You can for example take away 100 points in HL and put it into EXP. This turns your HL gain to zero but makes EXP growth 200%. As you progress through chapters, higher caps of the cheat shop are unlocked and you earn additional points to allocate, up to a max of 1000%.

Also the Cheat Shop allows you to adjust Enemy Strength similarly how the EXP, MANA, and HL values can be adjusted. Initially enemy strength by default is at zero stars. Each additional star will increase enemy strength overall across the entire game, up to a max of 20. As you progress through the game and your levels exceed the enemy and things start to get too easy, ramp up enemy strength levels to balance it out to make the enemies higher leveled to give you more experience so you can level even higher.

Equipment Proficiency and Equipment Mastery

All Humanoid classes can use any humanoid weapon type. There are no restrictions per class for a specific weapon. Each class however has a certain degree of weapon proficiency that determines how quickly a weapon increases mastery levels when used in attacks and skills.

Equipment Proficiency per character class has various ranks from E to S. a Rank E Proficiency will level slower than C, and C ranked proficiency will rank slower than B and so on, up until the highest rank of S.

Weapon Mastery starts at 0 and maxes out at 99 for a total of 100 levels. Every time you use a basic attack or weapon-based skill for the equipped weapon, the mastery level will earn exp and level up. Reaching certain milestones of Weapon Mastery will unlock weapon skills for the specific level of mastery gained for the specific weapon leveled up.

Armor Mastery just like Weapon Mastery starts at 0 and also maxes out at 99 for a total of 100 levels. Each time an ally unit gets attacked with a piece of armor equipped, Armor Mastery will earn exp and level up.

Each level in Equipment mastery adds 1% to the stat value of a piece of equipment. A sword for example uses ATK for it's damage value. So a 100 ATK sword at level 10 weapon mastery will add an additional 10% ATK to the weapon so in this case 110 ATK (100 base ATK power + 10% for Mastery value = 110 total).

Just the same a piece of armor that has 100 DEF with 25 Armor Mastery will add 25% additional stat parameters to the piece of equipment. Special items like Boots which increase SPD, and Glasses that increase HIT also count in Armor mastery too.

Skill Mastery

Skill mastery is similar to Equipment mastery in the sense that the more you use skills, you earn skill experience and those skills level up. Leveling up Skills reduces their SP consumption, and in the case of spells it increases their casting range.

Aptitudes

Every character has aptitude values for equipment. These values determine the benefit which stats are derived from weapons and armor. You can see this information in the character status menu.

Using the Rank 1 Warrior for example.

HP - 115% INT - 70%
SP - 70% RES - 90%
ATK - 115% HIT - 100%
DEF - 115% SPD - 80%

The rank 1 Warrior has 115% Aptitude for ATK.

This means if the Warrior equips a sword that has 100 ATK power the aptitude value is reflected by 115% (In this case 100 ATK + 115% = 115 ATK), in a similar scenario a Warrior's SP aptitude is only 70% that means an Orb accessory when equipped will only provide 70% of its maximum value for equipment effect.

Reincarnation, Stored Levels, and Class Mastery

Once you have access to the Dark Assembly you will be able to reincarnate your characters into other classes. Reincarnation returns a character to level 1, however this is not without benefit. Characters overall growth for stats is based on level 1 on their progression to level 9999.

For example a level 1 character with a base ATK value of 100 versus a level 1 character with a base ATK value of 200, At level 9999 the character with 100 ATK power will have a FAR lower ATK value compared to the character that started with 200.

As for your stat growth, it's basically:

Base Stat + (Base Stat X .42 to .50) X (Current Level - 1) = Stat at your Current Level.

Or, in words, you gain 42% to 50% (randomly) of your Base Stat every level. That means if you have a Base Stat of 100, you'll gain 42 to 50 every level; at 200, you'll gain 84 to 100 every level, and higher values will scale even higher.

In short:

A level 1 character with 100 ATK at level 9999 with have 1,419,716 to 1,499,700 ATK
A level 1 character with 200 ATK at level 9999 with have 2,839,432 to 2,999,400 ATK

The higher the starting stats, the higher the maximums, which is why reincarnation becomes important for maximization.

Reincarnating a level 9999 character back to level 1 at the genius level will retain 99% of the characters previously earned equipment mastery and skill levels. Also a reincarnated character will earn bonus points to distribute into stats (Points given are based on number of reincarnations and stored levels)

A level 9999 character who reincarnates back to level 1 will have 9999 levels stored. Doing it again, that same character that reincarnates a second time at level 9999 will have 19998 levels stored and so on. The higher the number of stored levels factors into how many additional stat points are allowed to be used during reincarnation. The cap for this is 250,000 for 220 bonus points.

In Disgaea 5 characters can subclass and earn Class specific experience that goes towards mastering that specific class. There are numerous benefits to this and is also one of the important keys to maximizing a characters stats.

If you have a Warrior subclass a Dark Knight you will eventually master the Dark Knight as a subclass and learn Dark Knight evilities, also with Reincarnation a Warrior can adopt the stat growth that a Dark Knight has.

Reincarnating a character with Mastered classes will add the base stat values of all mastered classes onto that character.

A Warrior who has no mastered classes at level 1 will only have basic Warrior stats.
A Warrior with Mage mastered at level 1 has the combined stats of both a level 1 Warrior and level 1 Mage.

So you can for example make true hybrid classes in a way. Such as Mage with the Evilities and ATK power that a Warrior would have but still retain her casting abilities.

Mastering all classes one a single character provides not only more Evilities to use but massive stat bonuses for reincarnation!

The base stats for full mastery of all classes for a level 1 character is roughly 1,100 across the board and this maxes out at 9999 at 10 Million!

Leveling Items, Item Rarity, and Innocents

As an alternative to increasing character levels to get them stronger, you can also power up your items. Making a powerful piece of armor or strong weapon and equipping it on a weaker character is another effective method to get lower leveled characters up to speed by effectively letting them brute force stronger enemies with equipment much stronger than what can normally be purchased in shops.

By going into Item World and clearing it's floors, the item you are currently in will increase levels and it's rarity rank and you descent through the dungeon inside of it. In previous Disgaea games, simply passing the floor by skipping them and getting to the 10th floor and exiting was all that was necessary to get item leveled up.

In Disgaea 5 this no longer the case. Item levels for items are now tied to the bonus gauge. You will see bonuses for ranks 0, 3, 6, and 9. This means skipping a floor without clearing the stage you forfeit the bonus levels earned for that stage. Raising the bonus gauge and defeating enemies to clear the stage is key to maximizing an item's level in Item World.

Also an Item's rarity will steadily increase as you progress through it's Item World. Common items will eventually be promoted to Rare, and Rare Items can be promoted to Legendary.

IF a Sword that has 100 ATK with a Rarity of 0 being common, at 0 rarity no bonus is given since rarity acts as a boost by a percentage modifier. At 50 Rarity (Legendary) that same 100 ATK sword will have a 50% Modifier to its strength, hence a 150 ATK sword.

Since Rarity maxes out at 100, this means any item in the game at Epic Rarity will have double the effect for a 100% Stat bonus.

For example

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Innocents are NPCs that live in world that exists inside your items and equipment. When you go into Item World these special NPCs may randomly show up on a map. Kill them and you will "subdue" them and their effect on your equipment will double.

Subdued Innocents can be combined (i.e two Gladiators merging into a single Gladiator with the combined values)

An Innocents value will determine the boost given to your gear and each Innocent has their own unique effect.

Refer to this chart

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Basic Tips

• Stick with a small elite group of your favorite characters for the story campaign. Try not to spread your resources to thin on a larger group but rather focus your strength to at least 6 to 10 of your favorite units.
  
  
• Start collecting Statistician Innocents in gear and stock pile them into the Innocent Shop for later mass breeding when you eventually unlock the farm.
  
  Each Statistician adds 1% of experience gain up to a cap of 900 for 900%.
  
  Statisticians will be key to getting to level 9999 as quickly as possible and is by far the fastest method in the game for leveling up.
  
  
• Every character can equip a second / off-hand weapon. This weapon does not provide additional stats but any innocents equipped on the secondary weapon however will be added to your character stat pools. So you could for example load a secondary weapon with a stack of eight 50,000 Pugilists for an 400,000 ATK / HIT bonus. More importantly special weapons with Green Innocents such as the Raised Flag their effect will work even if a character is using their main weapon.
  
  
• Equipment provides a stat bonus for matching rarity for items. Each additional piece of a Rare armor equipped in all three armor slots will give a bonus for the equipment stat effect as a result of all three items having identical rarity values. The same applies for Legendary and Epic rank items as well. Common rarity items don't provide a matching rarity bonus. Two matching rarity equipments is a 10% boost, three pieces is 20%, and four pieces will provide a 30% boost.
  
  
• Once you unlock the Innocent Farm consider using Raspberyl as the Innocent Aid Squad Leader. She has an Evility called Innocent Coach which can be unlocked for 5000 Mana. Innocent Coach adds 3% Growth to all Innocents in the farm, but may not seem like much but considering the boosts for the Squad itself scale at 1%, 2%, and 3% for a total of 6%, having an extra 3% to make it 9% growth is worth it.
  
  
• Attacking enemies from the side or rear not only does more damage but it increases a chance of an attack successfully landing. This is especially important against monsters that have a high resistance against specific weapon types or enemy Armor Knights which reduce a significant portion of damage if you attempt to attack them from the front.
  
  
• The Hospital gives the player rewards depending on how much HP, SP, and Revives were done based on a certain milestone. There is an easy means to quickly get access some of better bonuses early on by using HP or SP increasing accessories. Using a low HP class such as Mage, equip them with your best possible Muscle accessory. This will increase the Mage's max HP but not her current. Healing the Mage at the Hospital will give you the credit towards an HP recovery milestone. Unequipping the Muscle accessory the Mage will go back her original HP value, re-equip the Muscle and again her max HP increases, which you again heal at the Hospital. Repeat this unlocking more HP recovery milestones and unlocking additional prizes for HP recovered. This also works for Orbs for the SP recovery milestones too.
  
  
• The Boot Camp Squad is a very useful way to get lower leveled characters stronger without putting risk themselves against much higher level enemies, especially after reincarnation. All characters in the Boot Camp Squad will share experience equally at 10% based on the actions of the Squad Leader. Putting your strongest character as the Leader and killing very high leveled enemies will quickly level up lower level characters.
  
  
• Tower Laser is a very powerful attack with S-Class ranking, a team of 6+ characters even as low as level 10 to 15 can do 1000+ HP worth of damage which makes it an incredibly useful to tool to use against bosses or using a team of weak units against enemies with boosted levels from the Cheat Shop.
  
  It is a good early leveling trick to level multiple characters at once when you don't have access to better leveling methods such as the fully maxed out Boot Camp Squad.
  
  Tower Laser's Damage also scales with the character levels in the tower so it will always be relevant as a consistent damage dealer throughout the game as your characters get more and more powerful.
  
  
• Monster units can be used as springboards to maximize movement without wasting a monsters turn. Throwing an ally unit at an ally monster unit will cause the human unit to bounce off the monster's head in the direction the monster is facing. The number of spaces moved is based on the monster's throw stat. After doing this you can then cancel the monsters movement to send them back to the base panel or have them do something else.
  
  
• Unique characters such as Killia, Seraphina, etc when reincarnated get a 5% Aptitude bonus for all stats up to a max of 25% (First 5 Reincarnations). Reincarnating Unique characters early is a simple way give them a boost.
  
  
• Due to the way experience scales for levels 100 and higher, defeating a level 99 enemy provides an equivalent experience value as if you defeated an enemy that was level 323.
  
  Monsters between level 100 and 322 will give LESS exp than a monster at level 99 due to exp calculation formula changing at level 100 and higher.
  
  By using the Cheat Shop on certain maps to force enemies to be level 99, this can be taken advantage of to quickly level up in the very beginning of the post-game.

Outstanding OT Cerium! How many have you worked on so far? Haha.

I've got this game preordered, can't wait for it to get here. I'm ready and excited to try the series for the first time

Good stuff. It's not really my genre so I'm not going to get it (at least not at full price) but the game looks good.

Great OT! I missed out on Disgaea 5's launch for the PS4 and never got into it when I eventually got a PS4. Bought a Switch basically to get in this time around. Most the mechanics and overhauls have been mathed out but still here to try and do some number crunching as needed

This will be my first Disgaea game since the very first one. Can't wait! I'm still on the fence about the Collector's Edition, but will probably just end up going for the normal version.

I know I'm going to pick this up. Love the series but never got around to this on PS4.

Super excited

Amazing OT. Super hyped for this. I had to delete the demo as I've been feeling the burn to play it, but I'm not gonna sink hours into that only to not have it transfer over to the real game. I sunk an hour and some change in that demo initially and already fell in love with the characters.

I've been playing Disgaea for many many years. After reading the OT all I can think is Nippon Ichi would make a perfect monster catching, raising, bredding, and battling game like Pokémon. They'll just need to nail the multiplayer and woo!

On topic

I'm still playing the demo. I may wait until after Nintendo E3 to see what's what for the rest of this year for the Switch before deciding to buy sooner or later.

Last game I played was Disgaea 2 on ps2 so this will be a great return to the series for me.

ZombiePlatypus said:

Amazing OT. Super hyped for this. I had to delete the demo as I've been feeling the burn to play it, but I'm not gonna sink hours into that only to not have it transfer over to the real game. I sunk an hour and some change in that demo initially and already fell in love with the characters.

Click to expand...

Wait, doesn't your save from the demo carry over?

Incitemaybe said:

Wait, doesn't your save from the demo carry over?

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It does not unfortunately. They clarified that.

Subbed. Will be getting for sure!

Random question, but didn't D4 have some sort of a multiplayer thing? I think it was something like sharing customs stages and PVP with your leveled characters? Does D5 on Switch have this?

Incitemaybe said:

Wait, doesn't your save from the demo carry over?

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As Cerium posted, apparently not. It's mind boggling as you can do a lot in then demo, and it's such a basic feature but oh well. I'll hold out till my copy proper arrives.

I can't wait. NISA just needs to ship my collector's edition...

Booo got excited thinking I missed the release date. Tuesday for me :/

UCBooties said:

I can't wait. NISA just needs to ship my collector's edition...

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Same here. Though I chose free shipping, so not expecting it sooner than 2 weeks. XD

First Disgaea game I buy, well outside both Prinny PSP games. Always liked the games, but only rented them.

Playing the hell out of the demo atm.

Zelda will wait even longer lol

Excellent OT Cerium. Very nice!

To everyone else. If anyone has any questions on the games mechanics I will be here to answer any questions.

ZombiePlatypus said:

Random question, but didn't D4 have some sort of a multiplayer thing? I think it was something like sharing customs stages and PVP with your leveled characters? Does D5 on Switch have this?

Click to expand...

I can confirm the level creator does indeed exist in Disgaea 5. However the Western release of this level editor has some features removed. In the original Japanese release of Disgaea 4 players could literally build stages block by block. However when the game was localized it was changed to preset layouts (i.e to prevent folks from posting "offensive" levels online)

This change persists with Disgaea 5 as well (At least according to the Western PS4 release). I however have no idea if the Switch version has relented on these changes and reverted them to fully customize your custom levels however you wish.

OmegaDL50 said:

Excellent OT Cerium. Very nice!

To everyone else. If anyone has any questions on the games mechanics I will be here to answer any questions.



I can confirm the level creator does indeed exist in Disgaea 5. However the Western release of this level editor has some features removed. In the original Japanese release of Disgaea 4 players could literally build stages block by block. However when the game was localized it was changed to preset layouts (i.e to prevent folks from posting "offensive" levels online)

This change persists with Disgaea 5 as well (At least according to the Western PS4 release). I however have no idea if the Switch version has relented on these changes and reverted them to fully customize your custom levels however you wish.

Click to expand...

Does it still retain the online feature? Especially if it's limited to keep things PG, it would keep the social aspect right? Otherwise, why nerf it at all?

Yeah the point of creating levels was to share them online.

You can do some rather interesting things with the level creator such as money making or grind maps that allowed you to raise skill or weapon / armor mastery rather quickly.

Or you could just make challenging puzzle maps (Needing to defeat a certain target within a certain amount of turns, reaching a specific spot on the map before the geo panels change into game over or instant death, or something else) much like the X-Dimension maps from Disgaea 3.

I hope Disgaea 5 Complete's online functionality has not been removed. Being able to gift an item to your friends, the visitors from the Dark Assembly, and the Map Sharing were very nice features.

Man, I'm so hyped for this. Even after buying the season pass and dumping a ton of hours into the ps4 version.

These games are just so much better portable. I wish Amazon carried the digital version.

Super excited for this. Been playing the series since the beginning but skipped it on the PS4 since I just couldn't find a way to fit it into my life/schedule anymore - but having this on the Switch where I can just pick up and play in portable mode anytime and then from time to time actually play it on the big screen at home is such a game changer.

Cerium said:

It does not unfortunately. They clarified that.

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Was just gonna play more of the demo. Guess I'll stop now.

Dont think Ill buy the game for awhile since I already own and beat it on PS4 but its a good game...sooo good

First entry into the series, about 10 hours in so far and enjoying it so far (bought a code for Japanese store).

Also nice OT!

OmegaDL50 said:

Yeah the point of creating levels was to share them online.

You can do some rather interesting things with the level creator such as money making or grind maps that allowed you to raise skill or weapon / armor mastery rather quickly.

Or you could just make challenging puzzle maps (Needing to defeat a certain target within a certain amount of turns, reaching a specific spot on the map before the geo panels change into game over or instant death, or something else) much like the X-Dimension maps from Disgaea 3.

I hope Disgaea 5 Complete's online functionality has not been removed. Being able to gift an item to your friends, the visitors from the Dark Assembly, and the Map Sharing were very nice features.

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks for the amazing starter's btw!

OmegaDL50 said:

Yeah the point of creating levels was to share them online.

You can do some rather interesting things with the level creator such as money making or grind maps that allowed you to raise skill or weapon / armor mastery rather quickly.

Or you could just make challenging puzzle maps (Needing to defeat a certain target within a certain amount of turns, reaching a specific spot on the map before the geo panels change into game over or instant death, or something else) much like the X-Dimension maps from Disgaea 3.

I hope Disgaea 5 Complete's online functionality has not been removed. Being able to gift an item to your friends, the visitors from the Dark Assembly, and the Map Sharing were very nice features.

Click to expand...

I just checked in game and it looks like everything is there. Here are some screenshots of the map editor menu:



Random map I downloaded just to see how it works:

And just now received shipping confirmation from NISA with tracking. Saying the LE should be here this monday! Doubt it, but hopefully.

Amazing OT. I cannot wait to play this again but now on the Switch.

It was not Zelda, it was not Mario it was this game that got me to pre-order and get a Switch.

OT already, how bout that, just waiting on my LE to deliver

Can't wait for this!! Also just got my shipping notification for the LE. It would be awesome if it does arrive Monday.

Still a bit bummed about the save data not carrying over though.

I haven't played Disgaea since the first one on PS2, which I really enjoyed. Do all the sequels have their own self-contained story? I know there's alternate universes/netherworlds and whatnot, but does this game heavily reference past plot points or is it a completely new setting and cast?

Forkball said:

I haven't played Disgaea since the first one on PS2, which I really enjoyed. Do all the sequels have their own self-contained story? I know there's alternate universes/netherworlds and whatnot, but does this game heavily reference past plot points or is it a completely new setting and cast?

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It's implied to be a prequel set a long time before the first game. It's a new setting and cast.

This time it's an alliance of Overlords from different Netherworlds banding together against a multiversal threat.

This game looks way too overwhelming with so many things to keep track of.

I'm scared I'd be too worried about doing everything to enjoy this game.


Or is it the case that you only have to touch like 10% of the mechanics to beat the game, but the rest are just to play the game how you want?

One of the nicest change compared to past Disgaea games is quick and easy monster strength level switch with the cheat shop, before that we had to go to the dark assembly and vote level up/down one at a time (or 10 levels).
Really Disgaea 5 is the best of them all for gameplay features.

I dont suppose there is a known list of differences between the Japanese and other versions of the game? As someone else mentioned they are seen as seperate on the eshop?

I can't justify this for the price currently, but I really want it. Playing the demo on my Switch shows how perfect this game would feel for the platform.

I grabbed the demo and I kinda really hate how loose the game controls. I'm finding it really hard to use the joycon buttons to accurately move and select units, and the stick is completely unsuitable for that. I hope I can get used to it!

MouldyK said:

This game looks way too overwhelming with so many things to keep track of.

I'm scared I'd be too worried about doing everything to enjoy this game.


Or is it the case that you only have to touch like 10% of the mechanics to beat the game, but the rest are just to play the game how you want?

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You don't need to master every mechanic to succeed in the game. Some of the systems in place exist to solely allow you to break the game. Like being able to level thousands of levels at once. Most of the major stuff doesn't even matter in the main story campaign and only in the post game.

The story campaign for a Disgaea game is typical length for a regular RPG, roughly 35 to 50 hours. However if you decide to stick around for the post game battles and super bosses. It can easily go beyond 150+ hours. Play however you want, just don't think the game is forces you to learn too much at once.

You can also refer to post #2 which has some useful info. If you need help or have any questions, let me know.

Cerium said:

It does not unfortunately. They clarified that.

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So I was right, I was getting "corrected" in the demo thread when I said I was 90% sure it didn't.

gameongreggy said:

So I was right, I was getting "corrected" in the demo thread when I said I was 90% sure it didn't.

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Keep in mind you also were talking about the PS4 game demo, which you could transfer it to the full game.

There seems to be particular issues with the Switch demo in general, outside of being unable to transfer your save. like certain skills being casted locking up the game, but it won't matter now that the full game is here / will be here.

This thread makes me wanna go back to my PS4 save file, I remember stopping because I leveled up my Trap wrong

Still need to take down Baal.

OmegaDL50 said:

Keep in mind you also were talking about the PS4 game demo, which you could transfer it to the full game.

There seems to be particular issues with the Switch demo in general, outside of being unable to transfer your save. like certain skills being casted locking up the game, but it won't matter now that the full game is here / will be here.

Click to expand...

Hopefully that doesn't affect the full game. That would suck if spells were locking the system. Haven't had the time to play the demo yet unfortunately.

Murkas said:

This thread makes me wanna go back to my PS4 save file, I remember stopping because I leveled up my Trap wrong

Still need to take down Baal.

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How did you do that? What did you do with your Trapezohedron that you think was wrong?

Item World in Disgaea 5 allows you run through an item as many times as you like. Once you get to the bottom of the Item World you can re-enter the item starting from the top and work your way back down again to correct any issues you might have.

OmegaDL50 said:

How did you do that? What did you do with your Trapezohedron that you think was wrong?

Item World in Disgaea 5 allows you run through an item as many times as you like. Once you get to the bottom of the Item World you can re-enter the item starting from the top and work your way back down again to correct any issues you might have.

Click to expand...

Messed up the kill bonus by having it on 1* until it got to like level 100, like I think I could crank it to 20* and catch up but it may be a tad more difficult and I think I need to buff my Sage with supporting characters (she's got 40m all stats so I think it is doable).

Got it the week I got my switch (JP store).

25 hours in but I took a bit of a break to play Persona. It's seriously good, just wish there was an interesting story to follow because at times it falls into the worst of all anime tropes.

Damn, what an amazing OT! Great job, Cerium!

I am exploring my interest in the game with the demo atm, It's a slow burn still but I am liking the customisability of the game and the combat mechanics are fun to play with in actual battles so far!

Awesome OT! My copy already shipped, hoping it shows up early Monday. Real excited for this, I own most of the games but I haven't played the hell out of one since 2.

After finishing the demo I love how the developers went all in to support player fun above everything else. They took player freedom to 11, sometimes in hilarious ways.

I enjoy leveling up in games. In Disgea 5? Everything levels up lol. Literally everything. Characters, skills, spells, weapons, stores, items. Die a lot? Congrats you just leveled up the hospital, and here's a prize! It's bonkers, but in a great way.

I like games that are easy to learn but have a lot of depth in strategy, skills and weapons. In Disgea 5 I learned that you can form a tower of people and beat the shit out of bad guys with it, and then throw characters from the tower all over the map. The game doesn't care if I bring 8 characters into a fight with only 4 enemies, or if I only bring 4 characters to a fight with 8 enemies. I can throw exploding penguins who hate their job.