Disgaea RPG is a mobile Gacha Game for iOS and Android devices based off the Disgaea franchise, developed by Forward Works and published by Boltrend Games. The game had its original launch in Japan on March 19, 2019, but the game was notorious for its Troubled Production, having to be taken down quite a few times just to fix bugs and other issues. It relaunched in November 2019 to much better success.
In January 2021 a closed beta test for overseas versions went out, and after multiple bug and translation fixes, Boltrend launched the game overseas on April 12th, 2021. It was later ported to Steam on November 30, 2021. The global version ended services on May 12th, 2023.
Laharl, Adell, Mao, Valvatorez and Killia all show an interest in figuring out who is the Strongest in the Universe. Using a smartphone, they try to get an answer to the question... and somehow reach you through your device!
With your device now connected to the Netherworld, you've been selected to help decide who is the Strongest Overlord!
As Disgaea RPG takes place some time after all the games in the series, Late Arrival Spoilers from all the games will be unmarked. You have been warned.
Tropes include:
- Alternate Timeline: The Xeno characters hail from one. See For Want Of A Nail for more details.
- Anti-Frustration Features: A common event in games like this one involves "re-rolling" your initial selection for a specific unit, which sometimes necessitates re-downloading the game or deleting your data. Disgaea RPG allows you to infinitely re-select your starting 4-star character before you begin the tutorial. Afterwards, you get to select up to 4 generic units for your party.
- Badass Normal: The player is believed to be such, seeing as how they're able to take the cast all the way to the level cap and defeat a number of notorious villains along the way.
- Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic:
- Most non-regular Summon banners will guarantee a 4-star character for every fifth x10 Summon (three for some of the paid ones), and guaranteeing you roll one of the featured characters on your 20th or 30th roll.
- Platinum Summon banners give increased chances of rolling the featured characters every five x10 Summons, outright guaranteeing rolling them on the 20th. Limited time banners will give you one Token for every character you summon and you can trade 200 Tokens for one of the featured characters.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The two most prominent threats in the game are the ''Final Boss Squad'', comprising of ex-Archangel Vulcanus and Super Hero Aurum and masterminded by Overlord Baal and XENO, a villainous organization made up of alternate timeline counterparts of many familiar Disgaea characters.
- Big Damn Heroes: After the tutorial, the Prinnies that were helping you try to turn on you, only for Etna and Flonne to show up and take them out. Turns out that Etna and Flonne were supposed to be your guides.
- In Episode 1, Chapter 8, Vulcanus attempts to turn the player to stone, only for Etna and Flonne to take the hit. Laharl then drops down to chase Vulcanus off!
- In Episode 1, Chapter 9, Aurum plans to use the combined sins of billions of dead Prinnies to unleash a hellish, Netherworld-killing bomb. Gordon, Jennifer and Thursday managed to calm the Prinnies' souls down through genuine heart-to-heart therapy!
- In Episode 1, Chapter 10, Axel pulls the Double Reverse Quadruple Agent to get ahold of the cure to Etna and Flonne's petrification. Laharl and Valvatorez then take the Dark Assembly to task to get another dose of it.
- In Episode 1 Anecdote, Chapter 2, the Vato Brothers reveal they were actually spying for Mao, then summon 100,000 of their brothers to hold off the Prinny souls inside the Prinny Bomb for Gordon & team.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Almaz suffers this in Main Story Anecdote 1, being led to think he's an Overlord
- Comically Small Bribe: In "Selling the Summer Resort", when the Prinnies rise up to overthrow Etna out of her summer resort, she gets talked into bribing them all with one sardine and mackerel and some time off. They gladly accept it.
- Crossover: There have currently been collaborations four different series: The Seven Deadly Sins, Re:Zero, Attack on Titan, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
- Chess Motifs: The Symbol Type Pavilion groups all characters by the six chess pieces. Reincarnating or upgrading a character from that group will grant a small stat bonus to everyone in that group. Some characters give bonuses to characters with certain piece types.
- Crutch Character: Laharl (10% Stat boost to humanoids, massive 90% damage increase against enemy humanoids, and access to Mega Braveheart), Desco (11% stat boost to monsters and a cheap AoE skill) and Valvatorez (powerful single-target attack with HP leech) are generally regarded to be the best character starting out, especially during the game's launch period. However, thanks to Power Creep, they quickly get outclassed by many of the later characters. This hit Laharl and Desco the most as their major advantage over most characters early on, Laharl's Mega Braveheart and Desco's cheap AoE, has become increasingly commonplace among the later characters who are able to do much more.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: When introduced in the first raid, Fuka XENO, outside of her darker colors, looked exactly like Fuka. When she was added to the Badass Banners, however, Fuka XENO's hair became significantly shorter, lacking Fuka's Girlish Pigtails. The XENO Rush event reveals that she had it cut due to being dumped and her portraits were adjusted accordingly.
- Elite Tweak: Besides maxing Awakening levels and Nether Enhancements, Ultimate Demon Rite gives further boost a character's stats if you have other high-leveled characters with the same symbol type to clear the trials, and Super Reincarnation lets you reset a character's max level to increase their stat growths slightly, though fortunately you don't require Reincarnation crystals again to level them.
- Excuse Plot: The story starts off with the main male cast members wanting to figure out who's the Strongest Overlord, which is how the player gets involved. However, Lamington soon enters the picture, enlisting their help to save the world. Turns out that the player was called in to train up the strongest Overlord, all to help take down Tyrant Overlord Baal!
- For Want Of A Nail: Due to varying events in another timeline, the Xeno characters ended up becoming vastly different compared to their canon counterparts:
- Thunderlord Laharl managed to break through the illness that forced his mother to give up her life to cure it in canon. With her in his life, he became a LOT nicer, but as a tradeoff Sicily was born in the Netherworld. While the siblings do have a very close relationship, she finds him too nice to become Overlord, so she plans on taking the title. Xeno Sicily herself has aspects of a Chuunibyou in her character, unlike her main universe counterpart.
- Etna is a demon saint and acts as the Big Good of the Xeno world. Her Prinnies obey her out of genuine admiration rather than fear.
- Mao and Raspberyl are inverted versions of their canon selves; Mao focusing on body-enhancement through physical might while Raspberyl is a notorious Honor Student, even using a cellphone in lieu of her usual spellbook.
- Fuka ended up creating Desco, and has outright given up on dreams.
- Emizel kept riding his father's coattails instead of striking out on his own and gets no respect as a Middle-Management Mook. Tink is his best and only friend (but even he doesn't like him).
- Frostlord Rozalin was never made into Zenon's reincarnation, and as a result was born with black hair and has a deeper connection to her Snow Melody heritage.
- Majorita is no longer a Necromancer, instead becoming a battle-loving fire-wielder.
- Xeno Flonne ended up having True Zenon's spirit sealed within her by Saint Etna, slowly turning her into a cruel and ruthless juggernaut.
- Yukimaru abandoned the Snow Clan, her name, and even her Verbal Tic (for the most part). She now goes by Kagemaru as a ruthless assassin-for-hire.
- Artina was turned into a vampire by Valvatorez, and now serves him as a maid and nurse.
- Heel–Face Turn: In Act 2, Fake Zenon of all people comes back from the dead so he can become the genuinely loving father to Rozalin he never got to be and genuinely tries to bond and make amends with Rozalin, though he refuses to share her approval with Adell.
- Inconsistent Dub: The localization of the global release was not done by NISA, resulting in the translations being all over the place. This is most apparent with many characters calling Laharl "Prince" despite the nickname generally being used only by Etna and Krichevskoy's vassals.
- Knight of Cerebus: Super Hero Aurum, just like in Disgaea 3. Whenever Aurum is involved, the story often takes a much darker turn whether it is due to his cruel actions (murdering Prinnies moments before they are cleansed by the Red Moon) or his plans often coming within moments of completion. This is in sharp contrast to Vulcanus, who is much more comedic and isn't treated with the same level of danger as Aurum.
- Malicious Misnaming: Etna does it twice: she calls the Villain Team-Up the "Final Boss Squad" instead of whatever name they actually came up with, and she refuses to let Fake Zenon reveal his true name.
- Mythology Gag:
- In one of Rozalin's character episodes, she questions if her father, the late fake Overlord Zenon, did actually love her, as she still cherishes the gifts that he sent her like her teddy bear, her birthday cake, and garden of roses. These gifts are not mentioned in Disgaea 2, but rather in Disgaea 2's manga adaptation where fake Zenon, while still villainous, is conflicted about whether to fully commit to his revenge against the true Zenon or to legitimately care for Rozalin as his daughter.
- In the "Frightening Dark Christmas" event, Usalia, corrupted by the Dark Santa outfit, forces Majorita into a reindeer costume and acts abusive towards her. This is a reference to one of Disgaea 5's On the Next segments where Usalia enslaves Majorita as punishment for her crimes against the Toto Bunny Netherworld. One of Majorita's character portraits, a distressed/crying expression, even resembles the face she made during that segment.
- During the Puella Magi Madoka Magica event, Mami Tomoe teases Laharl for the Aloof Big Brother front he puts on for Sicily despite clearly being concerned for her well-being. Laharl retorts with "Are you off your head?, referring to one of the most infamous moments in the series. A few scenes later, Laharl, after transforming into a Magical Girl, appears to have suffered Mami's fate, getting eaten by a creature, only to remind everyone she's far more durable. Bonus points for both Mami and Laharl being voiced by Kaori Mizuhashi.
- One-Man Army: Generally averted, much like other mobile games. Though basic content can be soloed with a high-level Companion, ones that give substantial rewards or upgrade opportunities require your own team of highly leveled and optimized characters to clear.
- One Stat to Rule Them All: Much like Phantom Brave, SPD helps determines turn order; unlike that game, SPD does not increase per level, being restricted to equipment and certain characters' passive skills.
- Original Generation: Lucy, Dias and Torachiyo are original characters who get involved in the second Main Story arc, being sent to spy on an undisclosed something. There are also the various event characters whose appearances are based on the Disgaea classes, such as Noel and Love Oracle.
- Properly Paranoid: When Valvatorez starts getting involved, Aurum and Vulcanus are notably concerned. Not only do they acknowledge Valvatorez' past as an incredibly powerful Tyrant, but his victory over Fear the Great despite the loss of his Tyrant powers means that he is very much a danger to their plans.
- Purposely Overpowered: The Badass Banner and Gorgeous Banner characters. Many of them come with incredible stats, skills, and evilities that can break the game wide open. It makes sense since many of those characters are notably powerful within the series' lore with many of their playable counterparts in the main games being just as broken. These characters are either their Xeno versions, Living Legends, such as Tyrant Valvatorez and King Krichevskoy, or are a character's incredibly dangerous Superpowered Evil Side, like Awakened Rozalin and Killidia.
- Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: For the 1.5th Anniversary, Pleinair and Usalia from the game's 2000th anniversary travel to present time. Thanks to the wonders of AI-generated content, there's no shortage of new protagonists and character variants in sight.
- Spell My Name With An S: Due to the game's Inconsistent Dub, the spelling of Dias' name is very inconsistent. Promotional material leading up to his release used both "Diez" and "Diaz", and while he is listed as "Dias" on the menu screen, the cut scenes will sometimes use "Diez" instead.
- This Page Will Self-Destruct: Dias, Lucy, and Torachiyo receive messages from their boss via a Prinny. Once the message is delivered, the Prinny announces that they will self-destruct and immediately does so, leaving them with Ash Face.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: On the one hand, Laharl has to once again become a girl to gain Magical Girl powers in order to save Sicily. On the other hand, his female form, for once, lacks the usual sexy body that causes him no amount of grief.
- Unexplained Recovery: Vulcanus and Aurum return as their original selves with no indication of how they escaped their fates from their home game (Vulcanus being turned into a flower and Aurum becoming Mao's test subject).
- Villain Team-Up: Vulcanus and Aurum, the Big Bads of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice respectively, are teaming up for unknown reasons. Both are later revealed to be working for Baal.
