The PS3 era of Disgaea has always been a little messy, eschewing a lot of the strategic aspects causing the levels to oscillate between being pure stat checks or extended geo puzzles, but Disgaea 4 is definitely the most polished game from that era. Mechanically I still prefer D2 by a lot, but this game is very fine tuned and runs quickly in battles. The complete version adds even more options like animation fast forward, which is cool if you like to see the animations but don't want to spend 3 years on them. The balancing for progression is very inconsistent which is my least favorite thing. The early game it takes forever to get mana for good attacks, and when you can finally get it quickly the attacks themselves very quickly become to costly to use a ton. With the removal of level multipliers and the intense nerfing of secondary equipment like Orbs and Emblems, it can take way too long to get more than a single character up and running, The Chara World also way overcomplicates aspects that were very easy originally and I do not like it at all. All that said though, if you liked Disgaea 3 a lot you'll likely enjoy this one even more, and it's a great time killer game if nothing else.

Oh yeah the story. Not as funny as 3's but it hits the emotional notes a little better. I don't consider it to be as strong as 1 or even 2, playing out a lot of hackneyed tropes dead straight that the first two games approached with much more care and awareness. It is what it is. Valvatorez and Emizel are great at least.