This year, the Disgaea franchise will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Since its inception back in 2003, the Disgaea franchise has been remarkably consistent. If remakes, related titles, and spin-off games are accounted for, the franchise has had at least one release every single year since its debut. For all but the most diehard fans, the Disgaea franchise is a relatively difficult one to keep up with, leading fans to wonder if they can simply jump into the latest release without revisiting its predecessors.
Unfortunately, for fans looking to catch up before the release of Disgaea 7, the franchise is also notoriously lengthy. With each mainline game generally boasting a main story and side quest completion time of around 100 hours, running through the Disgaea games is a serious undertaking for even the most dedicated gamers.
Why Fans Should Play the Disgaea Franchise in Any Order
To give a simple, straightforward answer: fans can jump into the Disgaea franchise at any point they'd like. The games do not have to be played in order. The Disgaea franchise is much like Persona, Final Fantasy, and many other major franchises in that each game is a self-contained story and only loosely connected to past titles. For what it's worth, characters from previous games do occasionally make cameo appearances in subsequent entries, but the cameos are almost exclusively for inveterate fans' enjoyment and are never integral to the understanding of the story.
Another case for not playing the games in order is that not all of Nippon Ichi Software's games were created equal, and fans' opinions are wildly divided on which Disgaea games are worth playing. Generally, though, the first entry, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness as well as Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance both tend to rank highly among fans, making them logical entry points to the long-running series. A chronological playthrough would mean that players would have to play through a few of the lesser-regarded—though still objectively well-rated—games to get to Disgaea 5.
It's worth reiterating the length of Disgaea games when arguing against a chronological-order playthrough. Since each game can mean hundreds of hours of investment, it's unlikely that most fans will even make it through the complete catalog.
Why Fans Should Play the Disgaea Games in Order
While it may not be the wisest decision, there's still a decent argument to be made for playing through the Disgaea franchise in order. Most importantly, even the lowest-ranked Disgaea games are still examples of criminally underrated JRPGs. So, a fan playing through the mainline franchise in chronological order won't exactly hit a bad game. Plus, since the first game is generally considered by fans to be the best of the entire franchise, both a chronologically ordered playthrough and a non-chronological playthrough should start in the same place anyway.
For that reason alone, whatever way fans decide they want to approach the franchise, they should start with the first game. After that, if they're now hooked on the Disgaea franchise, and decide to invest hours upon hours into it, then they might want to consider a chronological approach. If not, well, they've already enjoyed one of the finest examples of the series.
Finally, even if reoccurring characters are merely cameos, those moments do still exist. It may be worth the lengthier investment of an ordered playthrough if only to enjoy the series to its absolute fullest, with all the tiny Easter eggs and cameos that come with it. It's also a great way to build anticipation for the upcoming release, meeting each protagonist until the debut of Fuji in Disgaea 7.
Disgaea 7 is scheduled to release on January 26th in Japan for PS4, PS5, and Switch.
