Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten is the fourth game in the Turn-Based Strategy series Disgaea by Nippon Ichi. The game revolves around Valvatorez—a vampire who forbade himself from drinking human blood after he made a promise 400 years ago—and his campaign of reformation against the corrupt government of the Netherworld. With him is Fenrich, his loyal demon wolf servant, and Fuka Kazamatsuri, a deceased middle-school student who was sent to the Netherworld and should have been turned into a Prinny, but because of budget cutbacks just had a Prinny hat slapped on her instead.

Other characters include Vulcanus, the Angel of Avarice; Emizel, the son of the Netherworld President; and Desco, a monster girl whose ambition is to become the Final Boss. Axel returns as the warden of Hades and Valvatorez' boss.

Features include true high-resolution sprites (with the option of switching to the traditional low-res sprites), new Magichange commands and the ability to use a pirate ship to invade and plunder other players' games.

Tropes used in Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten include:
  • A Day in the Limelight: One of the two DLC scenarios focuses on Fuka and Desco.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: A group of 20 billion planets all consider humans to be such pests they want to kill us all. The fact this will destroy the netherworld and Celestia doesn't bother them, they actually seem to consider them being wiped out killing two birds with one stone.
  • Another Side, Another Story: The other DLC scenario focuses on how Fenrich met Valvatorez back when he was still a Tyrant.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Subverted with Artina. She wasn't destined to be the cause of the world being screwed up, but pretty much became the cause of it anyway as the result of her death.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The heroes are shocked to discover a newspaper falsely reporting Emizel's death, glossing over their rebellion, and misspelling the word "Prinny". Well, at least Val thinks the misspelling is a serious offense.
  • Asskicking Equals Authority: Essentially how the president remains in office. He stays president until he is defeated, at which point the position is open to the victor or whoever the victor chooses. It eventually goes to Axel, since Valvatorez didn't care and was more concerned about Nemo. And then Torn Desco came in...
  • Bait and Switch: The introduction to the game has Valvatorez describing fresh, dripping juices... only he's talking about sardines. Similarly, the animated OP for the game shows Val lunging at a woman, only for the image to change to him happily munching on sardines.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Lampshaded. When Valvatorez and his crew arrives on the moon, Fuka notices she can breathe normally. Fenrich remarks that demons don't need oxygen and the reason on why she can do it is because she is dead. Which raises a relevant point when you meet Judge Nemo there.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Invoked by the chief of the Information Bureau, who argues that the Information Bureau's refusal to acknowledge her defeat as a fact means that it actually didn't happen. Valvatorez decides that she's right - so he'll just have to kick her ass over and over again. After quick reconsideration, the chief decides that The Battle Actually Did Count.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Nemo towards Artina.
  • Big Damn Heroes: What good is praying when all hope is lost? Flonne: It's...LOVE! Praying will become the Power Of Love!
  • Brick Joke: Fuka's denial. It's somewhat subverted in the Fuka and Desco Show.
    • The sardines. Every party member has different reactions to Val giving them his favorite food.
  • The Bro Code: Mentioned by Fuka when she briefly considers pursuing Valvatorez.

Fuka: Aww, but Artina and Fenfen might get up in my face. Plus, stealing you from them would be breaking the friendship rule.

  • Bullet Time: Used hilariously in HD Asagi's Dead Battle skill, which places her in a shootout with the targeted enemies.
  • Butt Monkey: Axel! You thought he had it bad in the second game, you ain't seen nothing yet...
    • Artina says 'he's was born under a hopeless star'.
  • By the Eyes of the Blind: Humans who lack faith cannot see nor hear angels.
  • Cain and Abel: Des X, the successor to Desco created by Fuka's father, killed Fuka out of jealousy.
  • Cap:
    • The level cap remains at 9999, the stored level cap at 270,000, and the cap for items and aptitudes is 300.
    • For the six stats other then HP and SP, it's 99,999,999.
    • The damage cap was discovered to be in the range of about 184 quadrillion.
  • Call Back: Both Fallen Angel and Archangel Flonne has an attack that summons a dragon.[1] While she never had this as an attack in the previous games, she once summoned a dragon to aid her in her boss battle in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. She even uses the same incantation -- Durian Dragon Dranyago.
  • Can't Argue with Elves: As Valvatorez explains it, demons are basically terrorists with cosmic power. Terrorizing humans is absolutely vital to the cosmos. So just shut up and deal with it, apparently.
  • The Cameo: Before being released as DLC, Pink from Dark Hero Days Axel Mode makes a few brief silent appearances throughout the game and appears as an enemy in some battles with Axel. During Axel's Love Dynamite S, during the normal ending credits, and during the Axel ending credits though infected by the A Virus. If Axel is in a cutscene, Pink will be hiding somewhere. She also makes occasional random appearances in Item World Innocent Towns.
  • Cool Ship: You can create your own by collecting ship parts throughout the game. Some also count as Humongous Mecha.
  • Colony Drop/Detonation Moon:
    • Nemo attempts both.
    • Overlord Zetta does the latter in his Zetta Beam Neo attack.
    • The Tera Star spell drops the solar system on the targets.
    • Getting The Fish Strong! ship leads the Prinnies to tearing up the moon, much to Fenrich's annoyance.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: The area that serves as your home base in Hades is completely surrounded by flowing lava. It could be argued that demons would not be affected by this in the same way humans are, but then again, fire spells do plenty of damage to them...
  • Crazy Prepared:
    • Val begins with a emblem and his first special, and Fenrich with a pair of shoes, allowing him to travel 6 panels, which can be transferred to a slower character. However, unlike the other games, where the characters went adventuring with a goal in mind, these two were prepared for nothing.
    • Also, some enemies are better equipped. Boss type characters are a good example. They have a weapon, and the other three slots are filled with the same type item. (Shoes to cover more ground, and the bosses use three armor.) Some players online use this, like three armors.
  • Dare to Be Badass: Valvatorez gives one such speech to Emizel after he's disowned by President Hugo.

Valvatores: Haven't you realized that your existence can easily be erased without your identity? Why don't you leave your father's protection, stand up for your own free will, and take a step forward with your own two feet? It's the only way you'll ever be able to prove you exist.

  • Dead All Along: Judge Nemo's been dead since the beginning of the game. That's the reason on why he can travel freely between the Netherworld and the Human World.
  • Demoted to Extra: Surprisingly, recurring Bonus Boss Baal. Unless you played Disgaea 2 Dark Hero Days, then you know that Pringer X IS Baal. He does show up as a DLC battle, though.
  • Disc One Final Dungeon: Taken Up to Eleven with four so-called final chapters in a row.
  • Difficulty Spike
    • Episode 7. Always outnumbered, flooded with Reapers that hit hard and eat your SP, and crippling geo symbols everywhere.
    • Then you go to the X Dimension of Episode 7. Ouch. To make matters worse, you need to capture one of Reapers to obtain a part needed for the Land of Carnage.
  • DLC:
    • Downloadable Characters: For the North American release, Fallen Angel Flonne can be obtained by preordering from either NISA store or Gamestop. Aside from her, you have Adell, Rozalin, HD Asagi (Free in the U.S.), Overlord Priere, Mao, Kyoko, Asuka, Pink, Main Hero B, Pleinair, Prism Red, Gig, Pram, Petta, Nisa, Marona, Ash, Hugo, Des X, Nemo, King Krichevskoy,[2] and Pirohiko. Some of these characters also come with classes from the previous games like the Deathsabers, the Celestial Hosts, and the Kunoichi. Finally, two new classes—a Medic class (Designed by Noizi Ito) and a Necromancer class (Designed by Kohaku Kuroboshi) -- have been added.
    • Downloadable Modes: There will be two downloadable scenarios similar to the Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice's Raspberyl Mode. The first will take place before the main game and feature Valvatorez during his days as a Tyrant—which will include an alternate version of Valvatorez (Tyrant Valvatorez, similar to Fallen Angel Flonne). The second will focus on Fuka, Desco, and Prinny reincarnation. In addition, there will be added gameplay modes like Tournament Mode and Survival Mode.
    • Extra: Finally, with each character release, there will downloadable ship parts for your pirate ship and stage maps for both the map creator and the hub.
    • There have been reports of an downloadable Bonus Boss battle against Baal (who else?)
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Using the map editor, you can assign any character in your party to act as any NPC in your base... And they all have different things to say depending on what they're assigned to.
    • When you switch over to the Fuka and Desco Show, characters in the Cam-Pain HQ have different things to say. It replaces the sardines line with candy, they acknowledge that it's the Fuka Party now, and the DLC characters have different things to say depending on the chapter.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Artina willingly offers Valvatorez her blood so he won't have to feed on other people, Valvatorez responds that he refuses to drink the blood of a woman who doesn't fear demons and swears to her that he'll show her true terror before he touches blood again.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • Vulcanus/Artina offering to let Val finally drink her blood in the Vulcanus epilogue seems quite a bit like she's offering something else. The illustration that follows doesn't help.
    • During the post-game, after hearing Axel's poem, everyone cheered for him. Among those cheering was a Prinny who says he grew a third peg leg.
  • Downer Ending: If you finish the second-to-last level (Boiling Point) as Val solo with him at Lvl.500, the game ends with God, enraged by the party's actions, destroys both Earth and the Netherworld and subjects the party to a Fate Worse Than Death.
  • Dual-Wielding: You can magichange two monsters onto a humanoid character, allowing the humanoid to attack twice. You can even dual wield giant magichange weapons!
  • Dumbass Has a Point: "I see a flicker of intelligence coming from Fuka's brain!"
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Although he has appeared previously in book form in other Disgaea titles, the appearance of humanoid Zetta is probably an Early Bird Cameo for the upcoming PSP remake of Makai Kingdom. The new character from the remake, Petta, appears as Downloadable Content.
  • Earthshattering Kaboom:
    • The Dragon's second magichange skill, Final Dragoon, does this. Makes an even bigger explosion when used with a giant magichanged Dragon.
    • There's also the Galaxy Comet bow skill that wipes out most of the solar system, ending with the sun.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Desco, or at least the tentacled creature on her back. Her final attack (Which causes said creature to take on a gigantic, even more monstrous form) is even called Yog Sothoth.
  • Enter Eponymous: The third episode is entitled "Enter the Final Weapon".
  • Everybody Lives: After every boss battle in the game, and even most normal battles, the enemies you just fought seem to stick around for a while to argue with the heroes over one plot-advancing point or another before running off or poofing themselves away, regardless of how badly you destroyed them in the last battle. In fact, the only character who ends up even remotely dead is Judge Nemo, and even he is coming back as a Prinny. Or, after clearing the third chapter of the Fuka and Desco Show, you can get him back in human form, but with the power of Fear the Great but without the darker colors, and he acts like rude.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Almost literally. Angels are invisible to humans who have no faith, which is why Nemo cannot see or hear either Vulcanus or Flonne.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Valvatorez did not expect the Archangel Vulcanus spoke so highly of would be Flonne.
  • "Failure to Save" Murder: To Judge Nemo, Valvatorez is just as responsible for Artina's death as the people who killed her both because he failed to live up to his promise to protect her and because he didn't punish her killers.
  • Fartillery: The Dragon's Break Wind attack is a flaming variant, while the Orc uses the (somewhat) more standard variety with its Orc Hero Gas attack.
  • Feelies: The US Premium Edition comes with a artbook, a OST, and a Fuka figurine. The Super Premium comes with all that and an additional 9 figurines.
  • Female Angel, Male Demon: Both of the angels in the game are female, while all the demons of the team (unless you count the artificially created Eldritch Abomination, Desco) are male.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Forever War: Parodied in one of the Bad Ends: after everyone in the Netherworld is transformed into Axel by the A-Virus, all of the Axels wage war against each other over who is the best looking. Since Axel refuses to believe anyone's better than him, this means all the Axels keep fighting the Battle of Axfools indefinitely.
  • Fusion Dance: Monsters can fuse into one another in the middle of battle to create giant versions of themselves, or with human-type characters to become weapons. It's a option in the Senate for Monster Foreign senators, which raises their voice level. Oddly enough, they can do it with more than one monster.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: A usual for Disgaea, but the Adell cutscenes are a doozy. It doesn't matter if you have 10 billion HL or have everyone in the party stronger than Val, your funds are 'limited' and Val is the 'strongest.'
    • The fight with Zetta will end with him calling Valvatorez the strongest, only for Val to say that he needed the rest of the party to help, and therefore Zetta is still the strongest individual. He says this even if he is way tougher, and won the fight solo.
  • Global Currency Exception : The Map Editor shop which require CP to purchase items rather than HL, which is used everywhere else.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: Genjiro manages to supply Flonzor X with the awe energy it needs to stop the moon's Colony Drop by broadcasting Valvatorez's efforts to save the world on every TV screen on Earth, while Hugo similarly mobilizes the Information Bureau to gather it from demons.
  • The Government: The Corrupternment. It turns out they didn't have many other options.
  • Gratuitous English: Axel/Akutare uses some particularly memorable lines of it.
  • Gratuitous French: Val sometimes uses French words because French is sometimes considered an elegant language. If Val uses it, he must be an elegant person.
  • Gratuitous Japanese:
    • The "incomprehensive Ninja"' personality types yells out in a foreign accent Japanese words like "sushi" and "harakiri" that are hilariously inappropriate for the situation. Bonus points for not knowing Japanese and speaking fluent Engrish when not blurting random Japanese words. The "incomprehensive Ninja" is probably someone who idolizes "Glorious Japan" so much, he/she has decided to insert a few Japanese buzzwords in a desperate attempt to sound cool.
    • Val (In the English dub) will often talk about Japanese for sardines during "On the Next...". Even Axel pipes in at one point.
    • The orange Prism Ranger is the incomprehensive ninja, Up to Eleven!
  • Heroic Willpower: Valvatorez went from Tyrant-level Supreme Overlord to level 1 through abstinence for 400 years. He wanted to keep a promise to someone [3] and he didn't want to die because that would technically break the promise.
  • High-Pressure Blood: Comically used as a weapon in the Succubus' first Magichange attack, Delusion.
    • Also a textbook example of Nosebleed.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: The game has absolutely no qualms with pointing out that Fenrich's obsessive loyalty to Valvatorez is more than a little suggestive. Fuka considers it as canon as Val/Artina.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters:
    • All the problems in the Netherworld can be traced back to how humans inflict harm and suffering upon themselves for profit and power, and thus they stop fearing demons and start fearing themselves, thus redirecting the fear energy, a vital essence to the netherworld, to themselves.
    • Also, due to the same reason, humans lost most of their faith, which is vital to Celestia in the same way the fear energy is to the Netherworld.
    • Humans seem to held to a double standard compared to demons. Most of the things that are considered wrong for humans to do and are treated as dark events are treated as comedic when demons do them. While Valvatorez doesn't approve of it, demons appear to able to get away with anything.
  • Humongous Mecha:
    • Flonne's Great Flonzor X. Some of the ships that become available through DLC such as Laharl's Laharl Kaiser V and Mao's Getter Mao also count.
    • Fuka's final skill, which summons Pringer X.
  • Hunter Of Their Own Kind: The Prinny Extermination Squad, which is made up of human souls who are supposed to become prinnies, but couldn't due to lack of materials.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: President Hugo is well aware of how far the Netherworld has fallen and that he made such horrible decisions. However, because of the lack of fear energy, it was either he let the Netherworld crumble or give in to Judge Nemo to preserve the Netherworld as much as possible. Either way would have doomed the Netherworld.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon:
    • The giant magichange weapons which you can also Dual Wield. Giant Magichange lasts two turns, and the Dual Wield Giant Magichange lasts only one.
    • Rank 40 Weapon. Getting to it is murder. Using it on enemies murder them.
  • Instrument of Murder:
    • One of the joke weapons is an electric guitar.
    • The Trumpet gun.
  • I Will Definitely Protect You: Along with his oath to not drink blood until he shows Artina true fear, Valvatorez also promised he'd protect her for as long as that took. Unfortunately, he didn't take promises then as seriously as he does now, and Artina was killed three days later. It was the last promise he's ever broken.
  • Kill the Cutie: Deconstructed to hell with Artina's death (pre-story line) as it is the root cause of everything that has gone wrong during the course of the game's story line. See No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The Spell Keepers for the Omega spells include Anime Tenchou (Fire), Holo (Wind), Lotte (Ice), Bikkuriman (Star) and Index (Heal). An interview with NI President revealed that they're all good friends. [1]
  • Level Editor: Maps can be created, then uploaded for other players to play, rate, and comment on. By playing user-made maps, points can be earned that allow for the purchase of more map parts, textures, backgrounds, and geo effects.
    • In addition to this, the hub area is now highly customizable. Any cleared map can be used as a hub (Including your created maps), and any of your characters can run the various shops and services, or simply idle for the purpose of providing conversation. Unfortunately, Sony required this be dialed back in the US and Europe—maps can still be created, but only via pre-designed map blocks—raw customization is impossible, and all mooks in said maps will have random names. Presumably this is to prevent obscene maps, although that other game by Sony had a highly customizable map editor without this requirement... As an unfortunate side effect, this means that the wealth of Japanese maps will be unusable in the US and EU versions, and the US and EU versions may be incompatible with the Japanese version for the "Item World Invasion" multiplayer.
  • Level Grinding: As with all of the games in the series, it has this in spades. However, the new Magichange features ease the grind a great deal, by allowing you to level one human character and four monsters at once.
  • Mad Scientist:
    • The Professor character class. She's even got a personality type called "Mad Scientist".
    • Genjuro, Fuka's dad. It's his job title.
  • Make My Monster Grow: A new mechanic similar to magichange that allows any monster to grow both in size and stats. And you can magichange these overgrown monsters too!
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • The Bone Dragon, Dragon, Wood Golem, and Rifle Demon classes all possess a low movement range and low speed aptitude, but compensate for it with high HP and/or defense, and high attack. However, since both movement range and aptitudes can be boosted to an extreme degree (Either by equipment or using the Char World), it's entirely possible to turn one of them (Or any other class, for that matter) into a Lightning Bruiser.
    • Also, unless you do the aforementioned boosting, axe-wielding characters tend to be like this (except Fuka).
  • Mooks: A staple of the series, generic units are split between humanoid (Warrior, Archer, Android, etc) and monster (Dragon, Orc, etc). Monsters use a generic weapon (claws / teeth / etc) and can't throw, but can magichange. Some of the unique characters look humanoid but are technically monsters (Like Raspberyl). All the generic Mooks have alternate personalities (voice packs) that you can choose between, allowing for at least some variety when using multiple versions of the same mook—or seeing enemy mooks.
  • Multiple Endings: Five different epilogues for Valvatorez and each of the five main characters, five Nonstandard Game Overs, and one alternate Normal Ending with a different final boss battle. Surprisingly, this game lacks the Ally Kill Downer Ending of the previous games. This makes sense, considering how often your characters will attack each other during a Pirate Duel.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • One of the Prinny's attacks is the Ultimate Pringer Beam Ex Skill from Trinity Universe.
    • Adell's second attack has him use parts of the Disgaea 2 versions of the Tiger Charge, King of Beasts, and Rising Dragon fist skills in a combo.
    • Both Flonne's first Special Skill is a reference to the first game. See Call Back above.
    • A few of the alternate colors for the DLC characters resemble their alternate forms or other characters from their respective games. For example, one of Gig's alternate colors makes him resemble Revya's in-game sprite.
  • Necessarily Evil: Demons are viewed this way. Their act of inflicting fear in humans is done so that humans learn respect and preserve order. In exchange, the Fear Energy that's produced keeps the Netherworld alive. It is also beneficial toward angels as the actions of demons cause humans to look to the heavens for guidance. In exchange, it grants angels with Awe Energy which gives them power and courage.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The cause of Artina'a death as a human. Deconstructed as well, as the recipient (The Big Bad) became an Omnicidal Maniac as a result of said punishment.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Invoked - Valvatorez hypothesizes that defeating Axel will reverse the effects of the A-Virus, because that's how that sort of thing works in games. He's wrong.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Androids on the moon. Played for Laughs, as they're getting in your way in the best Obstructive Bureaucrat form while you're trying to prevent the moon from being destroyed!
  • Off-Model: Particularly this scene in the opening.
  • Old Save Bonus: Nippon Ichi has stated that one's old Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice saved game will unlock an Evil Symbol that allows party members to enter the senate to vote on bills. Said Evil Symbol can also be unlocked through normal gameplay at some point, so those who don't have Disgaea 3 aren't missing out.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Nemo.
  • "On the Next...": As with the previous games, these have little to do with the upcoming chapter. All of these narrated by Valvatorez.
  • One-Winged Angel:
    • Valvatorez, Fenrich, Emizel, and Desco all undergo a transformation into a huge monster to perform their ultimate skills. Vulcanus looks like she's doing this too, but it's actually Summon Magic.
    • Nemo is forced to become one.
  • Only Sane Man: Fenrich or Emizel. But by the Fuka and Desco Show, it's down to Emizel. Yes, Fenrich joins in the fun by wooing Fuka.
  • Orgasmically Delicious: Valvatorez might like sardines a bit too much.
  • Palette Swap: The true Final Weapon looks just like Desco. Lampshaded by Emizel and Fenrich: "The only thing different is the color!" "Was this a cost-cutting tactic by the creator?"
  • The Pollyanna: Deconstructed with Artina, showing the fate of such sunny individuals should they live in a crap hole malicious world.
  • Player Mooks: A staple of all Nippon Ichi Strategy RPGs.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: The Deadly Pierce gun skill combines this with Improbable Aiming Skills to hit a maximum of five targets in a single go. Amusingly (But not that surprisingly, considering the series), it's one of weaker gun skills.
  • Promoted Fangirl: Eri Kitamura, who actually begged Nippon Ichi to give her a role, any role, "even an old guy !" before they gave her the role of Vulcanus.
  • Robot Girl: The Android (which should be Gynoid...) class, which seems to take inspiration from Bubblegum Crisis. The male version -- "Battle Suits"—is decidedly less sleek and fanservicey.
  • Rube Goldberg Device: One of the Prinnies' magichange attacks is to set off one of these that throws a giant bomb at the enemy.
  • Running Gag:
    • Whenever Axel appears, he usually calls out Valvatorez off screen. The screen would then pan over to Axel to which Valvatorez responds "Warden Axel!" The gag is later subverted when the screen pans over to a random Gunner with the same voice, an A Virus victim.
    • Fuka's constant denial that she died. Much more of a Brick Joke than anything.
    • Also, the fact that there are four consecutive episodes labeled "Final Episode" before the main story actually ends.
    • Each "On the Next..." segment quickly devolves into Valvatorez sharing "interesting" facts about sardines with the player.
    • SARDINES! Did you know Val loves sardines?
  • Say My Name: Val's reaction to Axel's "death".

Valvatorez: Axxxelll!!!

  • Sequel Hook: Given that it's Disgaea, it might not amount to anything, but even in the post-game the main characters are still worried about God going after them. There's also all those aliens...
  • Ship Sinking: Despite an exchange implying that there will be some sort of relationship between Valvatorez and Fuka, nothing comes out of it and Fuka ends up supporting Val X Artina. On top of that, while she does consider it, she decides not to pursue Valvatorez in her own epilogue since she knows she'll have to deal with Fenrich and Artina.
  • Shout-Out: Has its own page.
  • Stone Wall:
    • The Bouncer class—so dedicated to defense that they gain experience for taking damage.
    • The Heavy Knight class also qualifies, having even higher defenses then the Bouncer, but at the expense of speed and movement range.
    • The Gargoyle has a high defense to begin with, but by not moving, it gets bigger.
  • Super Move Portrait Attack: Par for the course in the series but one particular case stands out. The DLC Prism Rangers Ultimate attack shoves 13 portraits on the screen at once!
  • Take That: Possibly at the length of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice's main game, as the seventh episode is called the final episode in the title card and Disgaea 3 was only eight episodes long. Disgaea 4 is actually ten episodes long.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • When Axel tries to unleash Desco, he reassures Emizel, telling him everything will be fine. A few minutes later, he's fried by Desco's Eye Beams.
    • "Just pray for me, so I won't die before you get the chance to scare me." Val should have prayed...
  • That's No Moon: The Tera Star spell forces the target to realize that the planet Saturn isn't exactly the planet Saturn...
  • Title Sequence: Right here.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Induced by Fuka, the tomboy, who doesn't want a tomboy as a little sister, so she tells Desco to be the Girly Girl. Desco, of course, complies.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Deconstructed with Artina. See No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Kill the Cutie, and Pollyanna above (her death is what causes everything to figuratively go to hell).
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Valvatorez's sardines.
  • Triang Relations: According to Fuka, it's either a type 7 (Artina<->Valvatorez<->Fenrich) or a type 10 (Artina<->Valvatorez<-Fenrich).
  • True Companions: Valvatorez: Do you see now, God!? This is the power of demons, angels, and humans! A power that's much stronger than yours the ties of our camaraderie!
  • True Final Boss: This is how Des X is described, although in the game she's only the final boss of Chapter 8 and the Fuka and Desco DLC Scenario. But there actually is a real True Final Boss: Four avatars of God. They appear as giant Eringas.
  • Unwilling Roboticisation: If you create an Android, a random valkyrie will be captured and forcefully transformed into an Android.
  • Vampire-Werewolf Love Triangle: Averted since there is no Fur Against Fang. Also, it is Valvatorez, the vampire, who is at the center of the Love Triangle which is between Fenrich, the werewolf, and Vulcanus, the angel.
  • The Virus: Chapter 6's "A Virus". It transforms the infected into Axel.
  • Verbal Tic:
    • In the Japanese script, Desco loves to use the word "desu" at the end of her sentences, to the point of it being abnormal. Made more amusing by the fact that it's written in a way that can be romanized as "death". In Japanese, it even puns off the way her name is spelled in katakana - "Desuko" - which could be read as "desu girl"... or "death girl".
    • There's quite a few of them amongst the various monster classes, like the Nekomata's "nya", the Orc's "buhi", and the Wood Golem's "gogo", though in some cases, the tic is exclusive to a certain personality for the class. As with the former, most of them are only present in the Japanese dub.
    • Don't forget the Prinnies, dood!
    • The Cat Sabers and the Deathsabers spice their dialogue with cat noises. Even the big boss of the mint uses them.
  • Whole-Episode Flashback: The aptly named Flashback Episode.
  • The Worf Effect: Although Emizel says that they're all powerful, every major demon that shows up in episode 7 suffers from this including the President himself. Somewhat justified as most of the demons have become much weaker due to the lack of Fear Energy. Some of said demons return in the postlude, much stronger than before. Lampshaded by Fuka, who points out that all these supposedly super-powerful foes Emizel keeeps dressing up don't actually seem all that powerful.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Death King Hugo, though in his case, both options suck and he knows it. More emphasis on well intentioned, not to mention not very good at using Take a Third Option.
  • Written by the Winners: According to the narration toward the end, all records of Axel's presidency were erased when Emizel took office.
    • The Information Bureau Chief subverts this. Having just lost, she denies the fight and the outcome happened, to convince the Netherworld that the rebellion isn't working. Val changes her mind.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Asagi is the only character who hasn't received a sprite upgrade. If that wasn't enough, they even downgrade her character portrait to a sprite.
    • Throw the Dog a Bone: But she receives one in DLC. Though, unlike Flonne, you can only have one at a time. You have to pass a bill to switch.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: As it turns out, Androids store Valvatorez/Fenrich fanfics in their memory banks.
  • You Are Already Dead: The Nekomata's attack Boxer Kitty is a dead ringer for the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken. During the creation of a Nekomata, she calls it by the more traditional parody name, and even says: "You are already dead."
  • You Make Me Sic: At least two. Raspberyl's Magichange weapon switched from a sword to a staff, but the Imperial Cross skill favor text still calls it a sword skill. Also, Laharl's map is called: 'From Anether World!' That last one might be a pun, though.
  • Zombie Infectee:
    • Done hilariously. The A Virus works over a period of time, leading to much angst over inevitable doom. Said virus turns them into a clone of Axel. The symptoms include blonde hair, Hot Blood, and slight stupidity.
    • Creating a zombie leads to a world-wide version of this.
    • The Necromancer class can turn people into zombies by either killing them, or using her special skill. (Which only looks if she can Instant Kill the enemy.) She does this to her herself when she dies. She only has 1 HP, but keeps the level and SP, so she can still fight. As a enemy though...
  1. A Dragon Zombie for Fallen Angel Flonne and a normal Dragon for Archangel Flonne
  2. Though visually, it's Mid Boss with Krichevskoy's antenna hair, a Badass Cape, and a new fabulous outfit
  3. Artina