Hmm, there are a lot of changes, though I'm not too sure what would qualify as a QoL change or just a new feature (I also don't know how much the steam version of D1 improved over the original). That said, a few things that comes to mind (that aren't completely new basic mechanics like evilities or magichange), for the better of for the worse:

- The Dark Assembly, while slightly more complex in terms of mechanics, is a lot more manageable than before. Only about 64 senators (I think? Still much better than 700+), and they are divided into groups, each with their own quirks.
- Classes/units are a lot more balanced than in D1. While there are still units that are better than others, it's not as bad as in D1 with basicaly just Majins and maybe Ninjas/Plenair. Monster units are still relatively bad compared to humanoids, but they can still be put to good use, especially with the new mechanics implemented.
- Guns were nerfed (normal attacks can only be done in the cardinal directions), so Bows might have a slight better chance of use now. They are still not great, at least imo.
- I don't quite remember how the capturing mechanics were in D1 (I believe it had something to do with your characters' SP?), but at least in the PSP and PC versions of this game, you can't capture enemies with a level higher than the main character (you also need to have the respective tier unlocked of that monster in the DA). Humanoid enemy units still can't be captured at all.
- There are no "statistician" specialists. Instead you collect felonies (which grants more benefits than just bonus EXP), but they are "stuck" on the characters you farm them on, and are much slower to farm.
- Bad endings require not only a certain number of ally kills (50 and 100, much higher than D1 IIRC), but also a certain number of felonies on the main character. And, even if you do have said felonies, you can get rid of them (kinda) to avoid triggering the bad endings if you really want to.
- Ending turns while having allies lifted won't damage your characters anymore (lifting enemies and ending the turn still hurt, IIRC based on their max HP).
- You can't destroy Geo Symbols by throwing enemies on top of them.
- Gates on the Item World are never on a geo panel (so you can never encounter a gatekeeper that's "invincible" and such).
- The randomization in the Item World is also a bit better, to ensure that gates aren't on a separated, unreachable "island", so you aren't forced to Gency out (though I think those were pretty rare to begin with. Also, there's no Hyperdrive equivalent in this game).

And I'm sure there are plenty more that I'm forgetting.

As for grinding spots, there are a few. I don't know/remember if they are more efficient and/or better spread out than in D1, but I'd say it's not bad either way. The best grinding spot has enemies in a 4x2 formation (instead of a 3x3), so it might be a bit annoying to farm on it at first (usually with 2 characters or maybe using 2 turns), but later on you can get a/some character(s) (and a certain mechanic) that helps with that.

Thank you for the long insightful answer! Though I do question how do you destroy invincible geo symbols if they themselves are invincible without throwing characters or something on top of them. How would these symbols be dealt with now, assuming you wanted to cause the geo symbol ripple effect?

You can still throw them on neutral/non-geo panels so the invincibility effect won't trigger. Geo chains also don't take the effect into account, so you can still get rid of it if you plan properly.

Originally posted by neemoos:

You can still throw them on neutral/non-geo panels so the invincibility effect won't trigger. Geo chains also don't take the effect into account, so you can still get rid of it if you plan properly.

Hrmm, but if you move the invincibility geo symbol to another color and then destroyed any geo symbols that were originally associated with the invincibility symbol before it was moved, wouldn't the chain just affect where the color of that symbol originally was? Or does it act differently here or am I just dumb?

Originally posted by Howe-itzer!:

Originally posted by neemoos:

You can still throw them on neutral/non-geo panels so the invincibility effect won't trigger. Geo chains also don't take the effect into account, so you can still get rid of it if you plan properly.

Hrmm, but if you move the invincibility geo symbol to another color and then destroyed any geo symbols that were originally associated with the invincibility symbol before it was moved, wouldn't the chain just affect where the color of that symbol originally was? Or does it act differently here or am I just dumb?

It depends on the color of the geo symbols you destroyed. For example, if you have a Purple Invincibility geo symbol on a green geo panel; a Green and a Yellow geo symbols both on, say, red geo panels. If you destroy the Green geo symbol, the chain would go as: Green blows up, turning all the red geo panels into green, blowing up Yellow in the process; since Yellow blew up (and is now in a green geo panel), a chain occurs, turning all the now green panels into yellow, which happens to destroy the invincibility geo symbol along the way (like I mentioned, geo chains don't take the geo effect into account); since Purple (the invincible one) blew up, it turns all yellow geo panels into purple geo panels (with no effects).

Or something like that.

Also, like I mentioned, if you just want to get rid of the invincibility effect, just throw (or move, with a Fist skill) the geo symbol on a neutral panel. Geo symbols by themselves don't do anything if there are no geo panels beneath them.

Originally posted by neemoos:

Originally posted by Howe-itzer!:

Hrmm, but if you move the invincibility geo symbol to another color and then destroyed any geo symbols that were originally associated with the invincibility symbol before it was moved, wouldn't the chain just affect where the color of that symbol originally was? Or does it act differently here or am I just dumb?

It depends on the color of the geo symbols you destroyed. For example, if you have a Purple Invincibility geo symbol on a green geo panel; a Green and a Yellow geo symbols both on, say, red geo panels. If you destroy the Green geo symbol, the chain would go as: Green blows up, turning all the red geo panels into green, blowing up Yellow in the process; since Yellow blew up (and is now in a green geo panel), a chain occurs, turning all the now green panels into yellow, which happens to destroy the invincibility geo symbol along the way (like I mentioned, geo chains don't take the geo effect into account); since Purple (the invincible one) blew up, it turns all yellow geo panels into purple geo panels (with no effects).

Or something like that.

Also, like I mentioned, if you just want to get rid of the invincibility effect, just throw (or move, with a Fist skill) the geo symbol on a neutral panel. Geo symbols by themselves don't do anything if there are no geo panels beneath them.

I see I see. Thanks so much for the response!

Here's another one: When you reincarnate, unique skills keep their levels unlike in Disgaea 1 where it deletes all skill level progress on unique skills. I did it with Tink and he managed to keep all of his progress with Kero Change and Sonic Roll.

Fists are now attack and speed based instead of just attack.

There is a weapon type for INT using monsters. While monsters fall behind due to lack of weapon mastery, they are at least usable early on.

Characters lifted in a tower can perform a special "tower" attack. Any exp, or mana gained is divided between everyone in the tower. This is useful for boosting a fresh character if you have much stronger ones that can easily kill stuff on good grinding spots.

If an item is held by a character for a number of battles without being removed in generates a "lover" inhabitant. These boost the stats of that class (so thief lovers boost and kind of thief, and Adell lovers only boost Adell), and improve their ability (in a few rare cases it boosts stats more than normal instead).

If you pick up every chest that appears in Holt Village in a single playthrough there will be a one time reward at the last chapter of a legendary testament on the top of Adell's home.

Most humanoid classes are unlocked by raising weapon mastery levels. 5 is the max you will need. The others are unlocked by performing special actions that are largely impossible to miss.

Monster classes are no longer tied to killing a specific tier to unlock. Instead killing any one member of that class (note there are a few bosses that appear as normal monsters, but are not generic monster, and thus don't count) will unlock it at its standard mana cost.

To unlock the next tier in a class you must level up the tier before it instead of any tier of that class.

Attacking more than once without moving will give a unit a stacking combo boost. This can become important with characters that long range attacks and don't need to move. It also means that powerful enemies that don't move can become a major issue if they can build their combo.

just downloaded this game recently having played Disgaea 1 "extensively" on the PS2 back when PS2 was what the cool kids had.

another thing that has changed is that you now get character experience for using Healing/Buff/Debuff spells whereas before it was just skill experience you gained.

PC controls are slightly clunkier but the core game is still good tactical fun.

there are enough new things to keep me intrigued. also seems to be a lot more classes.