Heya Folks, finally managed to take side time and remember to put up this topic just in case anyone has questions or has something they want to discuss about Disgaea games. I'll just say ahead of time, I don't know everything about the game series, and most things you can very likely find out by just checking places like gamefaqs. But I'll do my best to answer questions or give helpful tips when discussing the game series. This game series can seem pretty tedious and tiring to someone who hasn't played it yet. So I'd like to shed some light on how the games are like based off my own experiences.

Also side note, I am currently playing Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten. Playing it a bit slowly now since I've been job hunting again lately, but playing it kind of helps me relieve some nervousness I get when it comes to recent job interviews and such I been to so far.
As of now there is a lot of info on Disgaea 4's game play mechanics and such, but a lot more is still either being discovered or still blurry and unsure due to mixed results from different players.

Currently as I write this I am conducting an experiment in the item world, trying to find the meowkin pirates. As far as I could dig around through different game info sources, they are pirates you need to find to get to a more higher leveled set of places people who raise really strong characters later, known as the Land of Carnage, but for awhile I was some what confused on how to unlock it until I dug around a whole lot till I found information. But as it stands these notoriously cute kitty pirates are also a source of irritation for a lot of Disgaea players since finding them is very much hard, but some have had extremely good luck. Personally I spent at least 8 hours with what information I found and tried to get them to appear. You guessed it, no luck. So I've decided while I am trying to find them, I'll conduct an experiment to see what sorts of things may affect the appearance rate of pirates and what a person could do to make finding the meowkin pirates less painful to find.
Well, wish me luck, I'll probably need it, especially considering pirate appearances in the item world is one of those several things in game thats affect by random chance. x.x

Well enough of my speculation before I make this even longer than it should be. ^^;; If anyone has questions or something they'd like to discuss on the game please fire away!...Just..you know, not at my head please. XP

Hahah, thank you very much for opening this discussion thread.
Good luck with the kitty pirates hunt and research.

Which Disgaeas can I find for the PS3?
(I think that is very unlikely but I thought I'd ask anyway) Are there any for the DS?

That aside if you play for the storyline and ignore side quests how much time do you think a casual to average player may need to finish it?

Thank you. ^^ And again sorry for my slowness. Actually I completed my first experiment finding the Meowkin pirates. Funny thing when I actually got to restarting the section of levels I have to go through that they potentially appear in, I actually ended up finding them. Of course I had to reload my save at least 3 or 4 times. But I pretty much spent MUCH less time finding them than I did the day before. So I'm happy that shenanigans is out of the way. XP But I'll still need to lightly experiment later to see if I can replicate those results to see if it works out as well as I think it does.

As for Disgaea games that are on the PS3, you'll find Disgaea 3 and 4. Disgaea 1 and 2 are on PS2.
However in regards to your questions about if there are any for the DS, (and thats not a dumb question at all.) there actually is. If I remember correctly its called Disgaea DS. And basically is a DS version of Disgaea 1, but with some extra additions and such. That one basically came out at generally around the same time Disgaea 1 came out for the PSP as well. So if you wanted a start into the Disgaea series that can be played on a hand held, that is also a nice option. However I don't play DS enough and my buddy is currently borrowing mine so I'm sorry I have not played it myself to feel how the game play feels on a DS. ^^; I did play Disgaea 1 and 2 remakes on the PSP, and quite frankly I liked them both. But for a person new to the series, you can't really go wrong starting at any particular game in the series. Or at least I don't think so.

Average play time to beat the games. Thats a good questions really. I personally have never tried speeding through Disgaea games before. ^^; And only time I ever do is in a playthrough 2 sort of thing. As for disgaea 4, I probably would have been able to beat it at around 30 hours or so if I wasn't spending so much time on the side in the item world. I say that knowing that a lot of the puzzles late game took me several tries since they had concepts that were introduced in the 3rd game that I was still not quite used to solving.
Generally speaking, if an average player were to go through a Disgaea game's story. I'd say maybe somewhere from 30 to 50 hours to beat it. Thats also taking into account that later parts of the game will get really tricky on you with some of its puzzles. And of course I should note that Disgaea games have multiple endings too. XP So it depends what exactly you're going for. But for one play through 30 to 50 would be my general thought. At least for me, I get through the story at around that much game time. Even if I were to try and speed through the game, I'll end up watching through the story anyway cause it can get really random and funny at times.

I really appreaciate your answer, it makes it easier for me to decide.

I'd like to try the DS version, and if I like it I'll jump onto the Playstation 3 ones, it is a shame our PS3 cannot read PS2 games, they were some good gems there.

The estimate also helps me give me an idea of the at least factor, as it sounds there is a lot to collect and side quests to improve, so it will keep me busy. I hope I can have brain enough for the puzzles, hahah.

It is pretty cool you can have different endings, I suppose this means your decisions affects the storyline, even if a bit. Do you usually play it over and over and try to see them all at once?

Your very welcome! Yes my particular model of PS3 can't play PS2 games either. Maybe sometime later I'll end up getting another PS2 slim...way later, unless I somehow find all 4 of the first dot hack games at a gamestop again by some ray of light. That was a lucky find and also kind of bad that I couldn't snipe them for myself. XP I loved those early games and they were all in their original boxing, not those game stop printed label boxing.

I wouldn't worry about having a brain to handle the puzzles. XP Since its the first game, its really not too bad since it was the first of the whole series. I mean heck I was able to play through it. And to be honest the Disgaea series was my very first Strategy RPG game I ever played. On a typical basis, I am TERRIBLE at strategy games especially Real Time Strategy games. But Disgaea is easy enough to get the hang of and the tutorials do well enough to teach you about the game's mechanics. So don't worry about it too much and just enjoy the game. ^^

Well yea in some senses they do. Most of the time whenever I play a game that has multiple endings, I'll play it blind first time, then afterwards peak around Gamefaqs to see what other endings and such are in the game. Then next play through I'll probably follow a written faq to see what I missed doing the game blind.

I do still remember the first ending I got in Disgaea 1. It was the bad ending, since I didn't notice I accidentally killed one of my own ally units and that was a minimal requirement for the bad ending. Next play through I found out what caused it and made sure to be very wary not to recklessly hit my own units and got the good ending. Actually in the 4th game, there is a trophy for killing one of your own units. But I'm not the type to play games to collect trophies/achievements, plus its so engraved in me never to let my units get caught in ally attacks that I can't bring myself to do it anyway. XP

Overall I normally don't go playing through over and over again just to see endings. I'll either stop at playthrough 2 or 3, just doing post game stuff. If theres any game series I know I've even remotely tried something like that its the Ar Tonelico series, since theres different endings for the different heroines you choose to support. XP

Actually when you do play the first Disgaea game, let me know when you are acquainted with who the main character is, cause I have a pretty funny story to share that involves that character and my buddy's first blind play through of Disgaea 2.

For me, I'd go for: Disgaea 1, 2 & 3... XDD on which consoles though?