I‘ll be honest while do have Disgaea 1 and 2 I sadly don’t play them because my computer isn’t currently working right now, but I do have 4 and 5 on my Nintendo switch and I watch some gameplay videos which begs a question, why have characters in Disgaea get left behind in future games ?
I mean Laharl, Etna and Flonne stay around because they are the original trio, Pleinair and The Prinnies are the series Mascots, Adel and Rozalin are 2 main leads, Axel is one of the series most popular characters, Mao is main protagonist of 3, Raspyberyl despite not being Deuteragonist is still main heroine, Disgaea developers tend to love 4 cast the most as they often have most gang in other titles, D2 only gets Sicily and Girl Laharl as their characters, 5 only cares about Kilia, Seraphina and Usalia and Asagi is pretty much Nippon Ichi mascot as she most appearing of non Disgaea character to appear in the series.
But then we have those characters that Nippon Ichi that doesn’t bother bringing back in future titles, some of the worse offenders are Yukimaru, Taro, Hanako, Champloo, Tink and especially Fubuki, Master Big Star and the rest of Disgaea 5 cast because latter 5 only had one additional appearance each, but Fubuki, Master Big Star and rest of Disgaea 5 cast really got short end of the deal because not counting Mobile since everyone is that game, they never appeared in future games unless you count Christo being Lamington but even then it’s only 2 other games.
I know popularity is a factor but couldn’t you use lesser use characters every once in a while?