La Pucelle
Tactics is the latest US release from Japanese developer Nippon Ichi.
After last year’s Disgaea won critical acclaim and was immediately
embraced by hardcore gamers nationwide, the demand for another game from
Nippon Ichi skyrocketed. While La Pucelle isn’t a sequel to Disgaea – it
is actually a couple years older – the gameplay, humor, and just about
everything else is very similar. If you liked Disgaea, you’ll like La
Pucelle. If you couldn’t find a copy of Disgaea but wanted to play it,
you’ll like La Pucelle and should have a lot easier time finding it. If
you have never heard of these games before but like strategy RPGs,
you’ll like La Pucelle.
What I’m trying
to say is that this game is the bizzomb and is well worth checking out.
La Pucelle Tactics follows a girl named Prier, her brother Culotte, and
their teacher Alouette. The basics of the story are that Prier and her
friends are part of a group called La Pucelle, an elite demon hunting
squad that travels the world rooting out evil. An old legend tells that
one day the Dark Prince will rise to cover the world in darkness, but at
the same time the Maiden of Light will also rise to fight him. As you
could probably guess, Prier wishes to become the Maiden of Light and
that is where the story starts off. Along the way, you’ll meet several
new characters that will join your party and the story is packed full of
twists and turns that make for a really compelling experience. The only
problem with the storytelling in La Pucelle Tactics is that the dialogue
is seemingly written for eight year olds. It is just mind numbingly
childish and simple. However, once the story turns to a murderer ripping
the hearts out of his victims you know you are in for a dark and twisted
ride that is a lot more mature than the first hour or so would lead you
to believe.
Outside of
battle, La Pucelle is primitive compared to other RPGs. There are some
town segments, but they consist mostly of accepting a mission, buying
supplies, and then heading out. You travel to different areas by
selecting points on a world map. Each location has several different
areas that you can travel freely between via menu once you clear each
area and you can also choose to play areas many times in order to build
up your characters. Once you get into a battle, though, La Pucelle is a
deep, exciting, and extremely fun strategy RPG.
On the surface,
La Pucelle plays a lot like other tactical RPGs. You move your
characters around on a grid and tell them all what to do before hitting
the “End Turn” button and letting them do their thing. What makes LPT
different is that there are a number of portals on each map that you
have to “purify” to prevent them from spawning and endless stream of
enemies. The portals produce streams of dark energy that you can use to
your advantage. You can use your characters to direct the flow of the
energy, and if there are enemies in the energy stream they take damage
when the portal is purified. Also, if you manipulate the energy stream
so that it connects back to the portal it started from, a miracle attack
is performed and any enemies inside the stream take an incredible amount
of damage. For most maps it isn’t necessary to try and create miracle
attacks, but once in a while the enemies will be in just the right spot
and the map will be constructed in just the right way that it is too
easy to pass up. It is a fun little addition to the gameplay that adds a
puzzle element in among the typical chess match / do as much damage as
possible that this genre was based upon.
Purification
isn’t just for dark portals, however. You can also purify enemies to try
and convert them to your side. The game tells you when you have purified
an enemy enough that it will probably convert to your side, and at that
point all you have to do is kill the enemy and cross your fingers that
your many turns wasted trying to purify them haven’t been in vain. Once
an enemy joins your side, you can train it to build its skills up and
also to keep it happy. If your creatures aren’t happy they’ll run off
and leave you. By the end of the second of the over ten chapters, you’ll
have an army of zombies, bats, and bears fighting alongside the members
of La Pucelle. And you’ll need a big army because you are allowed to
place up to eight characters on the map at once. You can swap characters
for fresh fighters during your turn, but if a character dies on the
battlefield you can’t use them again until you clear that particular
stage so it is wise to keep a stable of strong characters that you can
swap in and out if you need to.
Something that
is sort of disappointing in La Pucelle Tactics is that strategy and
tactics don’t really play a huge role in the outcome of battles. Since
you can swap characters in and out, it doesn’t really matter who you
send out onto the battlefield. If they are weak or not the right type to
do maximum damage, you just put someone else in. Most battles are just
slugfests that pit a dozen or so enemies against your eight most
powerful characters, and if your characters are at a high enough level
you can afford to lose one or two or six because you have literally
nothing to worry about since you’ll win the war of attrition 99.9% of
the time. The dark energy could have played a huge role, but like I said
above, it really isn’t necessary to play with it too much other than
seal up the portals so you don’t get an endless swarm of enemies coming
at you. Since you can go back and play areas you have already cleared
you can level up your characters to an insane degree if you so choose
and that makes the game even easier.
Brains take a
backseat to brawn in La Pucelle, but that isn’t so bad because what you
are doing is so fun. Turning monsters to fight for you and training them
is fun. Playing with the huge number of items and weapons you can equip
your characters with is also really enjoyable. Building up your “A” team
and then watching them wreak havoc in battle is extremely satisfying.
Also, the story is interesting enough that you are compelled to keep
playing just to see what happens next. Once you start this game and get
past the first chapter or so, you’ll be hooked and it’ll be all you can
think about until the quest is done.
Graphically, La
Pucelle Tactics is fairly unimpressive. This isn’t a genre that requires
super great graphics, but La Pucelle would have been at home on the SNES
or at least the PSone and it is hard not to expect a little more from
games these days. The animations for attacks are pretty smooth and some
of the special effects for spells look good, but nothing else really
stands out. The story is told through the classic “talking head in the
corner of the screen” technique, but there are a ton of different
avatars for each character, so the talking heads actually manage to
convey a lot of emotion.
The sound is a
high point in La Pucelle and doesn’t give you the same feeling that this
game could have been done ten years ago that the graphics do. A lot of
the dialogue is spoken as well as appearing onscreen as text, and it is
very clear and the voice actors did a great job. As an added bonus, you
can choose to listen to Japanese audio track if you are on that side of
the fence in the sub vs. dub debate. The music is also very well done
and there are a lot of memorable tracks that will stick in your head for
days.
La Pucelle
Tactics is light on strategy, but that is really its only flaw. The
graphics fail to impress, but they really don’t have to. The gameplay
and storyline are what are important in this type of game, and La
Pucelle delivers big time in both areas even if you don’t have to think
too terribly hard when you play it. The anime inspired characters and
quirky Japanese humor have a lot of appeal and make the game just that
much better. Give it a rent if you aren’t sure if you’ll like it or not,
but the quest is long enough and enjoyable enough that I would recommend
it for a purchase for just about any RPG fan.
Eric Qualls (06/03/2004) |