La Pucelle TacticsNippon Ichi / Mastiff
Anthony: Sometimes when you discover a band you love, your first instinct is to go out and buy their old albums. Then you find out to your dismay, they didn't always have a good production value and weren't as good songwriters back then. Plus, now you're a poser for not having known them before they formed! But, sometimes you get to see an effort that clearly shows how they've progressed over time, and you end up enjoying it too. That's roughly the effect La Pucelle: Tactics had on many rabid Disgaea fans when it was released later in North America despite being a predecessor. Lucky for us, La Pucelle works not only as an aside to the Disgaea series, but it's a pretty enjoyable game on its own too.
La Pucelle is a strategy RPG that follows the story of Prier, a young priestess girl who serves the church as a demon hunter and energetically wishes to become the "Maiden Of Light". Battles take place on a 3/4 strategy grid and have a focus on both defeating enemies and "purifying" them and points on the map. Characters and monsters have their own unique abilities but can be taught other techniques through different forms of equipment. Those who have played the Disgaea line of games will be accustomed to the episodic nature of the plot and basics of battle, though overall the experience is much lighter on strategy and customization.
What's good:
- The characters are great here. Captain Homard especially is a very amusing character with several good lines. There's plenty of good-natured, funny moments throughout the game, courtesy of the likeable cast. Pirate kitties deserve extra mention for being adorable too.
- The level of customization is a good level for those who may have felt either overwhelmed or like they'd missed too much in playing a game like Disgaea. Spells and attacks used often will power up, and though unnecessary for completion, one can give characters and monsters extra spells by giving them equipment imbued with different elements. It can help you out quite a bit, but the difficulty is such that with proper levelling, one can cruise through the game without fussing over these aspects.
- The music, once again courtesy of Nippon Ichi's Tenpei Sato, is great. While there are a few less addictive tunes as some of his later works, the Rosenqueen shop and Eringa Valley music especially stand out as excellent tracks. Similarly, NIS got some surprisingly well known voiceover talent for the characters' voice work, and they do a great job throughout.
- The one "save the character" battle they give in the game actually doesn't have stupid NPCs that rush into battle and get themselves killed. I can't stress enough how thankful I am for this.
- Being able to capture, train, and battle with monsters found throughout the game was a nice touch. The system here was very approachable and allows you simple access to bolster your ranks in different ways.
- The shop surveys to customize the inventory was a nice touch.
What's neutral:
- Given that you can "purify" most monsters in the game to recruit them, yet not all types, it would've been nice if they had given you a notice that a monster can't be recruited, rather than you wasting turns purifying a monster to see no effect.
- Strategy RPG fans and Disgaea fans alike may find this to be a little "light" when it comes to the strategy elements of the game. La Pucelle is very forgiving; there is no penalty for dying in battle (a slight friendship loss for monsters only), the four equipment slots can be used for all kinds of items and none that are unique to characters, strong monsters can be recruited with fairly minimal effort, a very early stage can be rigged to get you tons of money and item levels, and often a workable battle technique is to cluster a ton of characters together so they'll all support and attack simultaneously. Even without experience playing Disgaea, strategy RPG fans used to a certain level of challenge may not find it here.
- The game's extra area, the "Dark World" is perhaps a bit too obscured as far as bonus dungeons go. Despite that it's readily available by obsessively wailing on your allies battle after battle, many people could easily play through without even knowing it exists. It's wholly unnecessary to do, but it might've been a good idea to introduce it as an option the way Disgaea had you go to the Item World briefly.
What's bad:
- Progression can feel somewhat stymied in relation to both characters and monsters in this game. While you can repeatedly use techniques to power up their effectiveness or range, in particular with characters like Prier and Homard, significantly stronger abilities become available in fairly rapid succession. Because few battles are endurance matches, it just means you'll likely completely abandon old skills you worked hard to level. The same is true for monsters... if you picked up a strong Giant Bat or Bear perhaps, and spent every post-battle section working up its stats so it will level up better and better... you may find a bit later in the game that an upgraded version of your monster is easily available that absolutely blows away the stats of the one you worked hard to raise. It can make your efforts feel pointless.
- The option to send monsters to the dark world for items was just confusing. The idea was that sending strong monsters to fight in the dark world was a way to get bonus items from the monsters you've recruited but don't want to use. If they're strong enough, apparently they'll earn you some useful items. However, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what monsters succeeded or failed. Most often, we'd just get the message that the monster was killed or missing in battle, but for one random monster we recruited but never used, it managed to do well and earned us an item. Yet another monster of the same type, a much higher level monster, and a monster with a full happiness rating all got us nothing. The descriptions didn't help and experimentation only made it more confusing.
If you like strategy RPGs to be on the light side of difficulty, but still want some meat to the experience, La Pucelle's gameplay is a no-brainer. If you like RPGs to have amusing, lighthearted storylines and characters amid more serious elements, then again I think it's a good choice. If you prefer your strategy games to have the depth of Disgaea, or to have the need for very careful planning to win safely ala Fire Emblem, then La Pucelle's simpler take on the genre may be disappointing.
Personally, we tend to love all types of strategy games, and La Pucelle fit the bill quite well as a casual RPG we could easily both jump into. If nothing else, you can at least enjoy seeing happy kitty pirates.
Lauren: Despite playing La Pucelle Tactics many years after its first release, it was still my first Nippon Ichi RPG. I had tried and failed to play Disgaea after its convoluted introduction, so La Pucelle's simplified approach was very much appreciated.
La Pucelle is a strategy RPG that follows the story of Prier, a young priestess girl who serves the church as a demon hunter and energetically wishes to become the "Maiden Of Light". Battles take place on a 3/4 strategy grid and have a focus on both defeating enemies and "purifying" them and points on the map. Characters and monsters have their own unique abilities but can be taught other techniques through different forms of equipment. Those who have played the Disgaea line of games will be accustomed to the episodic nature of the plot and basics of battle, though overall the experience is much lighter on strategy and customization.
What's good:
- The characters are great here. Captain Homard especially is a very amusing character with several good lines. There's plenty of good-natured, funny moments throughout the game, courtesy of the likeable cast. Pirate kitties deserve extra mention for being adorable too.
- The level of customization is a good level for those who may have felt either overwhelmed or like they'd missed too much in playing a game like Disgaea. Spells and attacks used often will power up, and though unnecessary for completion, one can give characters and monsters extra spells by giving them equipment imbued with different elements. It can help you out quite a bit, but the difficulty is such that with proper levelling, one can cruise through the game without fussing over these aspects.
- The music, once again courtesy of Nippon Ichi's Tenpei Sato, is great. While there are a few less addictive tunes as some of his later works, the Rosenqueen shop and Eringa Valley music especially stand out as excellent tracks. Similarly, NIS got some surprisingly well known voiceover talent for the characters' voice work, and they do a great job throughout.
- The one "save the character" battle they give in the game actually doesn't have stupid NPCs that rush into battle and get themselves killed. I can't stress enough how thankful I am for this.
- Being able to capture, train, and battle with monsters found throughout the game was a nice touch. The system here was very approachable and allows you simple access to bolster your ranks in different ways.
- The shop surveys to customize the inventory was a nice touch.
What's neutral:
- Given that you can "purify" most monsters in the game to recruit them, yet not all types, it would've been nice if they had given you a notice that a monster can't be recruited, rather than you wasting turns purifying a monster to see no effect.
- Strategy RPG fans and Disgaea fans alike may find this to be a little "light" when it comes to the strategy elements of the game. La Pucelle is very forgiving; there is no penalty for dying in battle (a slight friendship loss for monsters only), the four equipment slots can be used for all kinds of items and none that are unique to characters, strong monsters can be recruited with fairly minimal effort, a very early stage can be rigged to get you tons of money and item levels, and often a workable battle technique is to cluster a ton of characters together so they'll all support and attack simultaneously. Even without experience playing Disgaea, strategy RPG fans used to a certain level of challenge may not find it here.
- The game's extra area, the "Dark World" is perhaps a bit too obscured as far as bonus dungeons go. Despite that it's readily available by obsessively wailing on your allies battle after battle, many people could easily play through without even knowing it exists. It's wholly unnecessary to do, but it might've been a good idea to introduce it as an option the way Disgaea had you go to the Item World briefly.
What's bad:
- Progression can feel somewhat stymied in relation to both characters and monsters in this game. While you can repeatedly use techniques to power up their effectiveness or range, in particular with characters like Prier and Homard, significantly stronger abilities become available in fairly rapid succession. Because few battles are endurance matches, it just means you'll likely completely abandon old skills you worked hard to level. The same is true for monsters... if you picked up a strong Giant Bat or Bear perhaps, and spent every post-battle section working up its stats so it will level up better and better... you may find a bit later in the game that an upgraded version of your monster is easily available that absolutely blows away the stats of the one you worked hard to raise. It can make your efforts feel pointless.
- The option to send monsters to the dark world for items was just confusing. The idea was that sending strong monsters to fight in the dark world was a way to get bonus items from the monsters you've recruited but don't want to use. If they're strong enough, apparently they'll earn you some useful items. However, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what monsters succeeded or failed. Most often, we'd just get the message that the monster was killed or missing in battle, but for one random monster we recruited but never used, it managed to do well and earned us an item. Yet another monster of the same type, a much higher level monster, and a monster with a full happiness rating all got us nothing. The descriptions didn't help and experimentation only made it more confusing.
If you like strategy RPGs to be on the light side of difficulty, but still want some meat to the experience, La Pucelle's gameplay is a no-brainer. If you like RPGs to have amusing, lighthearted storylines and characters amid more serious elements, then again I think it's a good choice. If you prefer your strategy games to have the depth of Disgaea, or to have the need for very careful planning to win safely ala Fire Emblem, then La Pucelle's simpler take on the genre may be disappointing.
Personally, we tend to love all types of strategy games, and La Pucelle fit the bill quite well as a casual RPG we could easily both jump into. If nothing else, you can at least enjoy seeing happy kitty pirates.
Lauren: Despite playing La Pucelle Tactics many years after its first release, it was still my first Nippon Ichi RPG. I had tried and failed to play Disgaea after its convoluted introduction, so La Pucelle's simplified approach was very much appreciated.
The storyline was interesting and caught us off guard with a few of its plot twists. My favourite part about this game was most definitely the characters and dialogue. Excellent localization seems to be a staple of NIS games, and this was no exception. The voice actors all did a fantastic job of bringing each character to life. La Pucelle also deserves credit for making us both laugh out loud on numerous occasions - not a common occurrence with RPGs.
While seasoned tactical RPG players may find this title a little too easy, I still found it very fun to play, with a satisfying sense of progress. Playing La Pucelle can also make it much easier to understand the more complex battle systems of Disgaea, Phantom Brave, and everything onward. It laid the groundwork for many excellent tactical RPGs to come, but La Pucelle still stands firmly on its own with plenty of charm and many hours of entertaining gameplay.
While seasoned tactical RPG players may find this title a little too easy, I still found it very fun to play, with a satisfying sense of progress. Playing La Pucelle can also make it much easier to understand the more complex battle systems of Disgaea, Phantom Brave, and everything onward. It laid the groundwork for many excellent tactical RPGs to come, but La Pucelle still stands firmly on its own with plenty of charm and many hours of entertaining gameplay.
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