Review NaN of 1
Price Paid:
$40.00
from EB's Summary:
This type of game is one reason why we have PS2s.
It should be obvious from the name that La Pucelle: Tactics is a tactics based RPG much like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Advance Wars, etc. It does have some similarity to those games, but it features some very unique gameplay elements that you'll not find anywhere else.
La Pucelle is a school for demon eradication, and your main characters are recent graduates out to prove their demon whacking ability. The story bases itself loosely on medieval French mythology, but it is a thorougly Japanese game, to be sure, and you can even set the voice over and text to be displayed in Japanese. The storyline is actually pretty neat and flows along nicely, though it is rife with religious references.
There is a clickable world map that allows you to visit and revisit stages that you unlock as the game progresses, and the grid-like battle maps are are very familiar to fans of the Tactics genre of games as well. There is the well known gameplay element of placing your characters/units on the grid and setting them up for turn-based combat and spell casting. But there are some very, very strange and innovative things going on in La Pucelle, things that have never been seen before in a tactics-type game, at least not to my knowledge.
For starters, there is an entire additional level of strategy due to the presence of Dark Energy Portals on the battle maps. These portals are represented onscreen as one of seven colored (there are seven types of elemental magic in this game) 'crawling ants' bands that emanate from squares on the grid that run for varying lengths across the maps, somethimes looping and combining with other colors of magic. These bands of color boost the power of the demons (bad guys) and reduce the power of the good guys (your characters) that touch them. However, your characters do have the power to redirect the output of the portals. These portals can be sealed, and monsters can be made into allies, through Purification. It should be noted that the power to Purify monsters and Portals is available right from the beginning of the game. More on this will be explained in the gameplay section below.
This game is very large, and has multiple endings. I played one of the tutorial maps about six times, and did not get the same Portals, monsters, or the same rewards for victory any of the six times. So, it is fair to say that replay value is off the scale with La Pucelle.
Another level of strategy comes into play when, after many hours into the game, you realize that it can behoove you to do bad things, like attack members of your own party, fail to close Portals, get greedy, and so on. Doing bad things raises the Dark Portal Index, and instead of sealing the Portals, you can actually go through them into the Dark World! But you had better make sure to save your game beforehand, because the monsters on the battle grids on the other side are powerful indeed! Ah, but the powerups, weapons, and spells there are worth the risk, if you can survive long enough to make it back...
La Pucelle is full of cool surprises like these. It is a game like no other. If you are into the Tactics style of games, of if you simply like an original style of RPG, then you should quit reading this and haul butt right away to your game dealer and buy this game. It truly rocks and it is almost impossible to put away. Report this review >>
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