Malik
(6/3/04)
La Pucelle Tactics (PS2)
Mastiff/Nippon Ichi Software
I was a little late jumping
into the wonderful world of Disgaea. When it first came out, I was a
little frightened of SRPGs thanks to the imagination-deficient
developers at SquareEnix and their monstrous FFTA. However, I
eventually tried Disgaea on a whim...actually I was about to explode
if I didn't lay my hands on a new (to me, at least) RPG and Disgaea
was the only one out there. Well, after only a few days of playing
Disgaea, two things came upon me. One being how much the game
rocked. The second one being that La Pucelle Tactics, another game
from the same developers and of the same style was soon to hit the
American shores. So, naturally, I made sure to get a copy in my most
deserving of hands.
It took me some time to finish
Disgaea due to how immersive and large the game is. So, naturally,
it took me a little extra time to start really playing LPT (I hate
to tarnish the game playing experience of an RPG by playing more
than one good one at a time...I tried it with Suikoden 3 and Wild
ARMs 3, not to mention other such pairings, and it only leads to one
game losing out and being left on the shelf to collect dust...not a
good thing for a classic like LPT), but the wait was well worth it
in terms of both my enjoyment of Disgaea and how bad-ass LPT
is.
For those who are unfamiliar
with LPT; this game was actually released in Japan in January of
2002. It took the breakout success of Disgaea for this title to
become worthy of an American publisher's, in this case Mastiff's,
real attention. Also, in a related note, the game Phantom Brave,
which continues the wonderful tradition of LPT and Disgaea will be
released later this year (in the fall) by Altus (the publisher of
Disgaea). Ok, enough background...let's get to the meat of
things.
Actually, we'll get to things
after I make one little point...LPT focuses on a world with a very
French influence (and unlike how FF12 is looking, LPT actually makes
it interesting), and thus has a lot of very funky and hard to
pronounce or spell names. So, if I mess up on a name every
once-in-a-while, forgive me.
Story
La Pucelle Tactics centers
around the adventures of a pair of orphans, who are brother and
sister, named Prier and Culotte and their supervisor Alouette. Also,
as one can guess from these names, the world they live in is modeled
somewhat after medieval France. These three adventurers work for the
Church of the Divine Maiden in the La Pucelle division of demon
hunters. Basically, they work to eliminate the threat of demons from
the daily lives of the common people.
At the same time, they are also
facing some competition for the religious ideals of the people by
the Church of the Holy Mother. Pretty much the Church of the Divine
Maiden is a bit of a recent startup church that was founded by
Prier's ultimate boss, Father Salade.
However, when the player is
driven deeper into the story, they will also learn that before the
start of the Church of the Divine Maiden, a battle of holy and epic
proportions took place between the goddess Pointre and the Dark
Prince. The Dark Price is a servant of a fallen angel who decided to
make an effort to conquer the world, and the Goddess, being a
goddess and all that, decided to save the common people. In turn,
when the Goddess beat out the Dark Prince (as would be required if
this is a back story to the main game...otherwise I doubt good
forces would exist to destroy the forces of evil...as in most games,
it seems like if the Dark Prince won, all life would be screwed, but
the forces of good were too nice to evil people and let them
continue on...when will the forces of good learn to grow some
balls?), the Church of the Divine Maiden was formed by Father Salade
to worship her and to serve as a tool of sorts to maintain order and
peace in the world. Lastly, there are prophecies saying that the
next time evil returns to the world, a "Maiden of Light"
will arise and take down the forces of evil.
So, back to Prier; when she and
Culotte were young, their parents died in a carriage accident and
they were left in an orphanage ran by Father Salade's wife, who goes
nameless throughout the game. As they grew older, they joined the
church as cadets and were soon allowed to join the demon hunter
squad of La Pucelle, where they were teamed with the amnesiac
Alouette. As Prier worked her way up the ranks, she started to
become brash and bossy in what she would hope would serve to get her
her ultimate dream; being the Maiden of Light. Meanwhile, Alouette
is always there to keep her in check with a healthy dose of discipline
(usually being in the form of a sharp blow to the head), and Culotte
is there to serve as Prier's family and target for Prier's
affection.
Basically, this is the story
you are given for the first few chapters of LPT. Very little
actually evolves in the story until it is realized that the forces
of evil are starting to grow in numbers...what happens next? Play
the game.
Overall, the story is presented
with the perfect blending of almost all elements. The level of drama
is enough to emphasize how import of a nature Prier's mission is
(the whole saving the world thing), but with enough humor to keep
the player from being brought down. For example, in LPT, Prier's
brash attitude serves nicely as both a dramatic engine to show her
motivation and determination and as a source of comedy as she
interacts with other characters in the bluntest ways possible. Also,
the details are balanced enough where you are always able to
understand the actions and reactions of key players, but the details
are light enough to keep the player from entering a state of total
confusion (ever play Suikoden 3? Near the beginning, the player is
told of about 5 different kingdoms, 40 or so key characters, two or
three major wars, a few prophecies, and enough confusing town names
to make your head spin...that is what I mean by too many details at
once). Overall, the story is clear, to the point, and still filled
with enough intrigue and plot twists to keep the player constantly
striving to learn more. Considering how the plot is key to a good
RPG experience, LPT is definitely off to a nice start...
Game Play
I will keep this section pretty
brief in comparison to my review of the game play of Disgaea. Why
would I do that? Simple, I will do the lazy thing and refer all of
you back to the Disgaea review (not just since the game play is so
very similar, but also because it's a good game and definitely
deserves some consideration...). So, to start things out, here is
what's not found in La Pucelle Tactics, that was found in
Disgaea;
Lifting: There is no ability to
lift or throw characters such as team-mates, enemies, or geo
symbols...speaking of which;
Geo Symbols and geo tiles are
not present
Class changes, creating custom
characters from scratch, and transmigration to reset your level and
possible change classes. You are now given a single set of base
scores per character with some other means of determining the final
"class" of said character (read on).
The dark senate is now gone.
Most of the initiatives you could try to pass, such as opening new
sets of items for sale, increasing the experience you get from the
next battle, and raising the overall level of monsters can now be
found in the shop. After you purchase an item, you can now (if you
want) fill out a customer survey that includes questions of what
types of items you want more of (weapons, armor, and other items),
what price you want to pay (want more expensive, less expensive, or
the same price of items...this will affect their quality), and
occasionally you may be asked a bonus question of something along
the lines of, "What is your dream?". To this you can say
something along the lines of what bonus you'd like for the next
combat (extra money, experience, etc). There's also the question of
if you'd like to fight stronger monsters. That one is pretty
self-explanatory...ok, for the slow witted, stronger monsters equal
more challenge and more experience.
In LPT, all people who fought
an enemy in the action that killed it (in other words, if two or
more people attack an enemy and both attacks are pulled off in one
action and one of those attacks slays the monster) get experience.
Not just the single person (and all support attackers) who dealt the
actual death blow. This is one of my personal favorite features of
LPT when compared to Disgaea. As you can tell from what I just
wrote, support attacks are back.
Last of all, there are no item
dungeons. You can still level up items, but not by fighting through
100 levels of a dungeon inside the item (known as the Item World).
I'll explain more on this later.
So, with all these things now
missing from LPT that were in Disgaea, let's look at what is new to
LPT;
First off, there are, most noticeably
of all, set characters. In Disgaea you had certain set characters,
such as Laharl and Etna, who automatically joined your crusade
(well...Laharl didn't join...he led the battle). All human
characters fit into this group. The class they are given in no way
affects their abilities (Culotte and Prier are both "La
Pucelle" for class, but Prier is more melee and Culotte is more
or less a mage). Instead they have base stats and certain stats that
are more likely to increase at a level-up (more on this to come...).
Also, there are recruit able characters. These are all monsters and
are the actual monsters you fight. If your characters use a
"purify" command on a monster a few times, it will become
more friendly towards your cause, and if it is purified enough, when
you slay it, it will be a new playable character. However, unless
you meet some secret hidden requirements, these monsters must be
normal monsters (not bosses).
As for the stat increases and
level-ups, there are three simple facts. Firstly, if you level-up,
you will gain certain stats that are character based (Prier likes to
gain strength, a fire monster will usually gain intelligence as they
like magic, a bear will gain a lot of strength, etc). Secondly, any
monsters you gain will have the chance to "train" after
each battle. By training, you can increase the rate that they gain
points in one of three (or two or even all three if you like to
train and spend a lot of time on this) stat sub-sets (broken down to
have HP, defense, and strength in one set, SP...aka MP..., magic
resistance, and Intelligence in the second, and speed and hit rate
in the third subset). The only thing is that monsters have a
happiness meter that can range from 1 to 10. If it is at 10, they
love you and can even use the purify command (more to come on that).
However, if it falls to one, they may leave your party, to never
return. Also, when you train, you can either boost one of those stat
sub-sets, or you can do something nice to the monster (that will not
gain the stat sub-sets at all). Simply put, training pisses off a
monster (not to mention if the monster gets bitched in battle, it
will get pissed off), while nice things raise the happiness meter.
One needs to keep these two facts in check in order to help their
monster grow but not to force it to run away.
The third stat boosting factor
is your equipment. Besides the obvious fact that armor will boost
defense, weapons will boost attack, etc, there is a set of stat
growth abilities in most equipment. To put it simply, if an equipped
item has a growth factor for defense and you kill a monster (to gain
experience), some experience will go into your defense stat. Once
your defense levels up, you gain an additional point of defense.
This applies to all stats (including HP, but not movement). Also,
each equipped item grants a different growth rate for the stat(s) it
affects and these do stack. In other words, if you have an item that
has a defense growth factor of 1, another of 2, and a third item of
1 all equipped, you will gain defense four times quicker than if you
only had the first item equipped. Not only can this be used to
develop a characters abilities in a different direction than their
default settings, but it also opens skills;
So, what is a skill? When your
stats reach certain levels (the levels gained through item growth
factors, not the natural levels that a stat can reach via character
leveling-up), skills may be unlocked. These skills fall into two
sets; passive and active. An active skill is one that is always in
affect and can include such bonuses and increases to your characters
movement and jumping ranges. On the other hand, passive skills only
take affect in battles and only a certain percentage of the time.
These skills can include the chance to bring an enemy to your side
after slaying it (even without purifying it prior to combat), a one
shot boost in attack power or defense, an increase in experience if
the monster is killed in that attack, and critical hits (which are
not possible without a critical hit skill). The number of skills
available are not limited to the number of stats, since certain
skills are only unlocked by leveling a combination of stats to
certain levels. Also, for passive skills, more than one can take
affect in a single combat round. Lastly, these skills can level up
as the stats associated with them continue to level ("Tiny
Break" increases your attack power, but as your attack stat
increases you will earn "Break" and then "Power
Break", and possibly more, which will all in turn be more
effective than the previous version).
Also, while monsters can train
and human characters cannot, it doesn't mean monsters wont gain stat
levels or skills. They can do all the same things as human
characters and more (like training).
On the same note, how one gains
magic or special attacks is blending into two different methods. All
human characters (and most monsters) have pre-set special abilities
and magic spells that they will gain at a certain character level.
However, both monsters and humans can gain spells not normally in
their ability by equipping certain equipment. Some equipible items
have an elemental score. In LPT, there are about a half dozen
elements (ok, a little more than a half dozen), such as fire, wind,
lightning, holy, etc. These elemental alignments don't affect how
well they utilize that element to attack or how well they defend against
an element, but rather they affect what spells you can learn. If you
have a certain character level and a certain amount of elemental
points in one element from your equipment, then a new spell will be
unlocked on your character's spells/special attacks menu (for
example, to reach the second version of fire magic, "Mega
Fire"...you need a character level of 10 for any
"Mega" spell, and an elemental score of 4 for any
"Mega" spell; thus you need at least a 10th level
character with four fire elemental points on it's equipment). This
new spell, however, will be at a zero level (yes, your special
attacks and spells have levels too that go up as you use each
ability) and you must use it enough to get to the first level before
your remove the equipment that is giving you access to the spell. If
you fail to reach level 1 with the spell and you remove all the
elemental points (from equipment), you will no longer have access to
the spell until you change your equipment back. Unlike the stat
growth factors on equipment (which are set according to the
equipment type), elemental points are randomly assigned to each item
when it is generated. Typically, all items of a certain type will
only have so many elemental points, but the element itself can be
any of the more than 6 elemental types. So, a low level armor will
usually have only one elemental point, at the most, but each time
you visit the shop you will see randomly assignment elemental
alignments for each one. Once you find higher level equipment,
especially staffs (which being attuned to magic will usually be more
magical and thus more elementally aligned), the actual number of
elemental points will typically increase (but the alignment will
usually be random).
Ok, if that was confusing, I'm
sorry...La Pucelle is a very deep game with many twists and
innovative features that can, for the most part, only be explained
by actually playing the game. Ok, back to the review.
Purifying...ok, if you thought
that last part was confusing, this will knock you on your ass.
Purifying is an ability not just needed to tame monsters, but to
level up your equipment and gain massive money by closing dark
portals. A heads up; if any of this sounds confusing, just check out
gamefaqs.com and look up any La Pucelle Tactics info in the FAQs or
message boards on Dark Portals and you'll see that I'm giving the
easy to understand version...
So, on almost every battle map,
when the battle first begins, there will be two red squares, two
blue ones, and two green ones. These special squares are known as
dark portals. Also, each one of these can be aimed in one of the
four basic directions to project a beam of "dark energy".
They are aimed in whatever direction the last character (enemy or
friendly) to step on them was facing. The dark energy, then, will
continue in a path until it hits a character. At this point, the
energy will either turn in the direction of the character, or if the
character is facing directly into the energy, it will stop. It will
also stop if it ever hits a wall. If someone uses a purify command
on the portal, the portal will lose some of it's HP based on the
strength of the purify command of said character. If the portal runs
out of HP, then the portal will close and all enemies on the path of
the dark energy will take damage associated with the alignment of
the dark energy (red is for fire, blue is for ice, etc). Also, if
the dark energy streams of two different colored portal merge, the
energies will travel together in a new color (red+blue will make
purple, green+blue will make cyan, green+red will form yellow). Now
if three colors join, then the energy will become white/silver. Each
color makes a new elemental attack (when the portal is destroyed) to
any enemies on the energy stream. The only exception is cyan, which
will, instead of hurting enemies on the energy when the portal is
stopped, heal all friendly units on the energy stream. So, if two
portals are needed to form a cyan, then what do I mean by "the
portal" being purified? Well, if either the blue or the green
portal is destroyed, then the cyan portion of the energy (the point
when green and blue energy is merged) will do the healing. So, if
three portals merge at different points, then a total of between
three and five energy stream colors can be found (like if blue is
first, then green, then red there will be a blue stream, then a cyan
stream, then a silver stream with possible minor streams of green
and red prior to those portals joining the main stream). Also, when
a portal is purified, then you will gain money (after the battle
ends) for each tiles that had energy that was purified (each square
of dark energy affected). Also, if all portals are purified on the
map, then the total money earned will be doubled (as a bonus). You
will also, in real time (as it's done, not at the end of the
battle), gain experience for all equipped items when a player
purifies a portal for each square of dark energy that was purified.
This is how you can gain levels for items, which in turn grant
bonuses to the stats increased by the item (purify a portal while
wearing a shield, the shied gains experience, and if it levels, the
total defense bonus of the shield increases). However, it gets a
little more confusing when you throw in miracle attacks...
So the meat of the Dark Portals
and all that comes into play with the Miracle attacks. When you are
able to loop a dark energy path so that it forms a circle covering a
certain amount of space and then purify one of the portals causing
the loop of energy, then a miracle attack is formed. If the energy
is of any color other than cyan that forms the loop, then all
enemies inside the loop are attacked with a damaging miracle (area
of effect) attack (if the loop is cyan, then all allies in the area
of the loop get healed). Plus, any portals on the inside of the loop
are also damaged, and if they run out of HP, then that counts as
that portal being purified. This in turn can lead to another
miracle, and in turn possible another all the way through all of the
portals. This means you can decimate the enemy forces, and also gain
some massive money and item experience (each miracle gives a bonus
to the money and item experience you gain from the purification,
plus the amount gained from each square of dark energy purified).
The only issue with this is that you gain no character experience
for the enemies killed in this fashion. This whole mechanism of
gaining equipment experience and money leads to a puzzle element to
the strategic RPG experience.
On the note of dark portals; if
some portals are left unpurified, or if you do an evil deed (such as
killing a team mate), you will raise the dark energy index for that
map. When the dark energy index reaches a certain limit, a new
element enters the world of LPT. This element is a portal to the
netherworld. Exploration of the netherworld is not needed to beat
the game, but it will give some new features (such as unlocking the
ability to convert boss monsters to your side).
Also, on this note; when you
choose, you can go to town and send one of your servant monsters to
the netherworld (to never return). The reason for this is that all
the items being held by the monster are devoured and turned into a
new fused item with many of the abilities of the originals (such as
the stat level-up factors and elemental points). The level of the
items and monster sent to hell affect the overall strength of the
new item.
So, that is pretty much the
game play of La Pucelle Tactics in a nut-shell. Overall, while
learning the mechanisms is quite confusing, it is not too difficult
to learn. The overall learning curve of all this is only an hour,
tops. Also, like with Disgaea, most of the more confusing parts of
LPT are not really required to play the game; they are only needed
to master the game. Like with Disgaea, you can beat the game while
at a low level, like around 50-60 (if not lower), but by checking
out the netherworld, you can reach levels in the hundreds or
thousands. So, like with Disgaea, you are given full control of
whether you want this game to last for about 60 hours or for 600
hours. This is a definite plus in my eyes. Also, unlike Disgaea, if
you chose to stick to the normal path of progression (skip the bonus
side-quests and all that) with about 60 hours to beat the game, you
will not miss out on any secret endings.
Visuals
Well, I think I can keep this
part really short. Basically, the visuals are done exactly like they
were in Disgaea with the sole exception being how cut scenes are
handled. Instead of using the large still portraits of the character
talking that Disgaea used, LPT uses a more old fashioned cut-scene
mechanism. The dialogue box at the bottom of the screen simply shows
a mini-portrait of the person talking and this will also show that
character's emotion. Also, the on screen sprite for the character
will show the same effect of emotion that the mini-portrait in the
dialogue box is showing.
That part aside, the visuals
are just like those used in Disgaea, but instead of being based
around life in the Netherworld, the visuals show the style of life
found more in a fantasized medieval France. I would say more, but I
think I already said it in my Disgaea review.
Audio
This will feel like I'm
repeating myself, but I already said this part in my Disgaea review,
also. The only major differences in sound between LPT and Disgaea is
that the music in Disgaea was a little higher quality. This is not
to say that LPT has bad music, but some of the songs will definitely
get on one's nerves if they plan to play the full extent of the
game; remember how I said before this game could be 60 or 600 hours
long? Well, if you go for the 600 hour route, the music will drive
you insane a lot quicker than Disgaea's music ever did.
While this is also true of
Disgaea, I just want to give mad props to the voice talent of LPT.
So far Disgaea and LPT are the only games I can think of where over
90% of the voice acting is not just tolerably, but it can actually
be called great. The voice acters used in LPT have a good blending
of professional voice actors (like the woman who does the voice of
Bubbles on the Powerpuff Girls and Rikku on FFX) and professional
actors (some of which were on such shows as Fraiser and Seinfeld). I
know that usually professional voice actors in America tend to be of
the lowest caliber, but in cases like this, the best were used and
the directing for the voice acting was brilliant.
So, to put it simply, the sound
is so similar in quality (but not feel...the French-ness of LPT is
definitely shown in the music and audio) to that of Disgaea that all
I can say is this; it's great quality, and check out my Disgaea
review for more details.
Conclusion
After pouring far too much of
my life into LPT after throwing even more of it into Disgaea, I
think it's safe to say that this group of games (it's not a series,
but it's two similar games from the same brilliant developers) is
easily on it's way to becoming some of my favorite games. The story
in La Pucelle Tactics, while it is way too slow to start, is
definitely original and a breath of fresh air on the currently stale
crop of stories being crammed into the average RPG experience. The
game play uses enough of the classic style found in Shining Force
games and FFT that it feels familiar, but offers enough innovation
with a purpose (not the teh gay innovation without a purpose that
led to FFXIII and the "Junction" system) to keep it
definitely fresh and intriguing. Lastly, the more physical of
elements, the visuals and audio, are not in any way new, but they
don't need to be. They keep the feel of the story in the right
place; a humorous yet very serious experience that will constantly
keep the player trapped within this video game addiction. So, in
conclusion, I would have to
give La Pucelle Tactics a 9.75/10;
like they said in Kill Bill Volume 2 about Hitori Hanzo swords...you
can't compare an Nippon Ichi Software tactical RPG with another
Nippon Ichi Software tactical RPG; you can only compare it to
another developers tactical RPG. The Nippon Ichi Software one will
always win since it's just a grade above the rest.
Malik
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