As previously mentioned in others threads, there were a couple days over the christmas break where my brother and I went to just about every used video game store in Minneapolis. From that adventure, one of the titles I purchased was La Pucelle Tactics used for $25 at a gamestop, as it was the other Nippon Ichi ps2 SRPG that I had yet to play. Though, with all the work dumped on me this week, I'm not to sure how much I'll be able to play, nor if I really should. oh well, thats always how it is isn't it? ^_^
Nippon Ichi is really quite interesting. It is really neat how they were able to make these 3 games (La Pucelle, Disgaea, Phantom Brave) play so differently, yet still be challenging and work well.
Disgaea was extremely basic when compared to La Pucelle or Phantom Brave. It makes a good introduction to these 3 Nippon games, as it doesn't deviate too far from the most common SRPG, Final Fantasy Tactics. The gameplay is quite the same, yet it has more options that change difficulty, and other aspects of the gameplay. It also features two things that I hate. (1) A tright story which occasionally goes off on needless tangents, complete with annoying characters with minimal development. And (2) absolutely no sense of exploration and movement throughout the world. Though, fans of Disgaea easily put these two aspects aside in favor of the rock solid gameplay.
If you haven't played any of these 3 games, I suggest you begin with Disgaea because it only goes up from there. However, going from Disgaea, either Phantom Brave or La Pucelle would be fine as they both deviate from the 'tradition' SRPG gameplay style featured in Disgaea, and (at the highest level) both Phantom Brave and La Pucelle seem to be equally great.
Phantom Brave had some very interesting deviations from the 'tradition' SRPG stance. The most notable is the subtraction of the grid based movement system. Characters can move everywhere within the map, and even off the map too. Equipment was also radically changed as your weapons were now treated as characters themselves that you leveled and built. It's a system that I'd say most people didn't like about Phantom Brave as the character's stats actually became meaningless, and your most powerful person was whomever held your most powerful weapon at that time. It's something that you can try and ignore, but when taking on 2000 level bosses, you have to do it. There are also plenty of other things going on with Phantom Brave as well.
Though, the one thing that really got me into Phantom Brave was that my two problems with Disgaea were not an issue. Instead of a simple list of places to go, you now had a map to move about the world. And the story featured in Phantom Brave covered a wider range of emotions with the main characters who actually developed throughout the course of the game. The story kept to the point and didn't wander off for no good reason.
La Pucelle also deviates from the tradition SRPG styles by promoting a group fighting style. Movement through the map is still grid based, and you move your characters one at a time. However, when you attack or get attacked by enemies, there's a side-by-side screen that comes up showing your character(s) pulling off attacks. every character brought into this screen melee attacks the opposing side. Characters and enemies not even selected to attack can be brought into this screen and attack for you without telling them to. So, if you bring just one of your characters out in the open against 4 or 5 other enemies, you're going to get your ass kicked. You need to clump your characters together so that you can bring 3 or 4 chracters into battle, instead of just fighting alone.
The gameplay style reminds me of a cross between SNES Ogre Battle and Disgaea. In this battle screen, you have no control over your characters, but instead of just one assembled army fighting another, how you've arranged your characters on the field determine the battle participants. Long range characters are quite helpful with this. So in every battle, everybody attacks, and when you actually choose to attack an enemy, in effect, they counterattack too. You could choose to fight an enemy, and then die in that battle before even getting a chance to fight too. It makes for a very different game than Disgaea or Phantom Brave.
Special attacks are carried out differently. You select which characters or enemies you want to heal or attack, and then the attack is carried out immediately without any confrontation.
Battles also feature two other main differences: dark portals and purification. Every map has numerous dark portals randomly scattered across the field. Every once in a while, new enemies will spawn from these portals. Dark portals also have energy flowing from them in a straight line in one of the four directions. If an enemy or character is positioned on a tile the energy is flowing to, it'll get redirected depending on which way the chracter or enemy is facing.
You destroy these portals by purifying them, which any human character can do. Each character has a certain level of purification so sometimes it can take more than one turn to purify a portal. When purified, the stream of energy erupts in an attack, much like in Disgaea. All enemies in the stream are hurt. However, if you can move about the map and position characters and enemies to create a circle of energy, and then purify the portal, the circle will summon a creature and harm all enemies within the confines of the purified circle. Very powerful, yet hard to do.
Purification has another use as well. If you purify enemies, it increases the likelihood of them joining your side when they are defeated. This usually takes a lot of turns. It will change from nothing to "somewhat interested" to "thinking about converting" to "wants to convert" to "will convert no matter what." Kind of like the interest level for the dark council in Disgaea. This is how you build your army.
Once again, La Pucelle doesn't have the same problem I had with Disgaea. You have a map where you move throughout the world. When you go into part of a dungeon you've already cleared, it'll show you the map and the paths you can take from that map. Dungeons can have multiple paths you can take, rather than just one way as in Disgaea and Phantom Brave. Alternate paths can reveal treasure or advance the story.
Occasionally in maps, you'll find a highlighted tile that doesn't represent a way in or out. Moving a character to this tile will lead to a cutscene that'll advance the story.
The story is split up into chapters like Disgaea and Phantom Brave, but each chapter has multiple endings, depending on what you did or didn't do during that chapter. For example, the first chapter you investigate the presence of zombies near the sewer. As you trek down the sewer, you find a castle. In one map, you can find one of those highlighted tiles, and unlock a room where two people were imprisoned and died. You learn about their past and more about the zombies and the castle. In another map, you find out more about the castle, and what is really going on, so when you eventually fight the boss, you aren't just blindly killing him. You know why you're doing it. You get monetary bonuses for Good Endings too. ^_^
As for the story, it also seems like it has more to it than Disgaea, although it follows the same formula. The characters are all part of a church, and the most powerful church of the land is cooking up something evil, and being part of this little yet faithful church. It's your job to investigate matters further. I've only completed 2 chapters so far, so I don't know all the details.
The main character of La Pucelle, Prier, is an obnoxious brat, but she still has logical qualities that doesn't make her as annoying as Laharl from Disgaea. They are brought out by the immediate supporting character, Culotte, her brother, as he usually talks about her. He describes her in a way that she would never describe herself. This provides two viewpoints of the story: the sensical side of the brother explaining the situation, and the brash comedical side of the sister doing things "her way."
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Anyways, La Pucelle is pretty good so far. I'll let you know how things turn out. ^_^