La Pucelle: Tactics

“When the Dark Prince appears, so too will a girl known as the Maiden of Light …”

But just who that Maiden of Light will be remains to be seen. Sister Prier is ambitious and hopes that it will be her. To that end, she is willing to attack a vast array of enemies, grudgingly learn her lessons in the hopes of one day becoming the one of the prophecy.

But it is not as easy as it may seem.

La Pucelle Tactics is a PS2 release from Mastiff and Nippon Ichi Software. It plays out like a game of chess over a variety of board styles but with overriding conquer themes. This is a turn-based game, with a rich look, but linear gameplay and Japanese anime style characters.

The fallen angel, Calamity has covered the world in darkness, but there is always a balance. For the darkness there is light. And the light comes in the form of the Holy Goddess Poitreene. A sisterhood serves Poitreene and it is presumed that from those ranks will rise the champion known as the Maiden of Light. Three characters carry the theme forward - Culotte and Prier, and their teacher, Alouette.

The game itself begins with a side-scrolling stop through town to learn of trouble in the Devil’s Stomach, the sewers on the edge of town. You enter the sewers and undergo a tutorial of the game’s combat system. Each mapboard is comprised of squares. There are also bands of lights which will act as portals. You warriors can purify the portals, and if they are flowing the right way, you will also deal damage to any enemy occupying a portal square. If an enemy is interrupting a big circular chain of portal squares, you can kill that enemy, link up the portal and perform a special rite, which will also do big damage to any monster in the middle of the circle.

You can also purify monsters, and convert them to your side. Essentially you stand on a square near them, purify them and then kill them. They pop back up on the base square (starting square for each mapboard level) as a member of your team. Any damage they had prior to being converted remains and so while they can be nice targets to get foes off your main characters, some – especially at the lower levels – have limited hit points.

The game is turn-based. You can move your character and then perform an action, like turn or purify or attack. But the nice thing about the turn-based style of this game is that you can move one or two members of your team, then launch the battle and then move your remaining party members. This plays into the strategy just a bit. You can have two of your team attack and diminish a monster, leaving one member of your team in reserve. If it is apparent that one more shot will kill the monster, you can then move that other party member up and attack before ending your turn.

If one of your party members is knocked unconscious, they are returned to the base square and are not available again until you get back to the world map. When all party members are knocked out, the game is over. You can save the game from the world map.

In that regard, La Pucelle Tactics is very much a tactical exercise. You have to monitor hit points and play carefully. Characters will level and gain new attributes. Certain portals that are purified will yield hit points and can heal your avatars, somewhat. But flying straight into battle, blindly, is a recipe for disasters, especially as you start to encounter tougher mobs.

The rotation in turns is player movement, followed by actions, then you end your turn and the mobs move. The AI seems solid, and mobs will often target the weakest in your ranks, either in terms of offensive power or low hit points.

The sound of this game can start to become a wee bit irritating after a while. The musical score has that lilting tone familiar to players of the tactical card-style videogames, and the voice work, while solid, can be a little over the top.

Graphically the game is somewhat two-dimensional, even when the characters are moving across the three-dimensional mapboards. Character faces pop up and use the anime style to portray emotions. The pop-up dialog boxes can be a pain simply because you have to advance through them, and sometimes they contain minimal information – like “oh, oh.”

La Pucelle Tactics has a look that would appeal to younger players, but this game is strategic and while a good mental exercise, is definitely for the tactical gamer. What La Pucelle Tactics lacks in amazing 3D graphics and animations, it makes up for in strategic gaming. This title may play out like a hardcore game of chess, but the variations in combat structure will have you thinking in ways you may not have considered before.