During this generation of consoles, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) has been widely known for its excellent Strategy RPGs. Their games have not only been known for their greatness, but also for their rarity. Most of their games are near impossible to find in shops. The second of their games to have landed in US PS2 systems is La Pucelle Tactics. Featuring, like many of their games, great turn-based strategy gameplay and a fun story, La Pucelle has charmed most gamers who were able to get a hold of it. Read on to see why Nippon Ichi is a master of SRPGs.

Story

This game shows the story of Prier, a Sister working for the Church of the Maiden of Light, who serves the goddess Poitreene. Well shes not exactly what youd expect from a Sister. Shes vulgar and violent, and sometimes contests the learnings from the Holy Book. She and her brother Culotte lost their parents when they were young and decided to join the church. When they got older they joined La Pucelle, a group of people from the Church of the Maiden of Light who is in charge of destroying demons who are attacking the Country of Paprica. Following their mentor Sister Alouette, they go on various missions to fight demons. After a while they find out that some demon attacks are related to the Church of the Divine Mother, who seems to be working actively with demons. Now they must work to prevent the revival of the Dark Prince, who only wants to destroy every human, as well as finding the Maiden of Light, who is a powerful warrior who once fought the Dark Prince in the past.
Although the story seems light-hearted on the exterior, and is also quite funny a lot of the time, its actually quite dark. Its not THE best story ever and is a bit clichd, but its still very good.

Graphics

Like most strategy RPGs these days, La Pucelle uses 2D sprites for the characters and 3D for the landscapes. The characters are anime-styled, and slightly chibi as well since they sometimes look smaller/younger than they actually are on the battlefield.They have pretty much the same style when they are on the field or in conversations. The monsters are obviously also sprites, but for the most part they dont look really evil. Only a few of the really evil demons have that wicked look. Other than that, the animation of most characters and monsters look really good and natural. And the special effects for some attacks look great as well. As for the landscapes, they look okay. Nothing special really, Id expect as much from any other SRPG. Finally, the sceneries in the game used in story segments and dialogues look really nice, again showing of an anime-styled look.
So graphically the game as a fun anime style for the characters that are quite well animated, and the landscapes during battle, although not incredible, do their part well.

Sound

If youve played Disgaea before, the first thing youll realize is that they reused the exact same menu sounds in La Pucelle. Also, some other random sounds are also the same as in Disgaea. So theres a bit of recycling here sound-wise, but its not that bad as the sound works well here too. Other than that, the game features a lot of voice acting. The voices are actually quite good, although some of the time the voice actors seem like they should put a little more emotion in their voices. Still, the voices seem to fit the characters quite well most of the time and the sound quality is pretty good too. Finally, the music isnt too bad. Its nothing memorable, but its still enjoyable.