Now, I do understand that people would rightly wonder why in the hell I am reviewing La Pucelle: Tactics when suikox.com is a Suikoden site. After playing the game, though, I think there is good enough reason to review this game on a Suikoden site, mainly because La Pucelle: Tactics shares things things that are common with the Suikoden series--things that may have been lost after Suikoden II.
First of all, what I found most striking about La Pucelle: Tactics are the charactrers and how they are developed. Although there are far less characters in La Pucelle: Tactics compared to Suikoden, the fewer characters probably make it easier to develop them as the game progress. Exceptional story-telling also makes the characters likeable, and the player would probably be able to identify with the characters' plight (compared to Suikoden 4, for example).
In fact, as I played La Pucelle: Tactics, it felt increasingly as if I was playing a Suikoden game with Nanami from Suikoden II as the main character. The heroine of La Pucelle tactics, Prier, fills the same archetype as Nanami--she is a cheerful, lively, naive, and somewhat violent older sister. In the case of La Pucelle: Tactics, Prier is a sister to another main character, Culotte, who has his own pangs of growing up--sometimes appreciating and rebelling against his over-protective sister. The chemistry seen here is very similar to what is seen between Nanami and Riou in Suikoden II. Any fan of the Suikoden series would probably feel this familiarity. The emotions of the characters are conveyed beautifully through lovingly-crafted 2D animation much like Suikoden II and through character portraits that change to show the character's emotions.
With that said, here are a few character portraits that Nipponichi Software has allowed me to take from their site. The characters you can see here are in the order of Prier, Culotte, Alouette, Father Salade, Croix, Captain Homard, and Yattanya.
| La Pucelle: Tactics -- Character Slideshow! |
|
|
As I stated earlier, the storytelling is generally exceptional. The story is divided into chapters, and the general flow of the plot is linear which allows for a strong backbone plotwise. However, each chapter can have three or four different endings depending on how you solve each chapter's problems. Each of the chapters are done well, and is quite dramatic in my opinion. Situations are explained clearly, and mysteries are given adequate clues for people to solve with relative ease. You won't be in the situation where plotlines are carelessly thrown at you, never to be resolved (such as seen in Suikoden). Also, despite it's fluffy, colorful graphics, the story does cover depper themes and at times are quite dark. Yet, the message of the game is optimistic.
Gameplay can be as simple as you want it to be, or you can make it really complicated. Although this game is a strategy RPG, it has puzzle elements as well, mainly due to the "dark squares" on the map. If you understand the workings of the "dark squares," you will be able to perform powerful miracles which sometimes wipe out every single enemy in a stage. If you get really good at manipulating the "dark squares," you may even perform multiple miracles, which I hear allows you to do some pretty incredible things! However, you can easily ignore that aspect of the game and simply power up your characters and plough through stages--or actually use strategy to defeat enemies with weaker units. Thus, there are varying depths of gameplay available to the player.
The battles play out much like Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics--the screen is in an isometric viewpoint, and you control individual characters instead of armies. However, the battle system as well as the skill system is a lot more complex than the games I mentioned above. For example, depending on how you place allies together, they may gang up on one enemy or vice versa. Thus, you have to think carefully before throwing a character into the midst of enemies--s/he would be slaughtered! Skills are mostly earned as you level up, and increase in effectiveness as you use them repeatedly.
For those who really like statistics and character building, La Pucelle: Tactics allows you to travel to the optional "Dark World" where you can fight insanely powerful enemies for what seems like eternity. I havn't ventured into the Dark World enough to know much about it, but you will be able to win unique items and unlock new skills as well as reaching ungodly levels.
In terms of music, the soundtrack is generally lively and cheerful, which goes well with the generally colorful screen. I don't like games that use subdued melodies to keep it "background," but this game definitely keeps the music in the foreground. They also employ dramatic tracks for certain events, and at times evoke a somber mood to go with shocking/sad events. It shows that Nipponichi Software put effort into making sure events have the appropriate music (unlike Suikoden 3!).
As far as play time goes, the game took me about 40 hours to complete, but that is probably because I built my characters up during the early chapters. If you want to zip through this game, 30 hours would probably be enough. However, if you wish to delve into the Dark World, I think you can possibly look for a few hundred hours of playtime. As far as replay value goes, I think this is the type of game that you simply keep on playing to get all the juices out of it, instead of replaying it. The new version of this game that came out in Japan has a new game+, but the one sold by Mastiff in the USA doesn't have this feature, which makes replayability questionable.
Finally, as a translator I'm always curious about how well the game is translated and localized into the US market. The translation seems to have been done quite well, but I may be biased because I have gotten used to Suikoden's translations! I especially like how you can switch between English and Japanese voice acting. I can also see a lot of pain in the translator's part translating enemy names to fit into the limited area. The same goes with skill names and item names, which were very strange and used puns in the Japanese version. I would have hated translating that myself, so cudos to the translator(s). One problem with localization though is how Mastiff decided to remove certain things from the game, such as all the crosses and how Croix (one of your characters) no longer smokes tabacco. That sort of "political correctness" cheapens the game in my "humble' opinion.
In conclusion, La Pucelle: Tactics would be a good game for Suikoden fans who want to play a game with a Nanami-like heroine, with 2D graphics and addictive gameplay. This is a very carefully crafted game, and you can feel that the developers really live the characters and the series. Despite the overtly anime-ish graphic style, the game would also be good for a more mature audience due to the themes it covers. Overall, I would recommend this game to anyone who actually bothers to visit this site to read this review!
Below is the link to La Pucelle: Tactics' official site. Take a look if this review has piqued your interest.
Discussion Thread for This Topic
Written by SARSadmin
December 12th, 2004
