La Pucelle: Tactics to US

[ChaoofNee]

As an SRPG fan, I say ignore the advice given without any verifying reasons above and buy Disgaea, for it is deep and fun, with a great sense of humor and more customizablity than you can shake a stick at.

James

As someone who doesn't like SRPG's all that much, I still agree with James and ssbomberman. Disgaea is great to hold my attention as long as it did (and probably still will when I get back into it). S'there. Fun game. Purchase.

[Survival Kid]

Why?

Because I found it to be a boring game. It was fun at first, but having every feature in excess got tedious after a while. Now when I go back and play it I find myself bored out of my fucking mind. Building Specialists up to Lvl300, going in and out of the item world, the pain in the ass Dark Assembly, transmigrating then having to build that character's level up yet again to respectable heights. Thankfully all that was totally optional, but still...

I'm not a huge fan of having to learn skills from weapons. I don't mind it to an extent, but I prefer a largely job based skill system.

The fields were ugly and lacked any sort of detail. Normally I'm not one to pick on graphics, but the total lack of any detail was disappointing.

The story certainly wasn't spectacular, though not many games have spectacular stories. Sure, it was amusing at times, but more often than not I found it to be nothing other juvenile bickering between the characters. The main characters being little kids didn't do much for me either, although I guess it did fit with the way they acted.

I did like certain aspects of the game though. Like I said, it was amusing at times, the lightheartedness was a bit refreshing in an overly serious genre. I like the wide range of classes, even though there weren't very many job specific abilities. And something more than mere palette swaps for sub classes would have been nicer.

It was by no means a bad game, just not as great as it's made out to be and not worth $50 in my opinion. I can play it in very short bursts, but anything over a few battles and it gets mind numbingly boring. I think it just got way too hyped up at the Atlus boards and didn't live up to my expectations since they were quite high. If you're that interested in the game, sure, go pick it up, but there are much better SRPGs out there. If you have a GBA pick up Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which is infinitely more enjoyable, albeit a bit on the easy side.

[AaronChance]

For the 120 hour claim for La Pucelle, I played it for 40+ which was enough to take me to the final boss, but I never leveled up my characters to get those big optional extras. It all depends on your interest level, I suppose. I got bored with replaying the story maps over and over and never had the time to sit through ten levels of Hell since there's no exit item like there is in Disgaea. Those 40 hours were great fun though.

[ssbomberman]

Because I found it to be a boring game. It was fun at first, but having every feature in excess got tedious after a while. Now when I go back and play it I find myself bored out of my fucking mind. Building Specialists up to Lvl300, going in and out of the item world, the pain in the ass Dark Assembly, transmigrating then having to build that character's level up yet again to respectable heights. Thankfully all that was totally optional, but still...

I'm not a huge fan of having to learn skills from weapons. I don't mind it to an extent, but I prefer a largely job based skill system.

The fields were ugly and lacked any sort of detail. Normally I'm not one to pick on graphics, but the total lack of any detail was disappointing.

The story certainly wasn't spectacular, though not many games have spectacular stories. Sure, it was amusing at times, but more often than not I found it to be nothing other juvenile bickering between the characters. The main characters being little kids didn't do much for me either, although I guess it did fit with the way they acted.

I did like certain aspects of the game though. Like I said, it was amusing at times, the lightheartedness was a bit refreshing in an overly serious genre. I like the wide range of classes, even though there weren't very many job specific abilities. And something more than mere palette swaps for sub classes would have been nicer.

It was by no means a bad game, just not as great as it's made out to be and not worth $50 in my opinion. I can play it in very short bursts, but anything over a few battles and it gets mind numbingly boring. I think it just got way too hyped up at the Atlus boards and didn't live up to my expectations since they were quite high. If you're that interested in the game, sure, go pick it up, but there are much better SRPGs out there. If you have a GBA pick up Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which is infinitely more enjoyable, albeit a bit on the easy side.

See personally I find FFT to be boring...the story is way to serious (overwritten really), the battle system didn't quite do it for me...I dunno...it is all opinion what you like and don't like of course, but all the reasons he mentioned for not liking it, were reasons I enjoyed it. There was a lot of freedom in this game compared to other SRPGs I've played. Being able to level up a character forever basically is pretty cool...but I really enjoyed the idea of transmigrating and leveling them back up was a piece of cake w/ the right strategy, so was the Assembly...I really enjoyed the weapon system and how you housed specialists in them...

The story didnt' take it self too seriously, but was touching when it needed to be...personally I would have paid more for it...so yeah, I'd atleast give it a try somehow if you can...you may hate it, you may love it, but it is a unique experience nonetheless.

[Captain Vegetable]

Because I found it to be a boring game. It was fun at first, but having every feature in excess got tedious after a while. Now when I go back and play it I find myself bored out of my fucking mind. Building Specialists up to Lvl300, going in and out of the item world, the pain in the ass Dark Assembly, transmigrating then having to build that character's level up yet again to respectable heights. Thankfully all that was totally optional, but still...

I'm not a huge fan of having to learn skills from weapons. I don't mind it to an extent, but I prefer a largely job based skill system.

The fields were ugly and lacked any sort of detail. Normally I'm not one to pick on graphics, but the total lack of any detail was disappointing.

The story certainly wasn't spectacular, though not many games have spectacular stories. Sure, it was amusing at times, but more often than not I found it to be nothing other juvenile bickering between the characters. The main characters being little kids didn't do much for me either, although I guess it did fit with the way they acted.

I did like certain aspects of the game though. Like I said, it was amusing at times, the lightheartedness was a bit refreshing in an overly serious genre. I like the wide range of classes, even though there weren't very many job specific abilities. And something more than mere palette swaps for sub classes would have been nicer.

It was by no means a bad game, just not as great as it's made out to be and not worth $50 in my opinion. I can play it in very short bursts, but anything over a few battles and it gets mind numbingly boring. I think it just got way too hyped up at the Atlus boards and didn't live up to my expectations since they were quite high. If you're that interested in the game, sure, go pick it up, but there are much better SRPGs out there. If you have a GBA pick up Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which is infinitely more enjoyable, albeit a bit on the easy side.

I find myself agreeing with you. Not too long ago I had returned to Disgaea, and I just couldn't do it. Rediculously boring.

[Dolemite]

For the 120 hour claim for La Pucelle, I played it for 40+ which was enough to take me to the final boss, but I never leveled up my characters to get those big optional extras. It all depends on your interest level, I suppose. I got bored with replaying the story maps over and over and never had the time to sit through ten levels of Hell since there's no exit item like there is in Disgaea. Those 40 hours were great fun though.

Thank god the 120 hours only comes from optional leveling up and side quests. Who the fuck has that much time to devote to one game? I sure don't. 40 hours sounds about perfect to me.

[Jeremy]

http://www.vgpub.com/preview6.html - neat preview of the game.

[Geo-X]

It's kind of weird how they translated some of the characters name to make sure you get the right sound when saying them in english, even though in my opinion they should have used the french words.

i.e. Prière instead of Prier
Poitrine instead of Poitreene

I wonder how the other names will turn out...

http://www.vgpub.com/preview6.html - neat preview of the game.

According to that article, this game comes out on May 4th.

[AaronChance]

"...this occult tale of deception and betrayal."
Uhh, you know who the major villian of the game is pretty much from the beginning. There are a few plot twists and surprises, but this sentence still makes no sense.

"...but none will attack until you select begin battle."
Not true. Special attacks happen immediately. Even more, you want to excute combo attacks seperately so you can move your allies around.

"If the player has weak characters in their stable, all they have to do is step on the battle field and they will gain experience – they do not have to fight."
Unless they changed the game from the Japanese version, this is wrong. A character has to at least be part of a combo attack to earn exp. Though they can be part of a combo even if they're sleeping.

Trained monsters can't purify... only certain NPCs. Doesn't explain the geo streams that well, though they're a bit hard to explain anyway. Should at least explain positioning of enemies and allies to direct the flow of the stream. That's an important thing about them.

Makes a couple other little mistakes but not a bad preview overall.

[Jordan]

Ammadeau,

Jeremy gave me a heads up to your feedback, and I wanted to thank you personally for your insight. Now I have to explain my errors. Lamentably, I didn't have access to a playable version of La Pucelle: Tactics when this was written. This preview was written based on design documents that Mastiff itself provided. The first thing you say is incorrect is actually print right off of the final boxart that I have, I just added it into the preview in italics for a bit of an overview of the theme -- if it doesn't make sense to you, there really isn't anything I can say to rectify that. The attacking portion that you picked up on was my fault as I didn't articulate that I meant physical and magic attacks when writting that. My fault completely.


"If the player has weak characters in their stable, all they have to do is step on the battle field and they will gain experience – they do not have to fight."
Unless they changed the game from the Japanese version, this is wrong. A character has to at least be part of a combo attack to earn exp. Though they can be part of a combo even if they're sleeping.

I will quote the design doc I have.The design document says "A character only has to take part of a battle to gain experience. They do not have to fight to gain experience." If this is wrong, that is on Mastiff's PR. Or I may have misinterpreted it.

About monsters purifying: "Only certain characters, and well trained monsters can purify." That's what the design document says. They might have changed it from the Japanese release.

If the Geostream explanation is off the mark, I can only apologize since I was pretty much interpreting what I saw from pics, and what was written in the documents.

I didn't intend to mislead anyone with this piece -- I simply tried the best I can with what I had. I might be granted an interview with Mastiff in the coming weeks and I will address some of your grievences with them to see if they were changed in the US version, or if the docs were wrong.

I thank you again, Ammadeaus, for your feedback as it will help with the aforementioned articles, and a second preview I will be working on.

Jordan