Part 1: Introduction

Great Red Spirit's Post Game Videos
Post Game Chapter 1
Post Game Chapter 2
Post Game Chapter 3
Post Game Chapter 4
Post Game Chapter 5


Miss Priere, did you really used to be a human?
Yes, a long time ago.
Then how did you end up here in the Netherworld?
That's a pretty long story.
Well, we've got nothing to do until Disgaea 2 starts, so we're all ears.
How shall I begin...
Long ago, on a world far, far away...


Things were different then. I was just an ordinary girl.

I had family...

...friends...

...rivals...

...people I cared about...

...people I admired...

...and enemies.


But where does a story really start? Does it start with the heroine, or does it start with what came before? Back then, before I knew any better, I used to be inspired by a story. The Legend of the Holy Maiden of Light...

VIDEO



Legend warns that one day the Dark Prince, beloved and powerful servant of
the fallen Angel Calamity will rise to cover the world in darkness.



But where there is darkness, so must there be light.



When the Dark Prince appears, so too will a girl known as the Maiden of Light,
servant of the Goddess Portreene and worker of miracles...

Sometimes, I wish I could go back to those days. But that me, and that world, are long dead and buried. So gather ye round, children, to hear the confession of Overlord Priere...

OUR CAST:

Overlord Priere. Formerly of La Pucelle, an organization of demon hunters. Our narrator for this tale.

Fallen Angel Flonne. Believes in the power of Love. A supporting character from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

Etna. Demon. Loyal? vassal of Overlord Laharl. A supporting character from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

Overlord Laharl. Overlord of the Netherworld. Always wants to be the main character wherever he goes. The main character of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

World Eater Feinne. Comments from me on gameplay mechanics will be prefaced with an image of my namesake.

Lujei. Crazy ghost time witch. She's from Grim Grimoire, but she makes a cameo in Soul Nomad for much the same reason she does here, to explain a plot hole.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Play La Pucelle: Tactics! I'll be following up on my previous trip through the Netherworld in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness with a journey through the lands of Paprika through the eyes of the only person still alive to remember it, the dread Overlord Priere.

FAQ:

What's La Pucelle: Tactics?
La Pucelle: Tactics is a strategy RPG released by Nippon Ichi Software. This game is the immediate predecessor of Disgaea, and in gameplay terms is much more primitive.

Why does everyone in this game have a French word as their name?
Because.

That's a terrible answer.
That's not a question.

Didn't you say in the Disgaea thread that you don't want to play this game? What gives? You some kind of liar or something, lie boy?
I wasn't going to do it, but while making the update in Disgaea with Overlord Priere I was struck by divine inspiration from the Goddess Poitreene herself to do this thread.

This game calls her Prier, by the way.
That's also not a question. It's a fair point, though, that Disgaea and La Pucelle disagree on how her name is spelled. Disgaea 2 spells it Priere as well, which makes me suspect that's supposed to be the correct spelling as far as NIS is concerned.

What's with Magic and the Elements?
There are seven 'elements' in the game:

Fire, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Aid, Healing, and Holy.
Each of these has an associated color, with the first three being red, blue, and green, the second three being yellow, purple, and aqua, and the last being white. Yes, those do correspond to the Dark Energy streams.

Items in La Pucelle will often have colored symbols on them. Staves and Rods especially will have numerous symbols of one color on them. In order to learn a spell, you must meet two requirements. The first is a minimum level. For example, to learn Braveheart, the attack buff, you must be level 10. You must then also have a minimum number of symbols of the proper color. For example, to learn Braveheart you must also have 6 Aid symbols on your equipment.

If you meet these two requirements, you get access to the spell at level 0. Cast it enough times to get it to level 1 and you can keep it even if you no longer meet the requirements to learn it.
Fire, Ice, Wind, Thunder, and Holy are all attack colors. They have the Fire, Cool, Wind, Thunder, and Saint spells. Healing has the Heal and Espoir (status cure) spells. Aid has the buffs and debuffs, as well as Poison, a damaging spell.

Monsters (but never human characters) all have an elemental alignment. This has two effects. It causes them to take more or less damage from each school of magic, based on a matrix of resistances. It also controls what happens when they're in a dark energy stream. Dark Energy of a color they're strong against strengthens them, while Dark Energy of an opposing color weakens them. Dark Energy ALWAYS weakens human characters no matter the color.

There's only one spell that's absolutely critical to learn, and that's Braveheart. We will want as many Bravehearters as we can in order to get the Special Endings to several chapters, which require us to be much more powerful than we'd normally be at that point in the game. But luckily for you, I'm grinding so you don't have to.

Dark World? Is that like an Item World?
The Dark World is La Pucelle's equivalent of the Item World in the Disgaeas, random dungeons in Phantom Brave and Makai Kingdom, and Inspections in Soul Nomad. It is filled with strong enemies with powerful equipment, even Overlords in the highest level Dark Worlds.

So, the question is, how do you enter the Dark World?

Well, it's extremely simple. You just walk into a portal to the Dark World. The fun part is actually generating said portal.

Every map has a Dark Energy Index. This ranges from 0 to 300. If the DEI ever rises above 100 a Dark Portal opens. The higher the DEI the higher level Dark World you end up in. How do you raise the DEI? There's a few ways. There's an item you can buy from Rosenqueen's called a Present. It's expensive, but using it raises the DEI at a map by 50. You can also raise the DEI by leaving portals that are about to spawn monster unpurified and just in general by not purifying portals. But there's a much easier, cheaper, and more precisely controllable way to raise the DEI:

The DEI in a map increases by one for each level of ally you kill on that map.

You're probably thinking: "That's a terrible way to go about it, because La Pucelle probably has penalties for ally kills built in like every other NIS game."

You'd be wrong, though. La Pucelle pretty much represents exactly WHY there's a penalty for ally kills in every other game, because not only does killing allies let you raise the DEI easily and systematically, they also grant experience. Indeed, the postgame leveling strategy in La Pucelle is to get up to a certain level then power level by GRINDING YOUR OWN CHARACTERS for levels.

But I digress. Once you're in the Dark World, you have to traverse ten maps to leave. You must either slay all enemies or move onto a portal on each map. Until a certain condition has been met, there is only one type of enemy you can recruit from the Dark World, a strange creature called a Haniwa. Haniwas are randomly generated monsters. Their appearance, attack style, and abilities are all randomly determined from a list of Haniwa characteristics. Some of them have extremely powerful attacks, and if you get lucky enough to see a good one show up they're very worth recruiting. Note that they'll only show up in Demon Worlds, not Spirit Worlds. Shoot for a DEI of around 120-125, which will have monsters in the 10-18 range inside.

Portals in the Dark World do not spawn monsters (you're already where the monsters come from, after all). They do have a lot more health than portals in the regular world, though, so it's hard to purify them.

Completing a Dark World gives you a random item and some money. The items can be very good on occasion. You can also get Dark World items by purifying the non-Haniwa monsters, who will not join you but instead give you one of their equipped items upon death if purified.

My question wasn't on this list and I consider that a hate crime!
That's also not a question. And it's hard for me to answer questions that haven't been asked yet, jerk. Feel free to ask anything at all about what's going on in the game, I'll do my best to answer.

I want to see the awesome fanart that was posted in the thread!
Wishes are horses today.



Oh, we've run out of time already?
Lame.
Good, I was already bored.
Next time, my tale begins. You won't want to miss it!