La Pucelle is a strategy RPG that follows the adventures of demon-hunter trainees Prier and her brother Culotte and their trainer and guardian Alouette. They are all members of La Pucelle, a demon-hunting squad created by a goddess-worshipping church formed to clean up the land from wandering zombies, demons, and their ilk. With all of this talk of goddesses, zombies, and demon-hunters you may think that La Pucelle is a dark game. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The whole game is done in an overly cutesy, anime style, to the point where the monsters look more like teddy bears than evil creatures of the night. If you’re not into that look and style you may want to pass on the game, as it pervades it to the point where it will affect your enjoyment of the game. If you are a fan of this style of anime or it doesn’t bother you one way or another, then read on to see if La Pucelle is for you…

La Pucelle is primarily about tactical battles. There are some RPG elements such as the leveling-up of your characters and lengthy cutscenes, but the majority of the game is spent fighting monsters in turn-based tactical battles. The battles take place on grids that resemble chessboards, except that some squares sit higher than others. When it is your turn, you basically select each of your characters in turn, select a square to move them to, and then select an action such as to attack an adjacent monster. A large part of the game’s tactical element is in the maneuvering, as you gain an advantage from attacking from a higher square, attacking from behind, or by having more than one character in place to attack the same monster. Once you’ve given your orders, your characters move and any battles are resolved. The game switches to a new screen with a side view close-up camera angle to show the resolution of each battle. Each character attacks in turn with their own attack animation, hit points are deducted, and then play moves back to the strategic board. There’s only one attack per turn, so it can take several turns to take out an opponent. In addition, although the attack sequences are fairly brief the time spent watching the same style of attacks over and over again can really add up over the course of a battle. This is not one of those games that you can sit down with for a quick play session.

There are some additional twists to the gameplay. The gameboards have portals on some of the squares, and these portals have two purposes. The first is to provide a place for additional enemies to enter the map. The second is as a source of an energy flow that flows between consecutive squares until it reaches the edge of the board. This energy has a small debilitating effect on players that stand in its flow as long as the portal remains open, but you can purify (close) portals and unleash a wave of energy along the energy flow. Any enemies caught in the flow will take damage from the wave, and will take additional damage if they are particularly vulnerable to the type of energy released – red portals release a wave of fire energy, etc. Closing portals also has the added effect of preventing additional monsters from entering the battle.

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