So a nun walks into a bar...
It all plays very straight forward for a standard strategy RPG. You're given a starting point, and you send out a certain amount of characters... the enemies go after the weaker people and work their way up. Each one of your characters can level up to 9999, and their personal skills can also be leveled up by the more times you use them. But what makes battles a bit different this time around? The purification system. Throughout each map there are small diamond shapes on the ground, setting a path of same colored tiles across. One the diamond shape has been purified (By only certain human characters such as Prier, Culotte ,etc) you start a chain combo, dealing damage to anything in its path. The longer the chain, stronger the damage and also, provides experience to the items a character is wearing to level those up as well.
You can work with the path of the chains, by placing a character in the way, and make them face another direction. If the chain goes into a complete circle and intersects itself, all enemies in the closed off space will be damaged by a 'miracle'. Other then that, everything else to battling is standard.
Many people say La Pucelle: TACTICS and other Nippon Ichi games aren't that great in the graphics department for using 2D instead of 3D. However, picturing the games not in this style would possibly not helped the game at all. It's great to see games use something different or rare to express themselves, such as the anime-ish pictures and small characters. Everything is animated nicely and fluid, and not a problem in sight.
There are problems with the 3D map aspect, such as not much detail, but it's nothing that gets in the way of the experience or even stops a gamer altogether.
The sound. The sound effects and music soundtrack are all very well done. The moods are just right, and the sounds fit into place where ever they are put. Background tracks are always playing in battles and scenes to keep the story flowing and setting the atmosphere, which Nippon Ichi always does with expert talent.
The voice acting, however, is also a good effort. Each actor does an excellent job portraying their characters, which makes them more convincing to the plot, but the game decides to use voice acting for some scenes, then just not use it at all. It's just nice to hear voice acting in all scenes these days, and sometimes it feels like we're missing out on something. Again, it doesn't take much away from the game itself, it just would of been nice if they made more of an effort to using their voice actors to their full potential (And I'm sure there's enough room on that PS2 disc to fit it all in.).
La Pucelle: TACTICS overall, has a wonderful story to tell and will captivate almost any player who goes into the world of La Pucelle. It's well written, and has a mass of jokes too to keep the mood light despite it's dark themes. Mainly people who are fans of Nippon Ichi's work will love this game, and it's hard to find any other average player to just jump right into this one. Rent it first, and see for yourself.