La Pucelle: Ragnarok Remaster:

1. Early Impressions
2. Further Impressions
3. Concluding Impressions
4. Extra

Views on the Gameplay going into NG+ Content

I’m hoping there’s a way to make grinding quicker, I keep hearing it is a really slow process, but I mainly just want to get to level 1000 or more to do get Prier’s Demon Lord ending. I’m hoping there is an easy way to get to level 1000 or more, so I can roll through level 700 Dark Worlds quickly.

Most of the best tips I’ve heard is to kill level 99 demons en masse, but the “fight stronger demons” at Rosen queen shop, but it only seems to raise the enemies up by a few levels, with stats only meaningfully increasing for some of the monsters. For example, in the Forest level (Hall of Judgment area) that spams enemies from Dark World relatively easily, the bats didn’t really increase much in stats while the hippos had a significant increase. I was hoping there’d be a way to increase it to the point I got to level 99….

It honestly seems like my best bet is to just kill the DLC characters who are at level 100 repeatedly until I can get one of my other units to level 99 and start killing them for level 300 experience. The whole thing feels extremely sluggish though, compared to future games. I guess La Pucelle is where they learned a lot from their mistakes and began to make grinding fun in Disgaea onward. However, any tips and tricks for grinding faster are welcome.

Views on the Main Story and Original Ending

Insofar as the regular story, prior to them deciding the Demon Lord route was canon and then adding story context to that, I can see why they chose the Demon Lord route as the canon route just from playing the main story.

Unfortunately, Prier’s character takes a backseat for important portions of the story, her jealousy towards Alouette over the Maiden of Light situation is dropped fairly quickly until being resolved a bit hastily, and she never actually managed to give a clear reason to Noir’s question about differences in perspectives other than saying she wants to smash his face. The story also attempts to argue a narrative of Alouette not needing to sacrifice herself with Culotte and Eclair being particularly devastated, but then she changes the topic to Prier saving Criox’s heart and sacrifices herself anyway without anyone actually stopping her. The story then emphasizes Prier’s love for Criox and being true to her feelings — in short, ruining her ambition for the sake of becoming Criox’s lovesick puppy, and then the resolution is that Prier will always be with him to make sure that he doesn’t have his dark heart go awry. They defeat the darkness in his heart . . . and then he leaves for a personal journey with Prier patiently “waiting” for him like some generic, gender-defined roles of Medieval husband and wife (perhaps based on Japanese cultural norms at the time the game was made). So . . . what was the point of the narrative of having her being by his side, when she just goes back to being a demon hunter with her brother whilst Criox leaves on a personal journey?

The special scene at the end emphasizes that Prier will be with Criox . . . but that is literally not true based on what Culotte mentioned in the epilogue. There’s nothing actually stopping Criox from having another mental breakdown and turning into the Dark Prince again. The ending didn’t actually make any sense, if you judge the game based on its own established logic. It can’t rely on zany comedy, since this was definitely a more serious story. I hate to say it, but I didn’t like the writing when it came to Culotte’s character. After Alouette essentially lies to the group when they go into Criox’s past, specifically takes actions knowing that Angelique would die, and causes Criox to re-experience trauma from Angelique’s horrific death via crucifixion; the party go from distrusting Alouette to ignoring all of these horrible actions because Alouette is dying. I honestly lost all respect for Culotte’s character when he went back to wanting to be Alouette’s guardian despite seeing for himself what she had done. How on earth is Alouette a good person for doing any of this? The “threat” of the Dark Prince, is literally because Goddess Poitereene and Alouette forced Criox to re-experience his traumatic memories. I can’t help but lose all compassion and concern for Alouette and even Culotte’s wellbeing after seeing that portion of the story. I don’t mean to be a contrarian, but I genuinely don’t understand how anyone can like either of them after seeing what Alouette knowingly did and what Culotte becomes indifferent to. I’m not saying they’re unrealistic characters, but they’re genuinely awful people. At best, Alouette makes amends by sacrificing her own life, but Culotte honestly seems like a complete snob and a terrible person judging from his dismay and dislike for Criox for Alouette’s “death” despite Alouette sentencing herself to that fate by becoming a Maiden of Light and using the double-amnesia magic that temporarily prolonged her life while sealing her and Criox’s memories.

All that being said, the overall point is that, judging from my own understanding, the shock-twist of Prier being revealed to be an Overlord in Disgaea 1 may have been an acknowledgement about the regular ending’s shortcomings in La Pucelle. The regular ending was unfortunately very superficial, because the purpose of Alouette’s sacrifice is ignored and argued to be fulfilled, even though we can clearly see that it wasn’t. Prier’s final words are going back to wanting to be the Maiden of Light, even though that makes no sense because a Maiden of Light has to sacrifice her own life in return for their powers once they defeat a Dark element user who is their equivalent. The only aspect that I can say that I liked was that there wasn’t an easy way for Alouette to stay alive, there was no “love brings back everything!” type of ending like in endings after Disgaea 1. I want to clarify that the ending being a “happy” one wasn’t my problem; I liked the Eclair and Homard resolution for example, but the regular ending is just so lackluster and defeats the actual stated purpose of what Alouette was trying to achieve. I do want to see how the ending compares to the 4 Demon Lord endings now, though. I suspect they wanted to show some sort of juxtaposition, but I’ll only know when I play through them all. I’m glad they made the Demon Lord route canon, because quite honestly, it makes the story more memorable and redeems what was essentially a very weak, generic ending that contradicted itself too much to make sense. The worldbuilding was a strong point with La Pucelle, so having an ending that fits into the worldbuilding and character motives is definitely better. I suspect Prier actually gains more character development from the Demon Lord routes. So, they’re probably improvements on the original story with no actual detractions.