La Pucelle: Ragnarok Remaster:

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

I had always been curious about Prier’s game and why they chose the joke ending initially and then revised it into extra endings to explain Prier’s “downfall” and I always wondered what influence Culotte and her friends had on that decision. Having completed all endings and watched all the story sequences of La Pucelle: Ragnarok Remastered; I can say wholeheartedly that Culotte and Alouette are both human scum. Well written and believable characters, but frickin’ awful people whose self-centered actions drove Prier to take the monstrous path that she did. Unlike Eclair, Homard, and Criox; these two never take Prier’s concerns, her insecurities, or her thoughts and feelings into account. Culotte just makes jokes and repeatedly mocks her while Alouette has this constant disdain as if Prier is inferior.

Now, one could argue Culotte’s age as a factor, but the problem is, the kid himself demands to be treated as an adult and Alouette convinces Prier that she needs to see that her brother is maturing. Yet, his actions repeatedly show that Prier’s misgivings were completely spot on and that he didn’t deserve to be treated equally. His attempt to prove himself amounted to running away into a forest full of monsters where a serial killer was known to be hiding. He nearly gets himself killed after falling for the Serial Killer’s trap and only Croix coming to save the day in the nick of time saves his life. Meanwhile, his own character “arc” in the original story makes it clear that Prier did ALL the heavy lifting when fighting enemies and he’s been dependent on Prier saving him and protecting him during encounters. His concerns are never on the mission or helping his comrades, but on impressing the older mystery girl and he constantly creates problems for both Prier and Alouette by mocking Prier’s dream goal and acting like a whiny brat when Alouette explains that she may not have time left. Even when it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that it’s unavoidable, he tries to pretend reality is a non-factor. He progressively grows more petulant and whinier about Alouette not fulfilling his star-pixie dream girl fantasies throughout the story.

Alouette is just as awful of a person, arguably worse! She purposefully manipulates the party into creating the situation where an innocent pregnant woman, and the follower of the same religious faith as her, gets crucified — an event that she KNOWS will cause one of her comrades to be driven insane and will cause the vast majority of people in an entire continent to be massacred in the blink of an eye. She does this merely to appease her Goddess’s wishes.

Given all this, I feel sorry that Prier was stuck with these awful people. She wasn’t able to handle any of the emotional toll and tried to remain “strong” to help others, and it ruined her life since only Croix really seemed to spend time cheering her up. I can’t help but feel sorry for her. The story was phenomenal in portraying her “downfall”, but I honestly think – despite her giving into her insecurities – that it’s mostly Culotte and Alouette’s fault any of it happened.

The worldbuilding helps put into context how the world for “regular” folks was like for humans who have no special magical abilities and aren’t heroes. It also helped explain where all the crazy magic powers came from. I’m glad this version of the game came overseas.