Story: 10/10 The story is the same as the numerous incarnations of the game: You play Prier: A demon hunter who is tasked with finding the cause of certain incidents that are happening in the country of Paprika and solving them. But she's not alone: you get various other characters that join your team as the story progresses, but you have Allouete and Culotte when you first start. As you get farther and farther in the story, you start to learn secrets about your party members and about yourself; and depending on who you talk to and what you do between the chapters, you will unlock certain chapter endings (Bad, Normal, Good and Special) which net you items and money depending on what ending you get (Bad ending gets you 100 Purica and no item).
Gameplay: 9.5/10 Now, NIS has edited the way you use the battle system: Although it is and was similar to Disgaea you: can't lift and throw, when you use a skill you automaticly use it: be careful, you can only use 8 members per map, you can leave a map at any time, and you get a purify option (which I shall discuss later). What's edited is the addition of a "speed up" feature for movement and a skip feature for skills and attacks, makes the game go by a lot faster since you don't have to see every little action you do (and some skills, like
Spoiler:
Graphics: 8/10 These look the same as they did in the first La Pucelle. 9 Years ago. They still look nice, but they could've done a better job and remade the sprites. All the sprites move flawlessly using their moves and with how they move, it's like a liquid moving through a container: Nice and Smooth (Tsurupettan)
Sound and Music: 10/10 Now, Tenpei Sato did a flawless job composing the soundtrack: one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. And there are a new few tracks that were added that particularly divine, and a remix of an old track from the Disgaea series. The sound effects are very nice to listen to, they sound very natural; especially the voice work. The voices in battle sound a little staticy at first, but that seems to go away as you get used to it. The game has voices for all of the cutscenes, even ones that didn't have voices previously and Overlord Prier mode is also excellently voiced throughout.
New Features: 9/10 The addition of Prier mode was the selling point for me, it adds 4 side chapters that are unlocked via a code at the title screen, or by beating the game. I'll review Overlord Prier mode in the next section.
The Music Room is also a nice feature, but the fact that I own the complete soundtrack makes this useless for me, but anyone else may enjoy this if you like the music.
The fact that you keep all your characters in your party (including story characters and side forms, excluding DLC characters) is a nice addition, as know i don't have to wait till a certain chapter to use a character I loved using in the main game and in OP mode. It helps alot.
The DLC characters are a nice addition to the game and are available in the game whenever you buy them. All except one of them you have to fight at level 100 (which is pretty high in that game), so be careful.
The addition of skipping cutscenes and animations was a nice feature, now you can skip parts in the game that you find boring (but who would want to skip such awesome cutscenes?) and skip attack animations and speed up movement in battle. A nice feature for those long and drawn out boss fights.
One of the minor additions was the ability to open up a "move to area" menu while you're in the town, can now go to the La Pucelle HQ or anywhere else there without having to go through extra corridors, albiet not a very practical feature, it speeds the game up a tiny bit. Think like in Persona 4 where you could skip to certain areas in town (best way I can describe it, it's also opened by the Square button too).
The addition of 6 unlockable characters(
Spoiler:
Overlord Prier Mode: 10/10 This was possibly the best part of the game, you get to see Priers transformation into the alter ego that everyone knows her by: Overlord Prier. As to avoid spoilers, I shall prohibit myself to mention the story unless PMed about it. Overlord Prier mode had the most awesome endings, incredible twists, and a nice jump in difficulty: All in one package. You also get the ability to unlock Overlord Prier once you beat both the main story and Overlord Prier mode. All and All, I would've bought this alternate story mode as a game by itself: It's that awesome.
Now, I'll discuss the Artbook and Soundtrack CD that came with the game.
Artbook: 10/10 This artbook is a softcover booklet that is less wide/tall than a piece of paper, and 32 pages of Stage concept art (with light commentary), Profile pictures of the Main Characters and BIOs, and has a Lyric Sheet at the very back of the book. It also includes the cutouts that are used when the characters use team skills and certain other skills. The profile artwork is delightful, the BIOs are informative and the Lyric sheet is nice if you can read Japanese and want to know what they are saying. Very gorgeous, best artbook ever. Hands down.
Soundtrack: 10/10 This. is. simply. AMAZING, no DIVINE. Every track in the game is included in this 30 track Soundtrack CD, this by itself would be worth half the game itself: Tenpei Sato did an excelent job with composing and remastering these tracks. There are a few new tracks that were soley added to Overlord Prier mode and a remix track that was added as the Dark World theme, and they are just so divine: especially the Final Boss theme for the Main Story and the Final Boss theme for the Overlord Prier mode, there was absolutely no track that I disliked: and there is no other game on Earth that can claim that.
And there you have it, I mostly reviewed the gameplay to avoid major spoilers, but this should suffice right? If you have any questions, feel free to ask me by posting here or by PMing me. Thank you for reading my lengthy review.
Kero~
