La Pucelle secrets guide v1.0 by alamone. La Pucelle - Hikari no Seijo Densetsu - is a SRPG by Nippon Ichi Software. This FAQ is a guide to some of the less obvious aspects of the game. It is not intended to be a step by step walkthrough. With that out of the way, I hope these tidbits will help you enjoy the game. Contents: I. Getting the Good Endings II. Training and Hell III. Secrets and Exploits IV. Hell Domination Guide I. Getting the Good Endings Chapter 3: In the forest area, one of the event tiles will be a kinoco asking for kinoco jiru. In another of the maps (this map is a dead end), there will be an event tile where you can obtain the kinoco jiru. Return it to the kinoco. Deeper into a forest there will be an autoevent with the nushi. You have to return to town and trigger the event there, then you should be safe for the good ending. However, if you get the normal / bad ending for this chapter, you will be able to recruit the child nushi into your party during chapter 4. If you build the child nushi up to LV20, an event in chapter 7 will give Prier the Summon Nushi ability (not verified). Chapter 4: To get the special ending, you have to kill the LV40 sea monster. Your party will probably be about LV10 at this time, so I suggest levelling up to about LV15-20, which should be sufficient to take on the sea monster. It will always target your weakest unit, so make sure your weakest unit can sustain 1 (critical) hit from the sea monster and stay alive. Use Kurowa as your primary attacker. The next time you fight the sea monster, you must protect it from Omar and company. After beating the chapter, you will get Special End and receive the unique item "Tenshi no Kutsu", Angel's Shoes. This item gives +3 to movement which is very useful. It will become obsolete after getting the Time and Space engine. Chapter 8: To get the special ending, you have to kill the LV100 giant tree. The giant tree has HP regen skill, which may randomly heal about 500 HP a turn. If you have an attacker that can do about 1000 damage per turn (Kurowa), you should be able to take the tree down while the tree kills all your weaker units. The tree will probably ignore your strongest character until he is the only one left on the battlefield. If you manage to kill the tree with weakening him to LV25, you will get the special ending and the unique item "Megami no Yubiwa", Goddess Ring. The ring gives +100 to all stats (except MV) and has +3 to all stat icons. Note that you can return to the map here in later chapters to use the LV100 tree for training purposes. This map is also a good place to level up your items because it is fairly long and empty, and you can chain the tree into your purification path. If you are going to do this, buy some eels from the Rosenqueen shop to help positioning of your purification path. Chapter 9: To get the good ending, avoid killing any of the manticores. They are transformed villagers, and killing innocents never gives you good karma. Chapter 10: To get the good ending, avoid killing any of the soldiers. On the final map, you will have to use weak units to lure the enemies away and make an opening. II. Training and Hell In order to build up levels, you can take advantage of the fact that specials and magic can be targeted at friendly units and that killing friendly units still gives experience. Once Omar learns Burning Soul, you can use that to your advantage, since that special drains him down to 1 HP. This procedure is also related to the hell gates. Everytime a friendly unit is killed on a battlefield, the hell rating of that area will increase by 10. Once it reaches above 100, a hell gate will appear on the map. The maximum hell rating is 300. Going thru hell is a harrowing experience, and you have to kill all enemies or reach the exit for 10 floors before coming out. In addition, enemies cannot be persuaded to join, except for the -hani type enemies (they tend to look like rectangles). You will usually get an item instead. After beating hell, you will either get the normal, good, or special ending, depending on the type of monsters you managed to kill. Getting the special ending gives Prier "maou" status, the special item "Time and space engine (+100 MV and teleportation)," and allows you to persuade boss characters in the world map. Getting the second special ending gives Prier "daimaou" status, and the special item "1 billion light year cannon (unlimited attack range)." To get the first special ending, defeat level 10 of hell with demons LV500 and above. To get the second special ending, defeat level 10 of hell with demons LV700 or above 20 times. Going thru LV300 hell by just running for the exits is a good way to get free powerful items early in the game (by doing this you will get the normal ending), but you have to get lucky in the exit placement. The Angel's Shoes are very useful here. III. Secrets and Exploits Monster items at Rosenqueen shop: Make sure you have plenty of money, then go to buy and buy every single item starting from the top. After you cleaned out their inventory, they will offer you monster items. You can sell back all the junk you just bought to finance purchasing the monster items. The items that are offered are random. Extra movement for free: On the battle map, exchange an equipped item with an item that increases MV, such as the Angel Shoes, make your movement, and then change back your equipment. Free extra movement without changing your equipped items! Cancelling movement: As long as you have not taken an action such as attacking / using specials, and the space you used to occupy is not taken, you can ALWAYS cancel your movement and return to your original spot. This is very useful to gather your party members in order to cast mass Braveheart or healing. Burning Soul x10 damage: I'm not exactly sure how this works... but I think if Omar is attacking a demon of the same type as the one in his confrontation and is using Burning Soul, he will get a x10 damage bonus. IV. Hell Domination Guide Go through the game normally, getting the Angel's Shoes from Chapter 4 and the Goddess' Ring from Chapter 8 - these are the most important steps. Once you are in Chapter 12, your character layout should be as follows: Sarado - Primary attacker. Give all ATK boosting items, Goddess' Ring. Most important special is Shin * Seikentsuki (真・聖拳突き). This translates to New Holy Fist Strike. Note that the combo attack with Prier, Shipuudotou (疾風怒闘) Hurricane Rage Attack, is rather ineffective since Sarado's AT will be much higher than Prier's, and in addition this is a multihit combo whereas Shin Seikentsuki combines all the power into one powerful hit. Use normal Seikentsuki when low on SP and killing weak enemies. Note that Sarado has NO range specials, all of them are melee. Omar - Secondary attacker. Give all ATK boosting items. Most important special is Maken Astaroth (魔剣あしゅたろす). Use Burning Soul when on floor 10 of hell. Prier - Tertiary attacker. Give all ATK boosting items. Most important special is Hijiri Baton Waza * Kaishingeki (聖バトン技・改心撃) - Holy Baton Technique - Reforming Attack. Dark Equireru - Casts Braveheart / backup attacker. Most important special is Hikari Kage Ranbu (光影乱舞) Light and Shadow Dance (combination attack with Equireru). Alouette - Casts Braveheart / Healing. Braveheart is the most useful support magic and its effects are cumulative - you can cast it up to 5 times in one turn to increase ATK to over double the original statistic for all your attackers. To learn Braveheart, you need 5 purple magic (buy two support rods). Culotte - Casts Braveheart / Healing. Mamuron - Casts Braveheart / decoy unit. Other chars - Casts Braveheart / decoy unit. The most important statistic of all is ATK. Note that as you increase in levels, the effects of items get multiplied - that is, even though the sword you equipped says ATK +100, if given to a high level character, the net result may be something more like ATK +500. Keep this in mind when distributing items. MV = important. Use Angel's Shoes to boost by 3, and some items you buy from Rosenqueen shop will also boost MV+1, so by exchanging items you can get a +6 bonus to MV. Mamuron will probably have the highest MV in your party, about MV10 with the +2 movement skill, so your maximum movement will be 16. After Prier becomes Maou and gets the Time and Space Engine, this is no longer a concern. HP = unimportant. You will try to kill all units before they can attack you. SP = you need enough SP to use your strongest specials for 10 levels of hell. ATK = very very important. This statistic is used to calculate damage in non- magic based special abilities, and will be very important for Sarado, Omar, and Prier. DEF = unimportant. HIT = unimportant. You will always be attacking with specials, and specials always have a 100% hit rate (but they may do 0 damage). HIT only affects your chances of hitting for normal attacks. INT = unimportant. Braveheart is the only magic you are really interested in, and it increases ATK by a percentage, not based on your INT. Therefore, a LV1 unit with INT1 casting Braveheart is just as effective as a LV1000 unit with INT10000. The only time INT comes into play is when you need to heal - the healing amount is dependant on your INT. Offensive magic is far too weak to do any significant damage - even Omegasaint and Neko Neko Summon, the most powerful attack magics, cannot compare to specials that use ATK as the damage calculator, even if you use Magic Up, the magic counterpart to Braveheart. SPD = unimportant. This affects your chances of dodging from normal attacks, and the priority of attacking during normal attacks. RES = unimportant. The most dangerous targets in hell are those with long range magic, and you will want to kill them first before anything. The order of hell domination should be as follows: 1) Obtain the God Hand from the Zombie King in the 5th part of the Cave of Trials. Prier and Omar need high enough AT to be able to use their strong ranged attacks (聖バトン技・崋斬梅 and Broken Arrow) using the checkerboard formation to kill all 4 of the ghosts on the first turn (Otherwise they will go medieval on your ass casting Omega-Thunder). Sarado should be strong enough to kill the LV200 demon in the center with a single Shin Seikentsuki. After that, it's a simple matter to clean up the rest of the units and kill the Zombie King to get the God Hand. You may want to use the LV200 demon in the center to train your units, because killing boss characters like that demon gives you a lot more EXP than killing your own characters, even if they are higher LV than 200. Remember to reserve 1 unit to exit the map if you are training. 2) Defeat hell with the special ending to get the Time & Space Engine and to allow Prier to become Maou. You will have to travel through hell many times before you can advance to this level. Start with weaker hells and slowly work your way up to 300 ranking hell. On each floor, if you can conceivably defeat ALL the units (there aren't any units out of reach on floating platforms), then try to kill all the units to get the money bonus. Otherwise, just kill a few enemies and have your last unit run for the exit. If there are too many strong enemies swarming you, send some decoys out to reposition the enemies and clear the way for your exit. The enemy AI will ALWAYS target your weakest units, so if you give out enough decoys, it will ignore your strong unit who will be running for the exit. 3) Remember that LV200 demon back in the Cave of Trials? Now that you are Maou, you can capture that unit. Do so by using the purification on him and killing him. Get 6 of him. Now, you can use a group of 6 of those units for training. Put them in a 2x3 formation, and use ranged attacks with the 2x3 formation to kill ALL 6 of them at once. Killing 6 LV200 boss characters at once will give you massive level ups. I suggest using Omar's Broken Arrow to soften them up, and some other character to finish them off and get the EXP. To make it easier on you, buy some Support Rods and give them to the demons so they can cast Braveheart on the characters who are training. 4) Use a LV200 demon to convert your Goddess's Ring into something more useful. Level up the Goddess's Ring to about LV10, and put it in the first item slot of the demon. In the other slots, put the God Hand, the Angel's Shoes, and a powerful attacking item. All these items should be at least LV3. When going to the item conversion screen (talk to the hooded man in the Rosenqueen shop and select the first option), when you select the demon you should get a message saying something like (10 power up) and the stats of the ring should improve significantly, adding +2 to SPD icon, adding +3 to ATK and HIT icon, and adding to ATK significantly (if the fourth attack item is at least ATK 800 or so). Go ahead and convert the item. 5) If Sarado is about LV450 and Omar is about LV300, you should be strong enough to kill Pearl in the Trial of God (which is unlocked after beating the Cave of Trials). On the map will be LV2000 Pearl and 3 LV1500 sub-demons. Omar and Prier need to be strong enough to kill one of those sub-demons in 1 turn, with the help of Braveheart x5. Omar should use Burning Soul and Prier should use Kaishingeki. Sarado should also be strong enough to weaken one sub-demon to less than half of his HP with Shin * Seikentsuki. After the first turn, one sub-demon should be killed, another should be severely weakened, and Omar should be down to 1 HP. After you end the turn, all 3 demons will surround and attack Omar, and he will probably die, which is just as well, since Omar doesn't have any SP left anyhow. Now, on turn 2, have Sarado and Prier attack and another unit on the map to cast Braveheart x2 on Sarado on both of them get him back to full power (full power = Braveheart x5). Sarado's ATK at full power should be about 35000 - 40000 to stand a chance against Pearl. Now that there is only 4 units on the map, space them out so that Pearl cannot kill them all with his ranged special. After you end the turn, Pearl and the other demon will target your two weaker units and leave Sarado and Prier alone. Bring out two more units to cast Braveheart on Sarado and Prier, spaced out accordingly. Use Shin * Seikentsuki to kill the last subdemon. (If it is not powerful enough to kill the last subdemon, repeat the procedure above one more time). Now, only Pearl remains. Hopefully, your Shin * Seikentsuki should do about 70000 damage to Pearl. If you keep slamming down on him, bringing out your units to keep casting Braveheart on Sarado, and if your stats are high enough, you will be able to take down Pearl, whose HPs are about 200000. After you kill him, you will get the Robot Suit which gives +1000 to all attack related stats, and +3 to MV. 6) Now that you got the Robot Suit, you can try to OBTAIN Pearl in your party. Sarado's purification power should be about 2000 or so, enough for the LV1500 subdemons. I recommend capturing the Gorgon first because she is the weakest. Have Sarado purify the Gorgon on Turn 1, and Omar use Burning Soul on the Gorgon, then END the turn. On the 2nd turn, have Sarado purify the Gorgon, Prier finish off the Gorgon, and one unit leave the map after this is done. If successful, you will have the Gorgon in your party. Now to get Pearl in your party, you will want an item that has Purification (浄化) as its special ability. I once got an armor that was weak but had 100% purification as the special. Give it to the Gorgon you just got, and give the Gorgon items that improve HIT (so your hit will actually hit Pearl) and DEF (to survive). With the Gorgon and any item that has purification chance, do a normal attack against Pearl. Hopefully, your HIT will be high enough to score an attack, and if you are lucky (or if the item has 100% purification anyway), the purification special will be triggered and Pearl will be ready to convert to your side. Give all of the good equipment to Sarado and have him finish off Pearl (after finishing off the 3 subdemons, of course). Pearl should be easier to finish off this time since he doesn't have the Robot Suit anymore. You can repeat this process until you have 8 Pearls in your party. Since Pearl is able to cast a spell that is similar to Braveheart (ATK UP), it is really the only type of unit you will need. The level of Pearl will sometimes fluctuate, the base level is 2000 but it can go over 3000. If Pearl has items equipped, which he typically does at LV3000+, do not attempt to purify him - you will just get an item for your efforts like the hell gate. With an army of Pearls you can now easily dominate hell. Oh yes, by the way, now that you have the Robot Suit, Sarado should be strong enough to do OVER 100000 damage to weaker units in a single Shin * Seikentsuki. When this happens, the numbers will be represented with a "man" kanji (i.e. １０万), which looks cool :) 7) After beating hell 20 times with LV700 demons, Prier will receive the status of Daimaou, and you will receive the 1 billion light year cannon, which isn't very useful since specials are better than normal attacks since they have 100% hit rate. And besides that, there isn't much left to challenge, since Pearl, the hardest challenge, is actually in your party now :) 8) Congrats, you've defeated all there is to La Pucelle. My total time was about 120 hours, Sarado was LV550 at the end, Omar LV350, Prier LV320, and rest of units LV250. I also had a nice hell-sweeping demon army consisting of 7 Pearls and 1 Gorgon (because I wanted a cute demon). My strongest Pearl was LV3000 and with Braveheart x5 had ATK in excess of 130000. the usual suspects: http://www.alamone.com http://www.gamefaqs.com comments about this faq: alam@moon.co.jp (new e-mail, old one still works for now) -eof-