Product Description

Jeanne D'Arc PSP

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2974 in Video Games
• Brand: Sony
• Published on: 2007-08
• Released on: 2007-08-21
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Sony PSP
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .60" h x 6.99" w x 6.04" l, .20 pounds

Features

• Command up to 7 characters at a time and embark on a crusade in a 15th century fantasy setting of ogres, dragons and magical powers
• Explore ransacked villages and battlefields with visuals and cinematics that bring the world to life
• Tactics style action with unique team-based strategy of attacks and defenses
• Combine character skills to initiate special moves and generate powerful attacks
• Control up to seven characters during battle sequences

Customer Reviews

Finally a SRPG to make me glad I own a PSP!!
With so many great looking RPG titles coming to my favorite handheld (the PSP) these past few months I have certainly had my hands full trying to play and complete them all (Hope I don't get fired from my day job). Catching my attention this time is a "Level 5" PSP exclusive title by the name of "Jeanne D'Arc." This game is everything a Strategy RPG (SRPG) should be and more. Outstanding graphics, an intriguing story and an unbelievably easy pick up and play control scheme. So let get in to the particulars of this wonderful title...

Story: 8.0
The story, which is based very loosely on the story of Joan of Arc, because it is so loosely based on the real story, it is very entertaining. Jeanne D'Arcs' story blends history and fantasy beautifully, it starts with a Young King Henry getting possessed by some demonic power. His father who possesses one of the five armlets that were created to defeat these demons centuries ago, tries to save him but is too late as the demon consumes King Henry. Then enter Jeanne a girl who witnesses her village being attacked by demons, comes across one of these armlets and also believes she hears a call from God instructing her to kill the demons that rampage her village. This ancient armlet is said to be able to transform it's wearer into a great armored warrior. The story progresses mainly with three characters, Jeanne and her two friends Lianne and Roger. Many other characters throughout their journey are introduced and play apart in the main plot, but the majority of the time they are expendable at best. It is the three main characters and their interesting personalities; however that keep the story very interesting.

Graphics: 8.5
Jeanne D' Arcs' graphics are in a word, amazing. The 2D cel-shaded graphics used to bring the colorful and vibrant characters to life are absolutely gorgeous. The developers really impress by creating a product that can really show what the PSP is capable of. To start the adventure and throughout players are treated to some very beautiful anime cut-scenes, which are worthy of praise by any anime fanboy alive. This coupled with gorgeous backgrounds, magic spells, and Jeanne's' armlet transformations are enough to satisfy anyone craving some PSP eye candy. You honestly have to see this game in action to truly appreciate it; online screenshots do not do it any justice.

Sound: 7.5
Every thing as far as background music and battle sounds like arrows whipping and other attack sounds were great. If I was a little disappointed about anything though, it would have to be the voice acting or the lack there of. It would have been nice to here them shout out some of their battle cries as opposed to having to read them in a little bubble. This is a VERY minor complaint though; it just would have been nice to hear seeing as how the voice acting in the anime cut-scenes were so great. It is also a little unfortunate that the anime cut-scenes don't include subtitles, because you'll miss a lot of the story if you play with the sound off.

Gameplay: 10
This area is where Jeanne D'Arc shows that it belongs amongst the handheld Strategy RPG greats. I could not find any flaws in the gameplay, I repeat no flaws in the gameplay what so ever. This game competes with other Strategy RPGs, by using what has always worked. You'll have at your disposable by mid game a small army, but in most cases you will only be able to take 6 in to battle. In some cases you may have less to choose because some characters are default depending on the battle. This of course adds to the tactical experience as to what members you want on the field and where to place them so you are victorious. Thankfully though the game allows you to re-visit some of the places you fought battles to make sure you can get to level up everyone in your party.

Like in any good SRPG these battles take place on a grid, and players are limited to a number of spaces they can move with an attack or use of an item/spell ends that characters turn. As players begin to find different characters with different weapons and abilities, the tactics will continue to change. Lancers, for example, can hit two spaces ahead of them, instead of one and Archers can attack from long distances causing more damage from above.

During battles, players can attack, use skills or cast magic spells. These skills can be added by collecting skill stones which players get when they defeat an enemy. Your characters can only carry six of these stones at any one time once again adding to your decision process before going in to battle, because there are more than a hundred of these stones in the game.With these stones you can choose different skills and put the on each of the characters before each battle. These skills can range from making stronger regular attacks, alter stats, or attack a number of enemies at once. Some stones can only be used by specific character types, so choose carefully.

Later in the game you will come across a character that will allow you to combine these stones. By combining two skill stones, a new one is created which will give you even more powerful abilities. This is the main reason I loved this game the customization is so deep, but yet so simple to use. Some of the new abilities created will allow players to counter enemies before they attack you, run longer distances, instill massive damage, and more.

There are also two neat and innovative features in this game that have not been seen in others. These effects are called the "Burning Aura Hotspot" and "Joint Defense".

With the "Burning Aura Hotspot" a hotspot will appear behind any enemy that is attacked and any party member who stands in that will get an attacking boost. If the "Burning Aura" falls on a character already occupying the space, the Aura will move with the character, giving them the ability to use the damage bonus elsewhere.

The other feature is "Joint Defense", which when characters are no more than one space apart, they will combine their defensive abilities reducing the damage caused by enemies significantly. This feature is especially useful when fighting a tough boss.

Bottom Line:

With Jeanne D'Arc's simple, and easy to understand battle system it is amazing how much depth there is here. Anyone with half a brain cell can pick this game up and start playing with out any frustrating with menus, customization, gameplay. I am betting most SRPG fans are probably awaiting the two other great SRPG's on the horizon for the PSP in the way of Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea for PSP. Both are due out this year and are sure to be better than excellent. But, Jeanne D' Arc is a new and original title no one has seen before on any system and should not be missed by any PSP owner. Lastly let me say that after having tried almost all the SRPG's available for the PSP I was left disappointed after every one. So what do I have to say about "Level 5"s latest addition to the PSP Library? Just two words to them...Thank YOU!!

Great fun for tactics fans out there.
There isn't many tactics fans remaining, for the few us that remains, this is a great pickup. Since finishing up Advanced Wars on DS (which was awesome by the way), there hasn't been a good tactics yet.

Got the PSP just for this game. Jeanne D'arc doesn't break any new grounds, but everything it does, it does well. Music, Voice, Story, Controls, all very smooth and interesting, best of all, it brings back the good ol' memory of FF Tactics.

Update - Just finished the game.

Wow, what an experience. One of the few games I've had the patience to finish thru completely. At first, the characters seems a bit bland, once you get past about level 20, then there is plenty of customization to do. Especially when you get the Bind Skill function, it adds a new level of customization.

Pros:
*Excellent story
*Controls are accurate, the rotating camera saves the day
*Plenty of customization
*Decent length, though when you play a good game, it's never long enough
*Bargain price at $29.99, save $10 compared to the usual PSP releases

Cons: (it's very minor)
*Kind of slow - The constant loading and final boss battle
*Some characters were never used, it was repetitive with others so that made them less useful
*Weapon - Whip, did anyone get to use this?
*Could of used few more extra side quests, battleground should of been a bit deeper.

Overall this is a great buy, now it'll be really hard for D&D Tactics & FF Tactics to justify charging $10 more.

A well-crafted SRPG
As far as Strategy Role Playing Games go, Jeanne doesn't go much outside the tried and true formula. Battles are fought on closed grids with each character moving 5-9 spaces, depending on how you customize them. The game offers a very polished take on the SRPG genre, but is bogged down by a few aspects.

Difficulty:
A lot of people whine about the difficulty of Jeanne D'arc. "It's too eeeeeaasssy" they snivel. I'm here to say that Jeanne D'arc is, in fact, an easy game. If you happen to be comparing it with moronically difficult SRPGs from days of yore. A lot of the whiners grew up with FFT, and that's okay, but what you should realise is that FFT is a very poor benchmark for a modern game (you'll know why if you've played anything over a decade old.). Jeanne D'arc's difficulty is actually at a nice level for modern games; you can progress through the story without taking a break to mine exp. Because forcing players to spend time fighting meandering battles on a different tangent than the story is so 90s.

Jeanne packs a lot of challange if you decide to abstain from free battling for exp. Think of something more difficult than pokemon, but not as crazy as FFT.

For being challenging without making me waste my time on stupid random battles, Jeanne gets an A+ for difficulty.

Customisation:
Another area where there is much whining is customisation. Personally, I don't have a problem with it. Jeanne lacks the job classes of FFT, but makes up for it with its 14 characters. You have your mages (for magic stuff), your archers (for archery), your pikemen (for attacking two squares ahead), your thief (for sneakiness and evadiness), your therions (for SMASHING), and your typical soldiers (for awesomeness). Thrown together, they form their own sort of rough job classes, and while you cannot change the class of each character, you can customise each class to reflect what you want (Screw everyone else; Colet and Jeanne get the exp.) Characters can be customized with weapons (pretty standard) and skill stones (tell me more!)

You want to know more? Fine. Each character has 5 or so skill slots (the characters grow more over time) in which you can place skill stones, granting them attacks and abilities, like more exp per enemy, health regeneration, and the ability to counter an attack without being hit. It's very nice.

You can also create new skill stones through mixing your old ones. This is important. I didn't know how awesome this system was at first, and when I found out (by creating an HP recovery III stone) I nearly wet my pants.

There are also five armlets given to, predictably, five characters, granting them the ability to change into demi-gods with big attack boosts and the ability to continue their turn if they kill an enemy. While nice to have, the armlet wielders are not essential to a good party. I got along fine ignoring 4/5 of them.

Experience system:
This is my favourite aspect of the game, which is why it gets its own section. I sincerely hope every RPG after this will rip-off this system. Instead of earning larger and larger chunks of exp to fulfill larger and larger level requirements, Jeanne does everything on a base 100 system. You need 100 exp to graduate a level. The higher the level you are, the less exp creatures give you. I loved the system because it let you see how quickly you were progressing. 5 exp? That's 5% of a level. I love it. If you're an RPG developer and you're reading this, please steal this system for your game. I won't judge you.

Battle:
Is standard SRPG battle with COUNTER! Counter is in all caps because it is one of the things I look for in an SRPG. In a lot of SRPGs, you send your character out at his/her own risk. If the enemy can reach them, they get a free hit. In Jeanne, your characters (and their enemies) won't sit around like passive babies and let the enemy hit them; they'll hit back. That said, there are ways to avoid countering, through units like the mages, pikemen, and archers, which balances things nicely.

And there are also things like burning auras and the unified defence. You use them. You like them. They add a nice dynamic. But they're no counter.

The Story:
Is corny, yes. It is every fantasy cliché rolled into one. Yes it is a mockery of history, yes the twist is predictable, yes the writers decided to write Colet's accent phonetically, yes Gilvaroth is every fantasy villain personified, but in a world where Fallout 3 can get nominated for a writing award, Jeanne D'arc is storytelling GOLD. Keep your standards at the video game writing level (that is three steps below the Nora Roberts level and one below the Twilight level) and you'll be pleasantly surprised by the story. Anime cut-scenes are well-done and the pictures that accompany the dialogue bubbles are always welcome. I love pictures.

The Bad:
Can be described in one word: waiting. Load times to save annoy me. Also, if you decide to equip HP recovery stones on all of your characters (as I did) you'll be doing a lot of waiting. At the beginning of each turn, you have to watch about a 5 second animation of your character healing. There is music, a battle cry, and little twirling stars. And when you have 5 characters out, it can get very tedious.

The conclusion:
This is the best SRPG I've played so far. You'll probably like it. Unless you're an FFT fanboy directed here from War of the Lions. Then you'll be disappointed it isn't War of the Lions.

edit:
I have just finished Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, and regret to say that Jeanne falls to second place. She's still awesome, though. I want a sequel.