Video Games : Jeanne D'arc

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from: Sony Computer Entertainment

: Jeanne D'arc
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List Price: $29.99
Amazon.com's Price: $22.99
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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0711719870029
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Label: Sony Computer Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Sony PSP
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Release Date: August 21, 2007
Sales Rank: 585
Studio: Sony Computer Entertainment

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Product Description:
Step into a colorful world on your PSP where history meets fantasy. Take part in a mystical story inspired by the legendary Joan of Arc, where players will explore a fantasy setting filled with ogres, dragons, and magical powers. The game brings numerous animated in-game cutscenes that bring the world to life. The game's background story begins far in the past, during a long war where dark gods attempted to use their demon armies to enter the human world. Five brave heroes create armlets to restrain the demon gods. You play as Jeanne as a 17-year-old girl. Voices encourage you to defeat the monster and take up the legacy and emblem of the five heroes. Together with friends Lian and Roger, you take up the cause to lead France towards victory against attacking demons and the English army. With more than 40 hours of 3D turn-based RPG gameplay, you will acquire multiple characters during your adventure and use them within each battle, combining skills to create powerful combat strikes. An intricate grid-based tactical combat system and colorful characters are brought to life through animated in-game cut scenes, set in a detailed magical world. Each character is associated with a specific weapon type including swords, axes, bows, knives, shields, spears, wands and whips Each character has the ability to use special skills exclusive to their weapon type Discover powerful weapons as you progress through the game Customize characters with more than 150 different skills and abilities, including magic spells and special attacks to boost overall stats



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Amazing game
I love this game, I wish it was longer, I want to keep playing! I was on the fence for a while about buying this, but now it's the only psp game I play at the moment. Someday I will dust off crisis core and continue with that, but for now Jean D'ARC is my game. I do recommend this title to anyone who likes strategy RPG's.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Doesn't quite scratch the RPG itch
This game is a bittersweet mix. The good parts include compelling, beautiful cutscenes, a fun and flexible character customization system, and combat that has a lot of enjoyable elements. But the quality of the game is cut short by sub-cutscenes with meaningless, cheesy dialogue, an overly large party, a lack of plot elements, and some glaring limitations in the combat system.

The cut-scenes are by far the most beautiful piece of the game. They are done in very professional anime and have excellent voice acting. It's a joy to watch. Unfortunately, right after one of those scenes ends, there's usually a follow-on cutscene that uses blocky, bobble-head characters speaking in dialogue bubbles. Often the bubble-encased dialogue goes like this:

Jeanne: "Roger!"
Roger: "...!"
Jeanne: "..."
Roger: "What the...?"
Jeanne: "!!!"

And so it goes on ad nauseum, ad infinitum. The sub-cutscenes play like they were written not for children, but rather BY children. It's disappointing and annoying. The characters end up more like characitures; historical figures are portrayed in an embarassingly childish manner. This really hamstrings any potential drama, intensity, or impact the story could have.

The character customization system is good. It's fun to play dress-up with one's party and get them outfitted with the most battle-specific toys. Unfortunately, that's really what the game ends up being: you outfit your party for battle and fight, then comes a terrible bobblehead sub-cutscene that is painful to read, then occasionally a nice anime cutscene. There are no real plot choices, there's nothing to do outside of battle, and since the battles are turn-limited you can't even really explore the battle map thoroughly for hidden treasures. This really is a game of combat.

The combat itself is fun to a large degree, but the maps can get quite large or hard to navigate, and the characters can only move a few tiles at a time. This makes for annoyance rather than excitement, and sometimes you'll lose a battle just for the sake of time running out.

Another negative aspect to the game is the party, over which you have no control who comes and goes. You may spend the whole game developing a character, only for that character to die in a cutscene or just up and leave. There are also so many characters (most of whom you won't use)that the experience points are stretched rather thin.

I was looking for a solid RPG for the PSP, and this is definitely not it. It does get quite addictive though, and if you can ignore the shortcomings it can be good entertainment.



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - A nice looking JSRPG that is only held back by slow pacing.
Lets face it, even some of the greatest JSRPGs of all time can be a bit slow. (FFT,Disgaea) Jeanne D'arc also suffers from this issue, the problem is magnified however by the CPU AI taking a very long time to complete even the most basic of turns like a "wait, wait, move 2 squares,wait, attack" etc...

The game has very sharp and cute graphics one would expect from this noted developer. Unfortunately we are stuck with only 2 perspectives, far away, and very far away. This results in a sometimes obstructed view of the battlefield.

Another issue, while there is auto leveling of characters you do not use, they don't level nearly enough and you will find yourself either completely ignoring 2-5 characters or wasting time leveling up in free combat.

The game does provide customizable characters in a sense that you have skill slots and the ability to fuse skill gems into other skills. The problem is the first time you fuse 2, you don't know the outcome. This can often result in a final gem that you don't want or need and a wasted powerful/useful gem.

This is further magnified by the inability to change class types. I had many fighter types, far more than I needed by chapter II and no ability to change them to casters. You can slot them w/ caster abilities and it works ok, except you won't have access to the "staff" weapon type which also allows more caster abilities.

I am really nitpicking and you can see how the developers really focused on balance. Battles have a turn limit. No more infinite leveling up like in FFT etc..., you must finish the battle in say 12 or 20 turns (larger battles allow more turns)

Many of these battles can become too easy once you discover fusing skill gems. Unfortunately the process of fusing skill gems consists of selecting one gem, selecting a second, pressing a button and then watching the animation of a frog swallow, chew and spew a new one. This animation can take a few seconds each time. It doesnt sound like much, but when you want to create say a +100 hp gem and are starting with +25 it can quickly add up to a sizable amount of playtime for a portable game.

By the time you are done "binding skills" as the game calls it, your train ride may be over.

Even tho I find these flaws a real drag to the pacing, overall this is a very addictive, visually pleasing and fun game w/ a neat spin on one of histories most classic war fantasies of a young girl called by god to liberate a nation.

Throw in some monsters and anthropomorphic beasts and its a very Dragon Quest looking RPG that can be quite cute and enjoyable.

Definitely a game for JSRPG fans only, and those with patience for battles that are slowed down by pointless CPU AI not moving quickly enough.


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Yuck...
Fun?! ZERO
Since I can't properly rate this, I'll have to rate it here in the commentary.

How much fun is this game?.......... ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO
How do you rate this game overall? ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO

The story may be fine in my opinion of what little I've seen in this bought game, but the game mechanics itself is AWFUL! You're allowed only a set of a few turns on every map and I'll understand that if the map's conditions require it. Like if I have to get out of the area before backup for the bad guys show up and such...

But EVERY STICKING Map has this turn limit in IT!!! I truly enjoyed the PSX Final Fantasy Tactics, because the creators knew of that idea and limited the turn limit to a few nerve racking stages. Good Lord those d'arc idiots didn't have the common sense to have a menu selection option to shut down this insane concept!

>:<



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - A surprisingly good game with a strange historical inspiration.
Jeanne D'arc is one of those games that I initially blew off. The cover art and basic premise of the game left me really skeptical about the quality of game that was contained within. I have to say that I am glad one of my friends showed this game to me because I otherwise would have ignored it.

Basically, Jeanne D'arc is a fantasy retelling of the Joan of Arc legend and the 100 years war. I'll admit, it took a bit of getting used to seeing the great deal of liberty taken with the story, but overall it is quite good. The game is a turn based strategy game a la Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Vandal Hearts, and Fire Emblem games. As far as turn based strategy games go, I have to say this game ranks among the best and fans of the genre should pick it up.

Pros:
+ Vibrant graphics (usually)
+ Compelling (albeit quite weird) storyline told with animated cutscenes.
+ A deep character customization system that doesn't require users to micromanage for hours on end to build the perfect party.
+ The ability to go into free-battle mode on a number of maps in order to gain treasure and experience.
+ Individual battles are usually fairly quick, ideal for portable play.
+ Some absurd but funny French and English stereotypes.

Cons:
- The frame rate is kind of jerky at times
- For history buffs, seeing Joan of Arc fighting orcs, lizardmen, and dark elves takes a little bit of getting used to.
- Some levels have atmospheric effects such as fog that look just plain ugly.
- Some absurd stereotypes and a few really annoying character designs that make you say "Hmmmmmm..."
- The menu controls are not as intuitive as other games in the genre
- Battles usually limit you to a small number of characters on the battlefield. On the plus side, battles don't drag on forever and ever.

Overall, this is an excellent game and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys the strategy RPG genre. The game obviously contains some very religious overtones due to the source material (Joan of Arc) but approaches the subject in a relatively inoffensive manner.

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