1. I just kinda glanced over descriptions before picking up Jeanne d'Arc so I was expecting something of historically accurate tactics game revolving around the French in the Hundred Years' War. I got a game in which the opening cut scene is an evil wizard corrupting the juvenile King of England w/ strange magicks. You are whisked off shortly thereafter to meet w/ the titular character who then uses her mysterious powers to battle evil along side a rag-tag group of unlikely allies. Yes, it would seem as if this is some sort of Japanese role playing game.
2. Actually, seeing a Japanese take on European history is one of the most interesting things about this Jeanne d'Arc. Specifically, it does not really touch on Christianity or Catholicism in any specific way. There are mentions of the Christian God but that's as close as it gets. Priests and such do not have crosses on them and there's no meaningful mention of liturgy or theology. I suppose this might have been done to avoid offending people but, you know, it is pretty interesting to tell the story of Joan of Arc w/o a heavy does of the Christian religion. Still, I enjoyed this version w/ less visions from Catholic saints and more talking cat people.
3. I didn't really expect to get wrapped up in the story when playing a tactics game but nevertheless I did. Well, I didn't get wrapped up in the story, which is frankly a bit melodramatic for my taste, but in the game's version of fifteenth century France. The one element that was spot on w/r/t historical accuracy is just how much the Hundred Years' War was a bunch of fear mongering and intrigue on the behalf of powerful men. The soldiers in Jeanne d'Arc--including yourselves and many of those you fight against--are manipulated into killing and risking their lives out of some abstract notion of loyalty to country when really all they are doing is redistributing power among those who already have it. My mind kept returning to that old saw from All Quiet on the Western Front: the wrong people do the fighting.
4. There's also cat people doing the fighting. I think I mentioned that.
5. You get a pretty standard assortment of classes in combat. There's melee fighters, ranged fighters and magic users. There's over a dozen characters and each is unique but you've seen stuff like this if you've ever played a grid-based tactics game before. You equip your players w/ the best gear you can give them, place them on the map and have at it.
6. A layer of depth is added by allowing each character to have one of three elemental abilities, which interact in a paper-rock-scissors manner. This has a lot of cool possibilities but, in practice, it seemed to always be best to use the one that's got the least penalties against it for your whole squad on any given map. There were times when it made sense to equip a couple of your characters to take out one or two key foes but, esp. since you can use magic of any type regardless of what elemental ability you have equipped, it mostly made sense to just try to make sure a small mistake wouldn't get a couple of your characters killed in short order because of a disadvantageous match up.
7. There is also a mutual defense mechanic where each character gets a defense bonus for standing near other characters as well as a mechanic that provides an attack boost you can get from standing behind enemies that have been successfully attacked. I find it's a common problem in tactics games that it is always the best option to keep your party in one big group rather than breaking them off into squads and these two mechanics just make it all the worse. This is actually accurate in terms of real world military tactics as you typically want to concentrate your forces and throw them up against a weak point in the enemy's defenses but I don't think that makes for the most interesting gameplay. Also, it is another point of historical inaccuracy as this is a Napoleonic tactic and wouldn't have existed in the fifteenth century. Just saying.
8. The last unique wrinkle in Jeanne d'Arc is some of your characters wear an armband that lets them change into a super hero version of themselves for a couple turns. It makes you more powerful but its greatest advantage is giving your character an extra turn if they use their attack to finish off an enemy. Using your transformations at the correct time is absolutely crucial when the game throws thick waves of enemies at you. It's very satisfying to soften up the enemy army and then have someone go Super Saiyan and clean them up in one fell swoop. The downside is it does increase your tendency to rely on just a few characters rather than the full breadth of your roster because those w/ arm bands are so much more useful than the rest.
9. Outfitting your team properly is important but there's ample opportunity and side content to grind and level up your characters. You do gain less and less experience from the same enemy types as you level up, which tends to guide you to being at a certain level at certain points in the game. It keeps the difficulty curve pretty smooth while allowing you to cop out and just spend a while grinding if you momentarily don't feel like spending the brain energy on figuring out a clever strategy.
10. The story sections present themselves in a variety of ways. The most important events get gorgeous anime cut scenes. Lesser events get in-engine cut scenes and there's some tossed out dialog before battles. There gets to be enough of these that it occasionally bogged the game down a bit but the animated ones, esp., look great and serve as a nice reward for finishing each chapter.
11. Once you've entered an area w/ a battle, you cannot back out even if you haven't started the battle yet. If you save over your game at this point and find you cannot win the battle, you are stuck. Start the whole game over or hope for really good RNG. The hell of it is the developers seem to know this system stinks and give you a great big warning before you save. It seems to me like if your save system has a flaw deep enough you need a warning, you should just go ahead and fix it. What do I know though.
12. The end section is an absolute beast. Several battles in a row w/ no chance to stock up on healing items or grind your characters if you are feeling overwhelmed. It frustrated me a bit but was also one of the few times I was forced to strategically re-outfit my team from the ground up so it made for as a satisfying conclusion. You also get to return to the world and tromp about all you want in post-game which is fun too.
13. Jeanne d'Arc it is a really well executed example of an RPG tactics game and fans of the genre should absolutely dig into this one if they get a chance. The story is interesting, the music and graphics are great and the combat is very competently designed. I might make a small complaint that, other than the animated cut scenes, nothing really stands out as exceptional but the experience start to finish is enjoyable and tactics games are a great fit for handheld gaming so definitely check this out if you get a chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment