RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

RPGs as a whole have a penchant for history, often absorbing established historical fact piecemeal into their plots. Jeanne d’Arc takes this much further than most, taking more or less the entire history of Joan of Arc into its plot, altering 15th century Europe and the Hundred Years War to fit a fantasy RPG template, complete with Elves, Dwarves, and a race of animal people known as Therions. The game’s combat system is a fairly traditional tactical RPG, with the only major modifications to the normal formula being defense-boosting Unified Guards and offense-boosting Burning Auras. Although Jeanne d’Arc‘s control is a bit sluggish and its take on tactical RPGs doesn’t have much in the way of originality, the game presents an interesting intersection of history and fantasy, and works well as a fairly easy, lightweight TRPG.

The time period Jeanne d’Arc‘s story is based on is known to history as the Hundred Years War, a period of history during which the French crown was repeatedly up for grabs. England took advantage of this period of instability and civil war to invade, and attempted to seize France’s crown for its own. During a particluarly dark period of the war, a young peasant woman named Jeanne joined the military ranks and became a commander, guided, she said, by the voice of God. Jeanne d’Arc plays fast and loose with this historical setting, nabbing many of the key events and players of the Hundred Years War and altering them to better fit the game’s fantasy setting. It recasts the early parts of the Hundred Years War as a battle against a Demon Lord, who fell to a union of Dwarves, Elves, Therions, and Humans. The Demon Lord was beaten by five heroes weilding magical bracelets, which allowed them to seal the creature in a gem. Years later, the death of King Henry V leaves the throne of England in the hands of his toddler son, Henry VI. The Regent, the Duke of Bedford, summons the Demon Lord back to possess the young king and to complete finally the British invasion of France.

Jeanne d’Arc‘s story presents a unique and intriguing hook in its alternate take on history, and although it has a strong cast and some fairly solid writing, the tale itself relies a bit too heavily on genre cliche. The story eventually comes to encompass an amnesiac male lead, an ancient war between good and evil, and other fairly common ideas. Although it is interesting to see one of history’s great stories altered by modern fantasy, the story itself fails to present much in the way of a message, and relies far too heavily on its hook to provide a sense of originality. Cast members are broad and likeable, but there are a number of characters who don’t seem to have a real point, with many ending up undeveloped and two-dimensional. This is a bit of a shame, given that the characters lucky enough to recieve a backstory come off as fairly well-developed. Overall, the story tends to balance out, leaving a reasonably interesting, if somewhat shallow, tale.

Jeanne d’Arc‘s combat system is a fairly basic take on the normal tactical RPG. Combat is played out on a grid, on which characters move, attack, and cast spells. The only really unique thing about Jeanne d’Arc is the use of two special game mechanics, Burning Aura and Unified Guard. Burning Auras are created when characters use their basic attack on foes. If the attack connects, a swirling mass of energy will appear in the panel on the opposite side of the opponent. A character can then move into that panel and use the Burning Aura to boost their Attack and Magic Attack stats. Burning Auras can even be layered up to two onto a single panel, leading to a huge attack boost and some impressive damage production. Unified Guard, on the other hand, boosts character’s defenses as long as they are within a single panel of an ally. Simply put, the more allies you have in close proximity to one another, the bigger a defensive boost each one recieves when attacked. Both of these techniques are available only to player characters, meaning players won’t have to worry about foes bunching up in formation or ganging up on the player to abuse Burning Auras. The game also adds a turn limit to every battle, usually requiring the player to complete a stage within ten to twenty turns, though this comes into play so infrequently that it is rare to have the turn limit become a factor.

However, even more important than these mechanics is a special skill possessed by those chosen by the magic bracelets, known as Transform. Transform temporarily changes a character into a gleaming knight of God, granting them access to powerful special attacks and impressively heightened stats. Each character who can Transform will eventually have access to three or more unique forms, but since each form can be used only once per battle, the timing of Transformation is very important. Adding to the importance of this timing is an ability called Godspeed. Present in every Transformed character, Godspeed grants the character another turn if they should defeat a foe. This ability contributes significantly to the lack of difficulty of Jeanne d’Arc – a player who times their Transformation carefully can wipe out whole enemy formations without much difficulty. Overall, the combat system presents some interesting tactical situations. Although most stages only allow for between five and seven player characters, players are encouraged to level up a variety of cast members. Jeanne d’Arc offers a wealth of character customization through the Skill Stone system, which allows even very similar characters to take on very different roles. Though the game lacks much in the way of challenge, it doesn’t have a hard time keeping things interesting.

Jeanne d’Arc‘s visuals present a fairly typical anime style that doesn’t do much to set itself apart, though the game animates very smoothly and the character models are fairly detailed for their size. In particular, the game’s frequent anime cutscenes are well done, with smooth animation and clear overall visuals, although subtitles would’ve been a nice touch for those playing the game in a public space without headphones. The wide variety of stages are well designed, with a number of highly unique settings. Where a normal TRPG would stick to wide fields or castle ramparts, Jeanne d’Arc presents everything from the complicated interior of a church, to the narrow walkways wrapped around trees in the forest of the Elves. This complexity does, on occasion, work against the game, as the simple camera controls can’t always show the action clearly. It does its best with transparency and full angle control, in addition to the normal rotating camera, but there are areas where the player will be hard-pressed to find a decent angle from which to view the battle. In the end, Jeanne d’Arc is bright and entertaining, but the overall style is somewhat uninspired.

Similarly, Jeanne d’Arc‘s soundtrack represents a somewhat dull classical style that doesn’t go out of its way to call attention to itself. The soundtrack is reasonably pleasing, but a lack of variety more or less kills it. There are a fairly small number of tracks overall, little or no music during cutscenes, and the combat themes as a whole are a fairly sedate lot. Jeanne d’Arc features some fairly extensive voice acting, with all of the game’s animated cutscenes being fully voiced, alongside small number of cries and shouts used in combat. The voices fit the game well, all things considered, but the wide use of somewhat forced-sounding French accents by the cast may turn some gamers off. As a whole, the game’s sound is reasonably high quality, though largely uninspired.

The game controls reasonably well, with the only real problem being general sluggishness when it comes to movement on some of the game’s larger maps. Menus and the overall interface are well designed, if a bit oddly laid out, with equipment, skill creation, and town shop menus all being accessed from the same central menu. Setting the menu up in this way does help keep everything more or less organized, but it also means that players will be seeing the two or three second load time that occurs whenever the menu is opened quite frequently. Otherwise, Jeanne d’Arc doesn’t have a huge problem with loading times.

While not a terribly long game, eventually topping out at a very average 30 to 40 hours, Jeanne d’Arc features a wide variety of postgame activities, such as newer, more challenging maps and several sidequests that could potentially extend the game to around 50 or 60 hours of play. The game doesn’t present a particularly high level of difficulty, particularly for players who choose to focus their characters very strongly in either offense or defense, but there is a very significant difficulty spike at the end of the game that could require players to level for a few hours to overcome it. The rise in difficulty in the postgame helps keep the game somewhat interesting after the plot is completed, but by and large, players who exhibit a bit of care with their character setups and leveling should have little difficulty finishing the game.

As Level 5’s inaugural TRPG effort, Jeanne d’Arc is a remarkably solid game, largely free of the more serious flaws that tend to plague first-time forays into what can be a highly complicated and difficult kind of game to design. Jeanne d’Arc provides an interesting look into an unusual period of history, combined with a familiar fantasy setting that makes the story as a whole easier to digest. Unfortunately, the game stumbles when it comes to originality, settling for a retread of tactical RPGs in general. The game is well-balanced and should prove entertaining for fans of the genre, but with a story and gameplay mechanics that are, at their core, a retread of a retread, Jeanne d’Arc ultimately comes off as largely uninspired.