THE BORE

General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:11:32 PM

Title: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:11:32 PM
I finished the game (I think I'm the only Evilborean who stuck with it, as apparently most people didn't like the idea of turn limits or a wacky animu take on French history).  My thoughts are as follows:

Turn limits: Probably the most controversial and disliked point of the game, at least from what I've read here, but to be honest, I actually was never faced with a situation where I had to worry about using up all my turns.  There's actually a very solid, legitimate reason for turn limits within the game, and it has to do with the battle system's design.  You gain MP every turn, and Jeanne gains transformation points every turn as well...if there were no turn limits, the game would simply turn into turtling, where you just hold off the enemies until you've built up enough MP to unleash your most powerful attacks.  With turn limits, you're forced to strategize while moving forward.

Unified guard: This actually adds a lot to the gameplay and makes you think of your team as a unit  As in a real battlefield, you never want to stray too far from the group because it'll make you easy prey for opponents...in Jeanne D'Arc you are actually rewarded for sticking close to the group by having the "unified guard" ability activate whenever you're attacked.  Probably the toughest battles I ever had were those where my team was split up on different parts fo the map, and the very first thing I did in those battles was to regroup.

Skill stones:  These are great and allow a good degree of customization for your characters abilities - skill stones give you class-based attacks, magic spells, innate abilities, and raise your stats.  Eventually you'll be able to bind skill stones together to create new ones.  This is a great way to experiment and to get advanced skills from early on in the game.  Once you've found a formula for creating a particular skill stone, it's saved so you can check it later if you want to make that particular stone again.

Rock/paper/scissors: Represented by moon, sun, and stars...each character can be given a particular affinity, which makes them strong against certain enemy types but weak against others.  I actually never bothered to use it that much, since giving a character an affinity requires a skill stone which takes up a skill slot and I wanted to keep them free for certain other things.

Combat: The maps are mostly very well designed and fun to play through...there are a few that are a bit too clever for their own good (there's an optional rooftop stage where you have to make bridges between roofs and your characters are all split up, making them easy prey for the archers that populate the level).  There are a number of extra stages you can go through to gain better equipment for your characters.

Story: A complete joke.  That's probably the only part of the game where I think they had a lot of wasted potential.  A more serious take on the Jeanne D'Arc story and the Hundred Years War could have made for an amazing game.  Instead, they went with the most cliched and stereotypical animu crap imaginable - from the heroine's village burning at the start to being succesors of five legendary heroes, to finding mystical objects of great power to defeat the evil monsters who come from another dimension to enslave mankind.  Every plot point is obvious after the first five minutes of the game - who in your group is going to betray you, who's going to live, who's going to die, etc.  That said, the cut scenes are very well-animated and plentiful.

Graphics: It's Level 5, so of course they're beautiful.  The other strat. RPGs on the PSP can't even begin to compare - I even think it looks a good bit nicer than Disgaea (going off the PS2 version), though Disgaea is the superior game.

Overall: A slightly above average game which is perfect for a portable machine like the PSP.  A B- (but a real one, not a pity one like Willco gave to Transformers).

I'd like to see more strat. RPGs come out for the PSP as it seems to be a genre perfectly suited for portables...I wouldn't mind seeing a port of Saiyuki for it!  Does anyone remember that game?  Came out during the tail end of the PSX's life span.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Synbios459 on November 04, 2007, 11:21:43 PM
Oh Ichirou.... :lol
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:23:01 PM
Shut the fuck up, gleepglop.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 04, 2007, 11:24:51 PM
i got about halfway through it. i don't think it is bad at all, and ultimately it wasn't the turn limits that made me set it aside, but rather the lack of ways to develop the characters.

disgaea 4-ever
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Synbios459 on November 04, 2007, 11:26:10 PM
Would you agree with Gamespots take?

The Good

    *
    *
    *

    * Dramatic fantasy retelling of one of history's most riveting stories 
    * Multiple design elements make battles move briskly 
    * Skill-stone mechanics add a welcome layer of complexity.

The Bad

    * Inconsistent production values 
    * Doesn't take many risks with the usual formula.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:27:49 PM
Quote from: Professor Prole on November 04, 2007, 11:24:51 PM
i got about halfway through it. i don't think it is bad at all, and ultimately it wasn't the turn limits that made me set it aside, but rather the lack of ways to develop the characters.

disgaea 4-ever

Did you get to the part where you got the skill stones? Those, along with the stat-changing items, were good ways to develop your characters uniquely...but I gotta admit it pales alongside the customization abilities available in Disgaea.

What Jeanne D'Arc has going for it is that it's fun, uncomplicated, and not ridiculously long for what it is (about thirty hours at most without doing the extra stuff after you finish the game).  In a lot of ways it reminds me of the old Genny Shining Force games, except without the class changes.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:30:32 PM
Quote from: Synbios459 on November 04, 2007, 11:26:10 PM
Would you agree with Gamespots take?

The Good

    *
    *
    *

    * Dramatic fantasy retelling of one of history's most riveting stories 
    * Multiple design elements make battles move briskly 
    * Skill-stone mechanics add a welcome layer of complexity.

The Bad

    * Inconsistent production values 
    * Doesn't take many risks with the usual formula.


I have no clue what they mean by "inconsistent production values."  Purely in terms of graphical design, animation, interface, etc., this is a top-notch game.  It is a very traditional strat. RPG, and the unusual elements it does bring in (like the whole rock/paper/scissors thing) have been done before (for example, Kartia).

The "dramatic fantasy retelling" thing is complete crap.  They took a riveting piece of history and turned it into cliched animu bullshit.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: huckleberry on November 04, 2007, 11:52:18 PM
The turn limits weren't that bad...it did make sense with the gaining of MP every turn.  The story, however, was so goddam bad I just couldn't handle it.  They should have made the game about some generic subject...dunno if that would have made it good, maybe a little more palatable. 



Like P. Prole said:  disgaea 4-ever. 
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 04, 2007, 11:59:24 PM
Quote from: Arde0 on November 04, 2007, 11:52:18 PM
The turn limits weren't that bad...it did make sense with the gaining of MP every turn.  The story, however, was so goddam bad I just couldn't handle it.  They should have made the game about some generic subject...dunno if that would have made it good, maybe a little more palatable. 



Like P. Prole said:  disgaea 4-ever. 

While I was playing it, I kept thinking how Jeanne D'Arc was a 19-year-old girl who'd been burned alive, and now here I was, 600 years later, playing an animu-based game based off of her story which shows absolutely zero respect for her as a historical figure.  Made me feel a bit weird, though I've played Japanese games that have made complete hash out of history before.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: huckleberry on November 05, 2007, 12:01:07 AM
The fucking pet frog that fused gems added animu insult to injury.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: TVC15 on November 05, 2007, 12:05:44 AM
I never actually ran into a problem with the turn limits during my play. . .that sort of thing just distresses me in general.  The real reason the game failed to grab me was due to its lack of difficulty.

Maybe I should give it another go.   There just didn't seem to be as much to it as other L5 games, either.  As in mini-games and side shit.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 05, 2007, 12:07:26 AM
Some weird side stages open up later in the game, TVC - each of them are unusually designed and have strange goals requiring abilities that only certain characters have (like Colet's being able to create bridges and ladders).

I hated that stupid frog too, Arde0.  That was just insulting.  The fact that later on...

spoiler (click to show/hide)
...it actually becomes a playable character made me go WTF.  The fact that it can use one of the ARMLETS (!!!) was just absolutely distinguished mentally-challenged.
[close]
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: TVC15 on November 05, 2007, 12:15:18 AM
Can you gimme a ballpark on the game's length?  I might actually prioritize it ahead of Disgaea.
Title: Re: Jeanne D'Arc: A Final Analysis
Post by: Ichirou on November 05, 2007, 12:16:20 AM
I finished it in 28 hours and I did all the extra stages except for the Colosseum.