Jeanne D'Arc Hands-on

***wraggster*** · April 28th, 2007, 00:18

By know, everyone's heard about Joan of Arc, the young French heroine whose visions impelled her to save her homeland from English domination. But did you know that she fought against trolls, dark elves and evil catwomen? You would if you were playing Jeanne D'Arc, Level-5's loosely inspired turn based tactical game that adds elements of fantasy to the historical adventure. We recently managed to check out the title and came away with these impressions.

We were told that each mission in the game will have different objectives to keep the action fresh. Some missions will require you to kill every enemy on the screen, while others will require you to get to a specific spot on the battlefield. We checked out one specific mission where we had to escort the Dauphin, Charles the VII to Notre Dame so he could be crowned King of France. Unfortunately, a catwoman and her forces had different ideas, and we had to protect the young royal from meeting an early death. Fortunately, we were able to place a number of troops in front of him to ensure that Charles would make his coronation on time. Depending on the battlefield, players will be able to control anywhere between one and nine different warriors, with the average number of soldiers landing around 5-7 a mission.

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**Basil Zero** · April 28th, 2007, 06:39

Hope its a good tactics game

**onetwentyeight** · April 28th, 2007, 11:39

Played the Japanese version, so the story and full understanding of most magic attacks was lost to me. On the other hand, I felt the gameplay to be superior to Final Fantasy Tactics, and my favorite part was the "anger transformations?" - basically a meter builds on certain characters and when filled you can transform them into characters roughly twice as powerful for about two turns. It's a great last ditch effort when you're low on hp, and though it only lasts two turns, your turn doesn't end if you finish off an enemy (so priming weak enemies for chaining kills is a very rewarding tactic). Characters that die on the battlefield don't die for real like in Fire Emblem or Tactics, but beware that certain ones become primary heroes later on in the game, so be sure to level up everyone equally through equal participation or multiple plays through the same level (which change after you beat them to better suit this purpose). Can't wait for the English language version! ps - Check youtube for the Japanese office commercial which will give any strategy gamer a laugh.