Jeanne D'Arc

Loosely based on the story of the real Joan of Arc (though with many fantastical liberties), Jeanne D'Arc is Level 5's attempt at making a tactical RPG as well as getting a hit of their own on the PSP.  But does it effectively showcase their talents and provide a worthwhile experience for tactical RPG fans, or is it simply outclassed by its contemporaries?

As a big fan of tactical RPGs and Final Fantasy Tactics in particular, I... oddly missed this one when it launched on the PSP in 2007.  Even more odd considering it was developed by Level-5, a company that ranks among my favorite contemporary RPG developers; I quite enjoyed the Ni no Kuni games and a couple of the Professor Laytons, and Dragon Quest VIII and Dark Cloud 2 still rank among my favorite games of all time.  Odd, I know.

Having played it now, though, I found quite a fun experience.  The game has quite a bit of production value behind it for a PSP game with animated and fully voice-acted cutscenes (pretty well, at that), and Level-5's usual high-quality music and polished design are out in full force.  It makes good use of the PSP's limited control scheme too, utilizing the thumbstick for camera control and the d-pad for menuing and selection, though this does take a little getting used to if you're playing the emulated PS4 port like I am.

In terms of gameplay Jeanne D'Arc most closely resembles Fire Emblem than Final Fantasy Tactics, though Fire Emblem than FFT, though thankfully with FE's more annoying elements filed off - there are no permadeaths or breakable weapons or "Weapon triangle", though elemental affinities follow a similar pattern - Sol (Sun) is strong against Stella (Star), Stella is strong against Luna (Moon), and Luna is strong against Sol.  Some new gameplay elements are added though, like "Burning Aura" - striking an enemy creates one in the space behind them, and another character can then stand in it and attack for greater accuracy and damage.  They can also stack up to three times, allowing you to take down some particularly stubborn enemies with chained attacks.  If allies stay in close proximity (within 2 squares) they also get "Unified Guard" whenever an enemy attacks or counter-attacks, reducing their chance to be hit and taking less damage when they do - a good thing as enemies can generally take down characters in two or three blows.  Jeanne (and a couple other characters) also steadily build up points as turns pass, and once they have enough they can Transform into a substantially powered up form once per battle, gaining some quite powerful abilities - Jeanne herself gets Godspeed, which grants her another turn if she defeats an enemy (and can be chained multiple times in a single round as long as you keep getting kills).  It also surprisingly doesn't feel overpowered, particularly as each battle has a turn limit and some stages also end immediately if particular characters (or even any character) should be defeated, so utilizing any advantage you can quickly becomes key to victory.  As expected for a portable game, fights are fairly brisk - maps are generally fairly small and you can finish them in about 15-20 minutes on average, though they do get a bit more involved as the game progresses.

Equipment upgrades are found in shops (naturally), but you also find plenty in the course of completing story battles, and should your levels ever be lagging, you can take part in "free battle" maps to power up, so you shouldn't ever get stuck.  In addition to the usual complement of weapons, armor and shields, you also find plenty of "Skill Stones" that grant abilities for different types of weapons or simply change a character's elemental affinity, making them stronger against certain enemy types and weaker against others.  Skills are generally linked to using certain types of weapons (can't use a sword skill with a spear or a dagger, for example), but there is a surprising variety therein - one sword skills gives all nearby allies an attack boost, another spear skill grants a 7-space linear attack, while a particular dagger skill allows one to steal items from enemies mid-battle.  There are also generic spells that recover HP or equip elemental damage, and can be used with any type of weapon equipped.

All in all, Jeanne D'Arc is well made, quite enjoyable tactical RPG experience.  Maybe not one of the genre's defining classics, but it manages to hold its own on the PSP - a platform that gave it some stiff competition with games like Tactics Ogre, Valkyria Chronicles and Final Fantasy Tactics.  A worthwhile alternative from a company with a lot of passion and talent, particularly as you can get it for dirt cheap nowadays on the PlayStation 4.

 

Developer: Level-5, Japan Studio

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Released: 2007

Platforms: Playstation Portable, Playstation 4

Recommended Version:  As of July 2024 the game is available on the PlayStation 4/5 as a downloadable title, though it's simply an emulated port of the PSP version (with rewind and savestate functionality added).

MAGAphor ReFascistazio

 Another terrible Persona formula retread with incredibly distracting visual effects and word bubbles in 35 different fonts constantly popping up on screen, a fairy sidekick infinitely more condescending and insufferable than Navi, and dialog that all reads like a smug-shit Redditor arguing with his sockpuppet accounts - all snappy, fast-talking one-liners stuffed with clichés and cutesy turns of phrase and snarky quips and holier-than-thou arrogance and grandiose comic book villain monologues, and it gets obnoxious to read and listen to really fucking fast.  Whenever it's not doing that it's treating you like a toddler - the game shows you something, then explains it to you in simple words, then another character (or two, or three) has to tell it to you again five seconds later.  Seriously every other scene goes exactly like this:

Game shows the player a map

DIPSHIT FAIRY: This is a map!  Boy it's a well made map!  You know what a map is, right Main Character?
OTHER GUY: This map will show us to our destination!
YET ANOTHER GUY: Our destination is here!  Click the location on the map to lead us there, Main Character!

This is an M-rated game not Dora the fucking Explorer.  Actually I take that back, I'd rather watch Dora the Explorer; at least the characters in that talk like real people and not charismaless Beetlejuices.
 
There's also a lovely plot point about the 'real' world being a paradise comprised of "one united tribe" and the game world you play in is just some power fantasy/instruction manual for people to pretend they're righteous and empathetic by 'standing up' against one-dimensional strawmen to sell themselves as a hero to all those naïve minorities/inferiors just so they can exploit them instead; so now Atlus is laundering ethnocracy, Machiavellianism and white man's burden bullshit in the same way P5 was a lovely coat of whitewash for the 8chan and Kiwi Farms culture crusades.  Hey, if you're gonna make big-budget power fantasies that cater to the worst dregs of society in pursuit of easy sales, might as well make one that panders to white supremacists and other assorted eugenics weirdos too, right?  Did I mention this carpetbagging bullshit conveniently released just in time for the 2024 election, too?  Yeah... good one Atlus and Sega, you unbelievably vile fucks.

Screenshot removed because of spurious copyright claims

Developer: Atlus Studio Zero
Publisher: Sega
Released: 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series

Rudra no Hihou

Rudra no Hihou ("Treasure of Rudra", rendered as "Treasure of the Rudras" in the fan translation) is another late-to-the-party Squaresoft RPG for the Super Famicom, and while it has gained a small following over the years it remains one of their more overlooked games.  It was relatively unique in its time for being primarily based on elements of Hinduism, though a few Biblical references also appear.  Somewhat like Live a Live, the game follows different characters with separate narratives, though unlike that game, they also all take place in the same time period and interconnect in small ways - one character can leave behind a relic for another to pick up later, for example, and at certain points you can even swap to another character's narrative and come back to the other's later.  The final chapter of the game has you take control of a fourth character, uniting with the other three protagonists to that point in order to face the story's antagonists.  Said storylines are broken up into "days" counting down to the end of the world, though this is simply a measure of progression; resting "overnight" at an inn does not cause it to increase.  Rudras' presentation is a step above most RPGs on the platform, with fully-animated character sprites in battle (including all enemies and bosses) for even mundane actions like using items and normal attacks, and just some gorgeously detailed spritework in general.  The gameplay is pretty standard turn based combat and mechanics, although one interesting twist is that elemental resistances have mutual exclusivities - you can't become resistant to fire and ice at the same time, for example, so tweaking your loadout requires a bit more thought.  The real selling point of the mechanics, though, is the magic system - by entering combinations of up to six katakana characters (or just typing combinations of letters in the translated version), you can create new Mantras with a wide variety of added effects.  For example, "Ig" is a basic fire-elemental attack, but adding "Na" to create "IgNa" will cause it to hit all enemies instead, or "IgRex" will increase the damage it outputs.  As the game progresses you'll learn new prefixes and suffixes to add to a core effect.  Bosses will also frequently give clues to spells you can create and use yourselves and you can even try just punching in random words to see what you get, although more often than not you'll get something weak or outright useless.  Other special words can also be used to create powerful effects, like "Epymetheus" creating a powerful water-element spell that can freeze enemies, "Peace" being a guaranteed flee from battle, or "Saintelmo" for a powerful lightning-element attack.  There are countless possible combinations to find and surprisingly nearly all of them do at least something, so it adds a great deal of experimentation to the game.  While not Square's best RPG of era, it is an interesting game with some unique elements and certainly worth a look.  Hopefully one day it gets an official localization or remake so a wider audience can appreciate it too.

Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Squaresoft
Released: 1996
Platforms: Super Famicom