Those traditional RPG clichés aside, Level 5’s Jeanne d’Arc conforms well to the life of the titular hero, touching on and recreating many of the events that shaped her life and made her into the saint she’s now considered to be. In fact, the depth of knowledge that is gained from simply playing the game is surprising. It never forgets its need to entertain and tell a story though, and throws in enough twists and surprises to stay exciting throughout.

The story is told mainly through text-based conversations, but the game is also peppered with many short anime cut-scenes that portray major events. The voice acting in these is passable at best, and, although an American speaking English with a French accent isn’t as big a disaster as it could have been, thankfully it's kept to a minimum. In spite of this, the cutscenes are wonderfully drawn and the quality of the visuals carries over into the gameplay, too. Eschewing the traditional sprite-based nature of the genre, characters are both modelled in 3D and cel-shaded - fitting much better into the maps in which they fight as a result.

From her humble beginnings in Domremy, Jeanne is sent to a church to fetch a mysterious character known as 'Roger'. When she makes it to the church, however, Roger is nowhere to be seen and she is attacked by those pesky English-types and their orcs. A grid appears, naturally, and it’s up to Jeanne to get vanquishing. Turns play out in phases, with no speed stat to worry about. The player goes first and may move and attack, or simply attack (moving isn’t possible after attacking), along with any of the other usual RPG commands. Once each unit has acted, the enemy then has their turn. This pattern repeats until one side reigns supreme. A turn limit adds an element of suspense to proceedings: each battle must be won within the set number of turns or it’s game over. Tactics must be altered accordingly to take this into account. Sitting back to wait for MP to charge and then healing is sometimes not an option, for example.

Battle conditions are, of course, set before battle commences and these can include: defeating one enemy, all enemies, reaching a certain point of the map before the turn limit is reached, or one of a host of others. There’s a lot of variation in these objectives, which keeps battles interesting throughout, and more interesting still is the superb map design. Maps are full of unique twists. Some contain hidden passages, some have doors, areas where bridges or ladders must be constructed to progress and these create many different ways of tackling battles. The door could be bashed down for an all-out assault, but building a ladder and moving in for a stealth attack is also an option. A compromise, then: draw the enemies to one part of the map and launch an attack from an undefended area. Decisions like these mean battles never get boring, tempting the player into replaying them, to see if another method would be more effective.

Tactical decisions are helped along by the number of available characters. There are the usual suspects, here. Archers can attack from longrange, lancers from two spaces away and sword or knife users from adjacent squares. Magicusers, whip users and axeusers (the game’s tank class) complete the line-up with their unique traits and each is perfect for a certain task, depending on the strategy the player wishes to employ. The game can be played exactly how the player wishes it to be played.

There isn’t much scope for customisation of those characters, but using skill stones allows them to be powered up in a few different ways. Picked up or stolen from enemies, skill stones contain stat-boosts, skills, or magic and up to three (at first) can be equipped to a character. Later in the game these skill stones can be combined with others to create even more powerful ones at the expense of the two combined. Trying different combinations to get the best set-up for your team is an addictive task in itself, but can soon cause problems when just a few too many stones are combined and there aren’t enough left to equip the team!

The greatest success in Jeanne d’Arc is that it loses many of the cumbersome gameplay mechanics that are present in other Strategy-RPGs. For example: when a character dies they’ll return anew in the next battle; there are no job classes to level up and wrestle with to learn the skills you want; earning 324 experience points really means just that. With that said, it may seem like Jeanne D’Arc is nothing more than Strategy-RPG-light, but it is in this that the beauty lies. With all of these mechanics removed, the game becomes much more portable: with no need to micromanage and plan battles and units far in advance the focus is simply on the gameplay, and that’s where all the fun is.

There’s no doubt that coming to this game from something such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea will prove to be too easy a ride for those experienced with the genre, but for anyone looking for a more portable Strategy-RPG, with a wonderful story to tell, Jeanne d’Arc will be a perfect fit.