Bought this game when Circuit City was closing- and knew nothing about it. What a pleasant surprise! Very fun turn based battle system, awesome weapon / spell creation skill binding feature. Perfect length, great graphics and sound- a sleeper hit! Don't miss out on this one!

Jeanne d'Arc is a great game. There, I said it.

Let me start off by saying I am a Level 5 fan. I own several of their games (Dragon Quest VIII, Dark Chronicle (aka Dark Cloud 2), Rogue Galaxy, Professor Layton, ...) and I love their attention to detail and all the little tweaks they put into their games. They always manage to put in a little extra that doesn't really add a lot to the gameplay, but it gives the game a soul and makes you, the gamer, feel like they gave their all just to make it the best game ever.

With that out of the way, Jeanne d'Arc revolves around the historical character of Joan of Arc, a young girl that lead the French to some victories during the 100-year War against the English. The game however does another take on these historical facts. Turns out previous to that great war, there was another war, the War of the Reapers, where humankind defeated a fiend and hordes of underlings. Five legendary knights, each with a holy armlet, lead mankind to victory. Now, one of these armlets comes into the possession of a smalltown girl named Jeanne. It not only gives her some amazing powers, but she also starts to hear voices. They are telling her to drive the English out of her country and so she sets out on a journey through medieval France.

Jeanne d'Arc is a turn based strategic role playing game. Most of the time you'll spend on grid like battlefields. During the player phase you move the characters in your party a number of squares, and either attack the enemy physically or magically, heal or wait. Within a certain amount of turns you are to reach the stage's goals (like defeating all enemies, without losing a single member of your party). During battles you gain experience, gold and skill stones. Outside of the battles, you can equip your party members, go to shops or bind skills. Skills are found in skill stones that you can equip or bind into new skills. Through this mechanism a whole selection of new, oftentimes more powerful skills will come to your disposition.

Your party members are the typical RPG standard fare: a sword and axe fighter, a mage, a bowman, ... but each character has its own unique traits which are demonstrated while the story is told in the numerous cut scenes in between battles. You get easily attached to at least some characters, and so you hate to have them fall in battle, even though that doesn't mean they are lost forever (like in Fire Emblem for Nintendo systems).

The graphics in Jeanne d'Arc are anime inspired, as the beautiful box art already suggests. Although most of the cut scenes are done with the in game engine, there are also a number of anime sequences that help mend the story together. (There is also an anime library where you can review all of these anime sequences.) The character models are cute and detailed. The English in this game are portrayed as funny pig and lizard like creatures. The character animations are nice and the magical effects are neither impressive nor underachieving.

The voice overs are very well done. Most voice actors speak english with a french like accent, which gives everything a little more authenticity.

The music is for the most part excellent. The battle themes are very nice and the sound in the game menus is great too. Only the song in the opening screen grew old on me quickly, but who ever stays long on that screen?

So, in short: if you're looking for a PSP RPG: Get This Game.

This was my first introduction into the RPG world, and i loved every minute of it. The game came highly recommended and it didn't disappoint considering the only type of games i had previously played were action (God of War), shooters (Syphon Filter) and platformers (Daxter, Ratchet & Clank). I never spent more than 100 hours on my other games combined!

The Turn-based strategy will stimulate your mind so that you feel like you are sometimes playing a game of chess. Beating it feels like a great accomplishment. The graphics are tremendous (way better than FF Tactics, and Disgaeia), and the story line is creative.

For $20, this was a great investment. If you own a PSP, and never played this game, do yourself a favor and try it.

Jeanne D'Arc is a very good tactical rpg. I am not gonna go one about every detail like others do, there are a 'few' flaws, but all games have them. But, what I can say is, this game has an engrosing storyline, together with very addictive gameplay and is just very well put together.

To all those pointy-hat rpg fans out there (like me!) considering buying this game; you know when you play an rpg and you are left with that 'oh i so want more!' or 'when's the sequel?!' feeling when you complete it, well thats what Jeanne D'Arc gives you.

Jeanne D'Arc is a fabulous game. Everything about it just shines. It is true it doesn't stretch the genre (Tactical RPG) or provide anything really new or innovative. That's o.k. with me because I just wanted to have loads of fun with a game and not with figuring out a new idea or concept. After Avalon Code for the DS (which was very new, unique, and innovative although not a tactical game) I was ready for some good old fashioned tactical gameplay. Jeanne delivers in spades.

The graphics are excellent. The cut scenes were extremely well done to include the voice acting (not so much common in RPG's). The story was interesting--it started off more historical but then threw a bunch of fantasy components in--so those who want a true historical game will be disappointed. Killing trolls, ogres, and mages? Count me in as I'm all sorts of good with that.

Gameplay is truly where this beauty of a game shines--the controls are exceptionally tight. The menu and battle systems are top notch--clear, easy to understand and use, and fairly intuitive. My only (admittedly minor) complaints would be shopping for equiptment and weapons requires you to use the L/R button to scroll through characters and feels a bit awkward at first and that sometimes the little box on the left (your characters stats and info) that appears on the screen when you select that character for movement obscures your view of the field (they would have been better putting it on top left instead of bottom left).

I found it easy to get into--with a little more "meat" than some others--there is some story you have to get through the first hour or so and I recommend when you start you allocate like 2 hours for play time. After that it is not difficult to pick up and play for whatever period you can--there are regular saves on the map and a quick save in battle. A note that, like other tactical RPG's, the battles can be short 10 minute affairs or longer 25-40 minute affairs--depends on a variety of factors so consider this aspect as well.

The difficulty level is not really high--but there were places where underleveling could cause you major issues. I had a very tough time with the escort mission around Stage 10 but I went and leveled up and then it became doable for me.

At the current pricepoint this game would be my top pick (along with the 2 Star Ocean games and Brave Story) for the PSP in the field of RPG that someone without a ton of RPG experience should pick up. Do yourself a favor and don't miss out on this one!