Every child knows the story of Joan of Arc, the girl who was chosen by an armband that ended up being somewhat of an antenna to God. They know how she led an army of talking lions and a wolf that speaks like Scooby-Doo and rained fireballs on some English soldiers led by a crazy guy with multiple lives as she fought to end the English occupation.

What? That isn't the story you learned? Oh well, education continues to fail our children. Seriously though, no one will mistake Level 5's wonderful new strategy RPG game as a history lesson, as it takes broad license with the facts and timeline of Joan of Arc's rise in fame and legend as she fought to retake occupied areas of England. The choices made provide more gameplay options and help the story flow more naturally, and all of the changes made work excellently - the story and game flow along nicely and naturally, producing an excellent strategy RPG accompanied by an excellent narrative, which is quite a rarity.

Get this - the game features four levels of cut scenes, in addition to some in-mission banter and plot development. There are character-to-character dialogue, in-game cut scenes, broad cut scenes that still use the game engine and fully rendered CGI scenes for major events. All of it looks wonderful and makes some of the best use of the PSP hardware I have seen so far. This isn't overall the most graphically spectacular PSP title, but it forms a well-balanced continuum. Since the early days of videogames we have looked at pictures on boxes that were never matched by the in-game graphics. Then games went to full motion video and things got even worse; with the advent of CGI there has been more effort to match the look and feel, but all too often we see amazing things in the cut scenes, only to look at strange-looking chibi characters with little resemblance to the movies, other than hair color. In Jeanne D'Arc, the high-resolution CGI characters look very much like the ones in the in-engine scenes, as well as the combat avatars. This might sound like a trivial point but it forms a continuum that draws you further into the story by keeping you solidly engaged with each character and the overall flow of the plot.

The excellence in the graphical presentation is matched in just about every other technical aspect of the game too. The soundtrack is wonderful and quite enjoyable - the main theme is rousing and memorable, and I looked forward to hearing it even after dozens of hours spent playing the various missions. The music changes to suit the area and there is battle music, scene music and full cut scene audio with appropriate background sounds. There is some voice acting in the CGI scenes, but most dialogue isn't voiced. The controls and interface are similarly well thought out; I never felt like I was battling the game to get something done - if I wanted to move someplace legal, the game would let me move all over illegal spots to get there and figure out the best path. The interface is consistent throughout - if you are between missions and want to outfit your party in an area with no shop then the interface is the same as going to a town to buy goods. Help is easily accessible at all times and plenty of information is provided to guide you through deciding what to buy for each party member. My only complaint is that some of the load times are long - I have no issue waiting around thirty seconds to load a mission, but waiting fifteen to thirty seconds to switch from the main screen to the shop, then another fifteen or so to reach the save screen and the same amount of time to work backwards gets tiresome after a while.

But enough about the technical minutia - how does the game play? If you have ever played a classic 'tactics' style game such as Final Fantasy Tactics then you will feel immediately at home. Selecting a town allows you to engage in the mission, typically beginning with some form of cut scene. After the scene you are given a number of units to place in a preset area of the map. Certain missions require certain party members, but in general you can select or reject anyone, aside from Jeanne or the current mission leader, who is always required. Once you place your units, the battle begins with you getting the first phase of the first turn. Each mission has a limited number of turns, which can at times present a greater challenge than the combat goals! For example, in one mission your goal is to get from one side of the map to the other in a certain amount of turns. Of course, the enemy goal is to stop you crossing the same area, so you will have to battle your way strategically towards your target. The first time I attempted this I spent too long in battle attempting to wipe out the enemy force and ended up three squares away from my goal as the turn limit expired - so I had to repeat the battle.

Each turn is divided up into phases - there are phases for the player, enemy and neutral characters, with each unit getting two actions per turn. The turn order for units is completely controlled by the player - the focus initially starts on the leader, but there is no initiative list or other constraint to choosing any other unit. This is an important strategic element - choosing your attack order to maximize damage is critical to making it through battles. Once you select a unit you can execute their two actions. There are movement actions and combat actions, with only one of each allowed per turn. The movement action must come first, since combat actions end the character's turn; you can move them to any legal square on the map within their movement range. Each character has a movement range, but it isn't dependent on encumbrance or armor as it would be in a D&D game. Once your move is completed, you can select a combat action including the likes of attacks, skills, using items, or simply waiting.

The combat system itself is simple yet quite engaging due to the strategy required to outthink and outmaneuver your opponent. The conditions for success or failure on a mission are clearly spelled out and success typically involves eliminating all enemies, one specific enemy, or reaching a specified location. Failure results from all allies falling, the leader falling or the character you're escorting falling in battle. In pretty much every case your enemy has a vast strategic advantage at the start of the battle in terms of positioning - you are clustered in one spot at the beginning of the map and they are spread throughout it, typically already occupying high ground, turrets and other strongholds. You need to move your units into position to effectively strike without setting yourself up to take too much damage. One interesting constraint is that you can only attack on the four cardinal directions - there are no diagonal attacks. This makes movement and positioning more of a chess game of thinking ahead to ensure you can deliver damage to your opponents before they reach you. The combat attacks you have at your disposal depend on your class, but include archery, sword and shield, axe, spear and magic. Each character can also get special weapon-specific skills by equipping skill stones, one of the key item types in the game. There are active and passive direct combat stones, magic spell stones and stat enhancement stones. In addition, at a certain point in the game you obtain a way to enhance the skill stones to make these critical items even more useful!

I mentioned that deciding turn order is critical to success in battle. An example of this would be having three characters in range of an enemy knight using a sword. Assuming the three characters are an archer, a rogue and a spear-wielder, you have multiple ways to approach the battle. The goal is to take the knight out in a single turn while taking as little damage in return as possible. So you might have the spear-wielder attack first from two squares away on the front, doing significant damage and lowering enemy resistance while taking no damage in return (since the knight has a one square attack range). Next the archer would attack, doing nearly the same damage as the spear (had the archer attacked first then the damage would have been lower) and leaving the knight with less than one third of his original health. Finally, the rogue moves behind the knight to the 'flaming circle' for a back-attack, which is further augmented by the 'burning aura' effect from the spear attack (this works similar in effect to a flanking bonus in D&D). Whereas a frontal attack as the first move would have done little damage and suffered a brutal counter-attack from the knight, the rogue now has a significant advantage and easily deals enough damage to finish off the knight without suffering any damage.

As is true with any strategy game or RPG, gaining experience and leveling your units is critical. In Jeanne s'Arc, this is done in combat - you gain experience by attacking, casting spells, healing others or yourself, or using items. Delivering the finishing blow to an enemy gains you the most experience, while completing missions gains you bonus experience based on numerous factors relating to how successfully you carry out your strategic combat, which is divided up equally between all of your party members.

Once you have completed a mission (and watched any subsequent cut scenes) there are many options. You can find a shop in a previous location to buy and sell items, continue following the story to the next area, or replay one of the previous missions in Free Combat mode. The game encourages you to replay missions to enhance your characters and earn more gold by changing the enemies you meet in the story mode and the free combat modes. Free Combat serves several purposes - first you will find that the game assumes you have reached a level based on some amount of replay, so if you don't then you will often be too low-level to successfully complete a mission. It also allows you to learn - trying different approaches for the same battle is a wonderful way to develop your strategic skills. Finally, you generally have more units than you can deploy and so you will likely develop favorite combinations. This means that some units will be underutilized and not level up as fast as others, so taking those members back through Free Combat missions is a great way to even out your party so that you can call upon an even greater breadth of skills for a mission.

As you continue through Jeanne d'Arc you will become more and more engaged with the characters and story and be surprised by the various twists and turns the plot takes along the way. It is wonderful and amazing in a game that is focused on a series of tactical combat missions that you get such a marvelous story to carry you through the many hours of playing time. The game isn't perfect, as there's a certain simplicity to the combat based on only attacking on the ordinal directions and some of the dialogue doesn't flow very well, but overall it's an engaging and fun game that you won't want to put down until the very end.

Reviewed by Michael Anderson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).