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Joan of Arc First Look Preview
Stephen Leyton
17/09/2003
Action meets RTS in an explosive mix of intense combo-based action and military tactics!”
Very occasionally you spot a PC game that really looks and sounds interesting, offering some new ideas, as well as being visually distinctive, as is the case with Joan of Arc (JOA). Enlight, one of the worldâs leading developers and publishers of entertainment software, is creating the game. Enlight is known for its critically acclaimed Capitalism series, as well as the highly praised Seven Kingdoms series. More recently Enlight launched a publishing division with its debut title Restaurant Empire. Derek dela Fuente spoke with Andy Grimbal, Game Designer, about Joan of Arc, their latest project, an action/RTS hybrid with an emphasis on intense combo fighting, based loosely on the exploits of the legendary Joan of Arc. Their own summary of the game is the perfect description. A 3D epic saga that allows players to relive some of the most intense battles during the Hundred Years War where players will slowly transform from a single warrior into a forceful military leader as they develop and master the art of chivalry and tactical warfare.
Enlight has set themselves high standards in developing Joan of Arc and realized that the only way to accomplish this is was to build a custom engine. The JOA graphics engine has been in development internally for over a year now, and has all the state-of-the-art 3D features that other major engines on the market offer, yet is versatile enough to power both the action and strategy modes of gameplay. In terms of its graphic capabilities, the engine is able to exploit the feature-set currently available in DirectX 8.1.
The vision for JOA was explained. âWe chose Joan of Arc because she is among the best-known medieval characters and has such an inspiring story. We were really impressed by her courage and leadership skills and knew that we wanted to capture her unique story while incorporating the action of medieval warfare. In addition, when we first heard about the concept from Trevor, we also realized that no one had developed a game completely based on the Joan of Arc story in a long time. Plus, combined with the idea of creating an action/RTS game, we knew we would have the right elements to create a really unique game."
JOA is roughly 70% action and 30% RTS. The action is fast and furious, with players attacking (and being attacked by) tons of enemies at any given time. In the RTS portion, the player can assign troops to different locations or to engage enemies, and from the third person perspective, the gameplay will revolve around levelling up your character and improving your combat abilities with ever-powerful combos.
JOA (the game) is not based around the books in terms of historical accuracy. Despite Enlight's intentions to follow her story, they soon realised that there were several encounters where Joan of Arc did not actually fight - she led. Also, there were incidents where the resistance she met from enemies was in really small confrontations. For instance, when Joan of Arc travelled to Reims for Charles VII's coronation, she passed several towns, and most of them, despite enemy presence, did not even put up a fight! On other occasions, their military exploits were foiled.
Being historically accurate would have required them to 'force' the player to walk into towns without any action, or lose a certain battle, and that simply wasn't fair to the player. The player may have all the requisites to accomplish a resounding victory, but would have lost regardless for the sake of historical accuracy. Therefore, they opted to focus purely on the gameplay.
What has been incorporated in the game, in terms of historical accuracy, are the characters and weaponry, as well as the campaign routes, that Joan of Arc travelled with her companions, including the towns she visited and the castles that where they laid siege.
You start each scenario in the mission-briefing screen where you will learn about the mission's preamble, the mission objectives and can also view the mission map.
The mission objectives are the core of what needs to be accomplished in each scenario so it is important for the gamer to review these and adhere to them in order to successfully advance to the next level.
As for the orchestration of battles, Enlight is saving this for the gamer to discover.
Andy explained the game a little, about its set up and what makes it interesting.
"Most games that centre around medieval themes today offer their assortment of siege machines and large battle scenarios. Our focus with JOA was on unique gameplay twists."
"One of the most unique gameplay elements involves the action and strategy tactics the player must master in order to progress in the game. Strategically, the player will have to consider commanding troops as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations, such as where to place available units when besieging a castle, or how to defend your castle from sieges."
"Tactically, the player will have to deliberate on how troops, their attributes and placement can be maximized through skilful manoeuvring. This balance will allow the player to experience medieval warfare from a commander's view, issuing orders and planning stratagems, and at the same time, will have to follow these strategies by executing them in battle. The difference is, in an RTS, your troops die. In Joan of Arc you yourself can die! This is actually a more realistic representation of medieval warfare than most games out there looking to capture the essence of medieval combat, in the sense that medieval leaders were expected by their loyal followers to set the example on the battlefield. That meant the leader not only commanded troops, but was also the first one to attack!"
The player will obtain experience points and battle points during the campaigns by meeting objectives, completing side quests, or simply defeating enemies in the battlefield. These points can be assigned to any of six attributes any way the player likes, and these attributes do make a huge difference in the character balance. For instance, you can assign all your experience points to your Strength attribute, making your character extremely powerful during attack, but without beefing up their Defence attribute, the same character can easily die after just a few blows. The player will assign points to best handle their playing style or to suit the scenario objectives.
Other playable characters can be upgraded with the same points system. Since the player can directly control other characters, the player can essentially have different characters that complement each other, say, one extremely strong but lacking in dexterity, and vice-versa; or the player can create traditional balanced fighters - it's up to his or her own gaming style as to how the player assigns the awarded experience or battle points.
One of the challenges that the player must face is they must watch over their comrades as they are engaging in battle. For instance, neglecting Jean de Metz could cost the player his life as well! Enlight thought it would be interesting to allow the player to switch among the different characters so this feature is integrated into the gameplay. In short, you can control Joan and/or the other playable characters as you progress through the game.
"Most of the warriors that contributed or had an influence during this period in the Hundred Years' War are featured in Joan of Arc, including Frenchmen La Hire, the Duke of Alencon, Jean de Metz, and the Bastard of Orleans - all playable except for the Bastard (please excuse the vocabulary, but he actually preferred to be called as such!). The English side will feature Lords Fastolf and Talbot, the Regent of Bedford, and the three de la Pole brothers, among others."
The intuitive, easy to use, streamlined interface has a medieval feel to it and encompasses a layout that is tried and true to those that have accompanied these genres since their inception.
