Wars & Warriors: Joan of Arc is less a historical simulation than it is a
console-style third-person action game. Unless, that is, I’ve got my history
wrong and Joan of Arc did in reality run around the French countryside
single-handedly slaying the odd one, two, ten, or twenty Englishmen she’d run
across. Apparently the names are the same but the facts have been changed to
protect the innocent. No matter – we play games because they’re fun, right? So
is Joan of Arc fun? Let’s take a look and see...
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| A typical mob scene in the game. |
In Joan of Arc you primarily play as the game’s namesake, but have the
opportunity to control a few of her key allies at certain times in the game as
well. The game is played from a third person perspective and you control Joan
using the familiar WASD/mouse look action game scheme. Attacks are done with the
mouse buttons – click the left button for a normal strike and the right for a
more powerful sword stroke. The game also makes use of a combo attack system
similar to those found in fighting videogames. However, while videogame combo
attacks can be quite elaborate and require complicated combinations of button
presses to initiate, you only have the two mouse buttons to work with in Joan of
Arc. This means that the combos are tied to sequences of clicks such as right
click->right click->right click or right click->left click->right click. Since
you’ll be clicking away at these buttons during battles anyway, there’s no real
strategy to using the combos. They just sort of happen during the battles and
you wouldn’t even notice many of them if the game didn’t display the word
“combo” when one is performed.
In addition to your melee attack, you can use a bow as long as you’ve got
some arrows in your inventory. The arrows actually come in several varieties,
including the famous Medieval French exploding arrow, so you’ve got a few
options when launching a ranged attack. When you switch to your bow the game
switches to a first person view. To fire an arrow you place the crosshairs over
your target and click. The game will automatically give your shots the loft
needed to hit distant targets. It’s cool to watch an arrow arc high and rain
down on your victim, but there’s not a lot of challenge in placing a crosshair
on a target and letting the game decide how to get your arrow there. It’s “fire
and forget”, 15th Century style.
The combat controls are pretty simple, which on the one hand is a good thing
considering how much fighting you’ll be doing. On the other hand it means that
the game’s combat quickly begins to feel repetitive. This repetition is
compounded by poor AI of the enemy soldiers who know only one tactic, the
straight ahead charge and mob. The AI is so dense it more often than not fails
to recognize elevation differences or obstacles. You can stand above a cliff or
in a tower and pick off enemy soldiers one by one with your arrows as they
repeatedly bash their heads at the obstacle at your feet. The game tries to
ratchet up the challenge level by sending large mobs of enemies at you that
swarm around you. In these mob scenes you are aided by the fact that a swing of
your sword can knock back several enemies at once. However, it is impossible to
see much of what is going on, let alone aim your sword strokes, so these battles
degenerate into click-fests. Just keep clicking until no one is left standing
while pressing the hotkey to consume one of the health restoring items from your
inventory when needed and you’ll make it through most of the game’s battles
without too much trouble.
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