「Ｂｅｈｅｍｏｔｈ」

Takin' the day off. I need a break, even from my low-intensity job.

Last night I bought Jeanne D'arc, a PSP game that has been inexplicably* ported to PS5 just last month. I remember playing this game back when I had a PSP, but I never finished it. I think it was the game that was in my PSP when it got stolen, come to think of it. It's a very competent FFT clone from Level 5, so it has a certain charm.

The plot is basically a JRPG-ified version of the actual history of Joan of Arc, where she gets like a magic holy armlet that gives her a magical girl transformation (into a fully armored knight) and Henry VI of England is possessed by an ancient demon. It's really scratchin' the itch for a strategy RPG I've had for a while now. I was tempted to get that latest Disgaea, but that's not quite the same thing. Those games are weird in that they do have strategic stuff going on, but it's made basically irrelevant by the power scaling stuff.

Also, it does something I love, which you never see in modern games: tutorials that are just a big image. No walking you through selecting the right menu items and moving to precisely the right spot, just fuckin'... "here's how the game works! have at it!!"

The actual in-game models look fantastic, they scaled up really well. The anime cutscenes? Not so much. They did not go back and get a fresh scan of those, it's the PSP resolution blown up to 4k and it looks like absolute garbage. Also, the font is like... not intended to be viewed at this resolution, there are weird artifacts on some of the letters.

*: The reason is that Sony is seemingly hell-bent on porting every single game they ever published to PS4/5. They've got Legend of Dragoon, all the Wild Arms games, Twisted Metal, Syphon Filter, and a bunch of random JRPGs you've never heard of, like Jeanne D'arc. I kind of respect it, but it's also very strange.