Jeanne d'Arc: Run ended. Probably. Technically not complete, but I got to the final boss & second-to-last stage, so close enough. Don't think I'll take a 3rd go at the boss so.
Gameplay spoilers for the final boss ahoy, but this was lame-o. So first, a minor rant about variable difficulty. JDA is swingy here. JDA has a turn limit every battle, which is an okay idea in theory, especially since it makes more 'passive' enemy AI acceptable, you gotta move forward & engage or time out, so it nerfs slow snipey strats some. But it's quite random; some battles in close succession I switched between "crush on turn 5/20" to "barely win on turn 20/20." Notably, the 20/20 one earlier was interestingly designed, but a little too brutal to standard strats. You have Jeanne corner by a Zodiac Demon who has HP regen, so the party has to catch up with her, and there are two corridors. In retrospect, I guess the game wants you to rush just one corridor and leave the goodies & drops from the other, but I did two out of completionism, and just barely finished off the demon in time - he regens a good amount every turn, so you really need the beatdown of a lot of people on him. But fine, whatever, a little scary but I get the idea, and if I'd timed out I'm pretty sure I could have handled the fight no problem.
For the final battles, they are for the most part curbstomps against easy enemies, especially if you FAQ'd and found out that running a free stage a 2nd time inexplicably opens up better items in its shop (there is 0 hint in-game to this effect). Also gives you lots of free levels for your archer (enemies there are level 60 but trapped on roofs and basically free kills at range, so Marcel went from L51->57 in a single battle or the like). So... why am I whining? The final boss is like a Fire Emblem tank in that he's got tons of subtractive defense and tons of subtractive magic defense. And tons of HP. And
20% HP regen. Yeah, he can't really threaten me at all, but I can't threaten HIM, similar to the !Zodiac earlier, so I'll just time out and lose despite being in good health. Regen is tricky on bosses - even FFX Jecht's fairly scrubby healing is reasonably notable for keeping you honest. Too much regen just risks locking you out of ever winning. FE Radiant Dawn Dheginsea might have crazy healing, but he also has comparatively bad HP and elemental/weapon weaknesses. Now, yes, JDA has defense & MDef debuffing as well as attack buffing, but you also only have 6 skill slots, and these abilities aren't normally a winning play the rest of the game. If I ran axe dudes then I'd have Helm Splitter, but I don't, and I shouldn't be forced to run the inaccurate plotless wonders who can break defense, so I get to just marvel at the 0-30 damage I can do per character untransformed against 338 HP healed per round. Transforming & using Burning Auras allows me to keep up with the regen, but not really beat it, and then it runs out. And invoking GRIND2WIN would mean having to replay the earlier fight in the final battle sequence, something I have increasingly less patience for, especially since JDA fights don't particularly speed up when you're OP (still get to order your merry troupe to walk around the map and wait on enemy turns). Screw this.
Plot commentary: I held off chatting more about this since after my previous post on the topic, I was rewarded by CK unintentionally spoiling the game for me despite him not even playing it. ("Oh, is the plot twist this element in the midgame that you haven't got to yet that you wouldn't expect to be in the midgame? I read the spoilers!" Okay, done whining, it's JDA plot, whatevs.
) Anyway... I guess I'm somewhat unique in that I'm not someone who thinks the plot ended up a total disaster, but don't think it was nearly as good as Dhyerwolf does, and don't agree with Pyro that it gets worse toward the end. For me, the second half plot is way better. The first half of the game fundamentally fails at everything not related to the Liane / Roger / Jeanne / France love square. The midgame (Chapter 4) is the best by a mile (kilometer?), and the last half of the game is at least acceptable generic JRPG fantasy (rather than uninspired political historical fiction). Gilvaroth gets to ham it up, you go fight demon lords, etc. Nothing special, but tolerable.
Spoilers: Of course, IMHO, the obvious historical plot point would have best come at the END of the game rather than in the middle... I guess it sorta works where it is, but come on, this is a rare excuse for a good tragic ending.Anyway, character worth is something like Liane > Roger >>> everyone else. The side PC characters are almost all lame, uninteresting, and plotless; I guess La Hire & Beatrix gets little backstory arcs at least, but it's some sad work here. Early villains are all lame despite getting tons of screentime. e.g. Talbot - come on, for someone who fights you so much, he should have more presence than freakin' FF13 Rosch. I guess the 3 Therions are mildly better. The biggest problem is Jeanne; she's the main character, she needs to carry here, but she doesn't. She's a Mary Sue, which is fine, but she's a really bland and uninteresting one, which is hugely disappointing. She doesn't have to have weird quirks or craziness or flaws to be interesting, just give her *something*. She's also decreed to be charismatic kind of by fiat; she never really sold *actual charisma* to me. The fact that most of the "play Jeanne up" comments come from Gilles, who is correctly portrayed as a bit of a creeper, doesn't help; he's a biased source as to just how awesome we should believe Jeanne is. After Jeanne (for reasons I won't go into) loses the ability to hear "the Voice" (aka her historical alleged divine visions), Gilles has a snappy cheer-Jeanne-up rhetorical question: "Do you really think people followed you just because you heard The Voice?" A nice line if I could figure out a reason in-game, but nope! She's the leader precisely because she's claiming to be God's prophet and a super transforming magic knight girl, not anything of her own. Sigh.
To end on a positive note, Jeanne does work very nicely to set up a foil for Liane, at least. Jeanne gets all the generic heroic / idealistic lines, while Liane is allowed to make mistakes, be pragmatic, scared, vary between berserk courage and cowardice, etc. It makes for a nice contrast! So yeah, there are some good things in JDA's writing, which was a pleasant surprise after the slog that was the early writing. And despite the whining above, JDA's a reasonable enough strat RPG most of the time, so it was enjoyable enough if you're the type who likes strat RPGs.
