As of late, one of the genres receiving more attention and releases than in previous years is that of the fuzzily defined Action/RTS hybrid. Incorporating the hack n’ slash or run n’ gun elements of the traditional action game with top-down tactical strategy aspects for a streak of complexity, this is a genre that arguably has yet to fully come into its own. This is largely due to inherent ambitious goals, as hybrid game genres are attempting to perform well on two levels, whereas many games fail to perform well on just one. This brings us to the subject of today’s monograph, Enlight Software’s War and Warriors: Joan of Arc, which is a telling example of the difficulty in realizing these aspirations.
With a similar play-style to that of Koei’s Dynasty Warriors and design overtones along the lines of the Capcom classic Knights of the Round, this title certainly contains some appealing elements at first glance. However, all that ends fairly quickly. The player is initially cast in the role of Joan of Arc on a mission for the French against the forces of the dastardly English, and the adventure begins in the third-person combat scheme. It is not until several levels later that the top-down RTS elements coming into play. One of the first things the player will experience is a rather stiff sense of movement and a feeling of detachment from the combat, if not the world in general. Often strikes by the player or the NPCs will miss when passing right through an opponent, or hit when slicing through the air above and around a target. To further exacerbate this, missile attacks, such as bolts and arrows, cause even the most heavily-armored character to flinch or fall down upon impact, interrupting any attacks or movement that happens to be occurring at the time.
As for the other half of the control scheme, a major issue with any game that is so heavily reliant on the commanding of multiple armies is lackluster AI and pathing, which this title has in spades. Quite often the player may order his troops to assail this garrison or that barricade, glance away for a moment to manage another group, and come back to find his battalion conducting a fifty man conga line death march rather than moving about in a defensive group. Moreover, the wily English appear have planted many a defensive bush, which serve quite well in trapping French soldiers. This can further snowball into a large-scale disaster with more and more troops becoming caught up on the first trapped NPC until you have half your forces milling about these deadly shrubberies. On a disturbingly regular basis, plot-advancing events may or may not be triggered by the same player actions, barring further progress in the game and necessitating the reloading or restarting of a given level. Other events are mysteriously, if not inexplicably cued, leaving the player wondering what they did or did not do in order to create the final outcome.
The leading of your forces is conducted by an assortment of commanders, each of whom is loosely based on a famous figure in French military history. While the player can command all of their forces via the RTS perspective, only certain commanders can be controlled in the third-person mode, and it is naturally these characters which have various micromanagement features. These include modifying character statistics with points awarded after gaining a level, in addition to Health and Energy Points, the latter of which allows the character to unleash extensive combos, each of which can also be upgraded. Additionally, the playable commanders can gain new weapons and armor, in addition to gems or jewelry that modify the character’s statistics, offensive and defensive capabilities.
The graphics engine is more or less visually appealing, if somewhat unremarkable. While it is evident that a fair amount of effort went into the character design the same cannot be said for the animation, and the game world has a universal “generic green” theme going on. While one couldn’t really expect a wide variety of locales, given that large portions of the game take place more or less within spitting distance of the last, one might hope they could distinguish one level from the next. Sound is similarly bland, with a standard-issue soundtrack, and some of the more painful French accents to be found in gaming today.
Rife with these issues, what could have been a pleasant revisit to familiar themes in a new package quickly falls into an extended study of the limits of human masochism. In the end, one simply has to take Joan of Arc as part of the growing pains of the hybrid game genres, and it is perhaps best left at that.
