As you kill bad guys they drop goodies like money, items and lots of skills stones. At first you'll want to collect and equip as many skills as you can, but as the game moves forward you'll either store them for later use or sell them for copious amounts of cash. Why would you store them? Because later on in the game you'll find a way to combine certain stones to create even more powerful stones. And believe me when I say that you may find yourself spending just as much time trying to create new skills stones as you will being on the battlefield.

Then there's the rock-paper-scissors elemental system. Using skill stones, a character can align to a particular element - Sol, Stella, or Luna. While that means weakness against one type of elment it also means strength against another type. While aligning oneself with a particular element can be a gamble, it can also prove to be a godsend in certain fights.

There's also an interesting mechanic called Unified Guard that gives characters a bonus. You can activate this simply by placing more than one character together on the map. The more characters you line up the more powerful your defense will be, making it might difficult for the enemy to deal melee damage. While Unified Guard works well, it doesn't protect you from ranged or magical attacks, but it's quite effective against swords, axes, spears, staves and knives.

Finally, and probably the most interesting feature of Jeanne D'Arc, is the power of the armlet. Jeanne and a select few other characters have armlets that give them the power to transform into demi-god like forms for several turns. While in this state Jeanne gets a special attack that does lots of damage and an interesting ability called Godspeed. Godspeed is a power that lets you continue your turn every time you kill an enemy. Utilizing this skill, it is possible for a player to chain together multiple attacks and kill multiple enemies in one continuous turn. While Godspeed is a general bonus of the armlet's higher form, the special attacks are granted by stones slotted into it. The more gems you slot into your armlet, the more you can transform into this higher state.

As you progress through the game, you find that there are lots of free areas to grind in, get treasure and score skill stones from. These areas are called free battles and they allow you to replay select battles to your heart's content. This of course allows you to level up which gives you better stats and increases the number of skill stone slots available to each character. Beyond the free areas and the scripted battles scattered throughout the world map, you'll also encounter stores where you can buy weapons, armor, items and skill stones and much later in the game an arena where you can take on waves of enemies for fantastic prizes.

While Jeanne D'Arc's combat system is pretty awesome, it is the overall presentation that puts it over the top. The game mixes a thin coating of historical storytelling with high fantasy that includes demons, beastmen, elves, dragons, and fantastic magical powers. While this is interesting enough, Level-5 doesn't shy away from the religious elements of the story at all, but delivers it in a way that is respectful and thought provoking. On the other hand the game doesn't ram its religious connotations down players' throats either, walking a delicate line that works very well for the game's big picture. It should be noted that there are a couple of questionable racial slurs ("frog" and "dog" come to mind) but nothing that anyone will find offensive.