I was hoping to have Jeanne d’Arc finished by now, but I’ve been too busy fighting Free Battles and binding Skills instead of progressing the story, so I haven’t gotten very far. The Human Barbeque scene is long over, and it played out like I’d predicted ~_~. Right now I’m fighting reapers while slowly learning who the real bad guys are. My last game ended at the start of the Luxuria battle.

I’ve never played it before, but I’m estimating I’m at the 3/4th mark, because that’s the point where things always start to fall apart for me. Not that I’m sick of Jeanne d’Arc or anything. Au contraire, I’m having a blast. It’s just that the flush of the new has worn off, I’ve gotten used to the good stuff and slowly the not-so-good stuff is starting to bother me juuuust a teeny little bit.

For example, I’ve fallen into a gameplay rut. My party is largely finalized (Jeanne, Gilles, Marcel, La Hire and Richard, with Colet and Beatrix as subs) and they are pretty strong so a bit of complacency is setting in. There are lots of skills around, but most of them are useless, especially given the tiny number of slots, so my skills are finalized as well. Unless something wonderful comes my way, only upgrades I see myself making are updated versions of current equips, e.g. HP Recovery III instead of II, etc. So since I use the same party and the same skills, it’s only natural that the battles feel the same after a while. It’s not just Jeanne d’Arc, this happens to me a lot in other SRPGs as well.

Little things like frequent loading screens and enemies taking their time thinking before they move are also dragging down the experience a bit. Again this has been present from the start, I was just too excited to be bothered by them at first.

The story is also dragging on a bit for me. From the start I was mainly interested in who would get burned at the stake. Stuff that’s happening now with possession and evil royals and kings with mommy-issues and stuff is barely enough to elicit a yawn from me. I don’t care how it ends, but luckily the battles are still fun enough to keep me moving on. As far as SRPGs go, it’s one of the better ones I’ve played so far.

In other news, I seem to be relapsing into my old habit of starting a new game when I’m about to finish another and then abandoning the old for the new. Jeanne d’Arc supplanted Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, and now Tokimeki Memorial 4 is threatening to take Jeanne‘s place. Only it’s not that interesting so far, so I’ve been able to keep the change at bay for now.

I love proper dating sims (i.e. not visual novels) but the girls I’ve seen so far in TM4 all look rather homely. And they have near-identical faces, unlike in TMGS or even the original TM. I hope they have unique, likeable personalities to make up for it, or this isn’t going to take very long. It would be a pity though, because the game interface is beautiful. The DS TMGS games don’t come anywhere near the level of polish this game displays. I’m like a country mouse that just went to the city, playing . Too bad there’s more to making fun games than just graphics, eh?

But really, I only just started. I’m only about a “month” into the game. It’s more complex than Girl’s Side – a few more stats to raise, your cellphone battery dies if you make too many phone calls, there are all kinds of items and skills to juggle, etc. I’m planning to use my first run to get a general feel for it, then I’ll spend subsequent playthroughs actually getting a girl. Usually the sporty character tends to be the easiest, so I’m raising my sports stats as well, just in case. More updates on the story as they occur.