There was a time when a vile demon king had risen up to terrorize the country. Five heroes countered the hell-spawned threat, using armlets imbued with the power of God. But as time passed, things changed. One of the heroes is now the “uncle” and advisor to the boy-king of England. It is his desire that the young king lives forever and rule supreme. To that end, the English have begun a campaign to conquer France, using all manner of creature – from beasts to elves.

But it was not enough. The advisor decided that for his king to rule forever, the old power of the demon must be called forth, and the boy used as a vessel for that demon king. There were few to oppose the plan, and the one that did was quickly and quietly disposed of.

However, even the best-laid plans can sometimes be put awry by unexpected resistance from unlikely places. One of the ancient wristlets fell into the hands of a young French girl, who used it to call upon the powers of Heaven to encase her in ethereal armor, unleashing powerful attacks upon the enemies of her homeland.

Jeanne D’Arc is a tactical role-playing game from Level 5, published by SCEA and released on the PSP handheld system. The game has approximately 40 hours of gameplay, with 14 playable characters and the ability to customize them. Death is simply a matter of not finishing the level and gaining the experience bonus awarded at the successful conclusion of the stage.

The backdrop for this tale is the Hundred Year War between France and England. The story is loosely based on the exploits of the French heroine, Jeanne D’Arc (known by the English name of Joan of Arc). The story begins in a small French village where a young girl and her friend (Liane) are asked to deliver herbs to a local church. They are almost there when a sound comes from the forest. A knight rides out of the woods, injured, and he falls to the ground at the foot of the church. Tied to his waist is a satchel, emitting a glow. The young woman, Jeanne, reaches her hand tentatively toward the satchel, drawn on by the glow. Something snakes from the bag and wraps around her wrist, glowing brightly. She is alarmed, naturally, but unhurt. When the glow stops, she finds that a wristlet has attached itself to her.

No time to admire it, foul creatures attack and a voice (which the young Jeanne calls the Voice of the Lord) tells her to grab the fallen knight’s sword and attack. She does and quite successfully, too. It is not until the next battle, in the burned-out village of her family, that the wristlet shows its power, transforming Jeanne’s humble clothes into a brilliant armor, bearing some resemblance to what one might suppose an avenging angel would wear. She is well protected and a formidable force, now set on the path to ruin the plans of the demon-imbued boy-king.

Told through cut scenes, done is the typical Japanese anime style, the game has a building curve, taking the player deeper into the tale. You will gain more companions on the journey, but can only place five into a battle (at the start of the fight).

The combat phase, itself, is pretty straightforward. The battleground begins with a load-out section, in which you can change weapons or armor, or even distribute skills to those in the group. Then an area lights up and allows you to place five members of your troupe into the scenario. There are conditions for the battle and then it begins. You get a chance to move each of your team. When they are selected, you are given a grid over the landscape, which shows the extent of their movement. You move, can decide whether to attack, use a skill (which drains a bar that is equivalent to mana), use an item from your inventory – like a healing herb, or wait. Once you have gone through all of that, your turn ends. An attack will sometimes lead to a counterattack, depending on the type of unit you are attacking. If, for example, you get within one square of an archer and melee attack, the archer – needing to be two squares away for the bow to be of use – will not retaliate.

Jeanne also has the ability to transform into her heavenly armor. However, she can only do this once within a scenario, and the power of the armor lasts only a few turns. If, though, she attacks an enemy, and kills it, she gets a bonus that basically gives her another turn. This is demonstrated effectively in an early level where you can plot your moves and take out quite a good portion of the enemy force before the power fades.

Almost everything yields experience points, which translate into new levels, as well as the ability to use different armor, skills and weapons. There are also free combat areas and you can always revisit areas you have battled in as you move around the map.

Some of the problems occur early in the game. The AI seems to take a vacation when it could actually do you in. This is a game that plays out like a chess match. You make all your moves and then the enemy AI makes its turn. As the phase plays out, you can start to see holes in your strategy, and may actually cringe when you see how open you have left a member of your team (there is a unity defensive bonus when team members are in proximity of each other). Sometimes, though, the game does not pick up on it and you can escape the error. If you fail a scenario, it is game over, and you have to reload from the last saved point. This means waiting on load times.

The digression from the true story of Jeanne is for the sake of gameplay and as this is a fantasy tactical RPG title, it works well. The game has a small(ish) learning curve, but is a visual delight. The gameplay itself is addictive and the game is recommended for those PSP owners looking for a good game – whether you are a fan of Japanese RPGs or not. This is fun stuff.

Gameplay: 8.8
The difficulty curve ramps up as you progress through the game and the controls are easy to learn and use. There is some suspect AI at time, especially when you realize you’ve made a tactical error and the game’s AI does not take advantage of it, but the game still provides a range of mission types as well as a lot of entertainment.

Graphics: 9.0
Sure, they are basically a 2D scheme juxtaposed with an isometric (and rotatable) camera to give the impression of 3D, but while some of the cut scene material is tried and true, the game still gives a very bright and lush rendering that is – as far as eye candy is concerned – absolutely delicious on this platform.

Sound: 7.4
Solid music and some of the in-game effects you’ve heard before. A decent supporting cast member but nothing that truly shines on its own.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Nothing overly complex here. This is a tactical RPG, which means you have to think your moves through, and level up (and equip) your party members appropriately. Those that have played this type of game before should not have a problem with the concepts presented; those who have not will find the learning curve small.

Concept: 8.5
A handheld tactical RPG that is visually wonderful and does a great job in terms of gameplay. Give Level 5 credit for taking some of the best elements of the genre, combining them with a few new ideas and dropping them into a solid gaming backdrop.

Overall: 8.9
The game has a few minor problems but when looking at the overall scope of the game, and what it achieves on the handheld platform, this is a pretty impressive title. It plays well, you will find that the characters have a bit of personality (yes, even Liane – whose value is definitely in the role of healer or spellcaster), and the game’s missions are diverse enough to give you a reason to keep moving the story forward. This is a terrific PSP title.

Donald Trump’s recent budget proposal included billions of dollars in Social Security cuts. The proposed cuts were a huge betrayal of his campaign promise to protect our Social Security system. Fortunately for Social Security’s current and future beneficiaries, he has little chance of getting these cuts past the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats.

So Trump and his budget director/chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has long been hostile to Social Security, are trying another tactic to cut our earned benefits. They are pursuing a long game to reach their goal. In a divide-and-conquer move, the focus is not Social Security. At least, not yet.

Last week, the Trump administration revealed that it is planning to employ the so-called chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) in a way that does not need congressional approval. “Chained CPI” might sound technical and boring, but anyone who has closely followed the Social Security debate knows better. It has long been proposed as a deceptive, hard-to-understand way to cut our earned Social Security benefits.

Trump plans to switch to the chained CPI to index the federal definition of poverty. If he succeeds, the impact will be that over time, fewer people will meet the government’s definition of poverty—even though in reality, they will not be any less poor. The definition is crucial to qualify for a variety of federal benefits, including Medicaid, as well as food and housing assistance. The announcement was written blandly about considering a variety of different measures, but anyone who knows the issue well can easily read the writing on the wall.

So, what does this have to do with Social Security? Like the poverty level, Social Security’s modest benefits are automatically adjusted to keep pace with inflation. If not adjusted, those benefits will erode, slowly but inexorably losing their purchasing power over time. These annual adjustments are already too low, but they are better than no adjustment at all. The chained CPI would make these adjustments even less adequate.

Proponents of the chained CPI say that it is better at measuring “substitution,” but don’t be fooled. The current inadequate measure already takes into account substitution of similar items. This is the idea that if the price of beef goes up, you can substitute chicken. In contrast, the chained CPI involves what are called substitutions across categories. If your planned vacation abroad goes up, you can stay home and buy a flat screen television and concert tickets instead.

Of course, neither form of substitution is much help to seniors and people with disabilities whose health care costs are skyrocketing. There’s no substitution for hospital stays and doctor visits. Those who propose the chained CPI are apparently fine with letting seniors who can’t afford even chicken substitute cat food.

The idea of substitution within or across categories makes no sense for people with no discretionary income. If all of your money goes for medicine, food and rent, how does substitution make sense? If you are so poor that your children go to bed hungry, how do you substitute?

Back in 2012, President Barack Obama proposed a so-called Grand Bargain to cut Social Security using the chained CPI, in return for Republicans agreeing to increase taxes on the wealthy. The goal of this Grand Bargain was ostensibly to reduce the deficit, despite the fact that Social Security does not add a single penny to the deficit.

Grassroots activists around the country fought back, and Obama ultimately realized his error. He removed the chained CPI from his budget proposals and endorsed expanding, rather than cutting, Social Security’s modest benefits. Social Security expansion is now the official position of the Democratic Party.

Yet Republicans have still continued to push Social Security cuts, including the chained CPI. Back in December 2017, they passed a massive tax cut for corporations and the super-wealthy. Afterwards, they used the predictable deficits their tax cuts caused as an excuse to call for cutting Social Security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans made well-publicized statements about the so-called “need” to cut Social Security. What was much more secret was a provision in the tax bill which replaced the measure used to index the tax brackets with the chained CPI.

Now, Trump wants to apply the chained CPI to the calculation of poverty rates. This will directly hurt many seniors and people with disabilities by making it more difficult to qualify for Medicaid and other programs many of them rely on, including food and housing assistance. It is also a long-term threat to Social Security itself.

The strategy is clear: Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress plan to apply chained CPI everywhere else, and then say that it is only common sense and indeed fair that we apply it to Social Security as well. We should be consistent, right?

Trump thinks that he can get away with executing this long-game attack on Social Security quietly, while the media and public are focused on his tweets, name calling, and scandals. But we must not be distracted. If we do not stop this attack in its tracks, our earned benefits will be next.

If you want to forestall another fight over cutting Social Security through the chained CPI, call your members of Congress, write to your local paper, and tell your friends: No chained CPI! No chained CPI for our earned benefits! No chained CPI for the most vulnerable among us!

This quiet effort to embed the chained CPI is a fight Trump does not want to have, certainly in an election year. But it is one we will bring to him. Grassroots activism defeated the chained CPI before. This time it will be harder because Trump can substitute the chained CPI without legislation. That means we have to simply fight harder. If we stick together, we surely will win. And we must. All of our economic security depends on it.

Death Jr. is a new action platforming game that seamlessly blends elements from first-person shooters with the exploration of a third-person platformer and serves up a large dose of intense gameplay and weapon heavy combat for the PSP.

My PSP is so nice looking that I almost don’t like taking it out of its protective sleeve, and I even cover it with a tissue when I’m charging it. “Goodnight, sweet prince,” I’ll whisper into the headphone jack before I go to sleep every … morning.

Okay, well, I admit, having to actually touch my PSP is probably the best part of playing Death Jr.. I really and truly wanted to like this game, but it has some problems that prevented me from doing so.

The camera is terrible. Things are bad enough in any third-person action game when a large group of enemies tries to overwhelm you, but when the camera decides to focus on a patch of grass in the middle of such a battle, well, I don’t think I need to say any more. A bad camera pretty much ruins any game, but having tight, responsive controls usually helps the situation a lot.

Unfortunately, Death Jr. doesn’t have tight, responsive controls. Trying to lock on to enemies with the right shoulder button while simultaneously jumping, shooting, and slashing isn’t that easy on the PSP. On a regular controller that didn’t have a screen attached to it, it wouldn’t be as big of a problem, but as it is, it just feels really awkward. This is, of course, assuming that when you do hit the right shoulder button, it will actually lock on to an enemy. You can destroy just about everything you see in Death Jr. , which lends itself to the problem of, say, locking on to a parked car, rather than a charging enemy.

You might be wondering how this game actually plays, how it feels aside from the bad control and camera. Three words: Devil May Cry. We have one button to jump, one to shoot our equipped long-range weapon, and another to slash with our giant scythe.

Death Jr. doesn’t have much in the way of a story to pad the UN-fun gameplay. It seems that the writers for many games these days think that creating a bunch of self-consciously quirky characters is going to make the game a hit. Death Jr. sports a cast of “off the wall” characters such as a dead guppy and a goth girl (bless their black hearts) with OCD, and yet the best they can muster up is a fart joke. Fart jokes aren’t funny, they never have been, and they never will be. It might appeal to 10-year-olds, though.

The graphics are good enough, at least. The levels are pretty bland otherwise and aren’t particularly inspired. The music consists of (from what I can tell) one droning hip-hop beat. Why hip-hop? Has it become so ingrained in our society’s consciousness that rap music is always associated with death and killing rather than being a post-modern musical art form, that it would be featured in a game that stars the very spawn of death itself? Nah, that couldn’t be.

By the later stages, the platforming sections of Death Jr., combined with hordes of enemies and the bad camera can be totally infuriating. There are some mildly enjoyable weapons for us to use as we progress further into the game, however.

One of the most mind-bogglingly outrageous features of Death Jr. is its “save anywhere” system. Press the start button on the PSP, and you’ll see a save option … or rather, insanity disguised as a save option. Normally, being able to save anywhere is good when, for instance, your girlfriend is screaming at you from the other room that she’s out of wine, or, say, your neighbor is playing bagpipes while drunk. We might be playing Death Jr. when one of these events arises, so we’ll save the game in the middle of an aggravating level.

A few hours later, we’ll turn on the PSP, put in our copy of Death Jr. and load our save game. Allow me digress for a second … the levels in the game are accessed via a central hub, which in this case is a museum that DJ and his friends are visiting on a school field trip. Pandora, the aforementioned goth girl with OCD, finds an ancient wooden chest on display (gee, I wonder what that could be?). Our good friend DJ, in a stunning display of strength, opens the box for Pandora. Big mistake, because, well …you know. Anyway, it’s up to us to save DJ’s friends, each of whom are trapped in some sort of alternate nether-dimension, which, like I said, is accessed from the museum.

So when we come back to our PSP a few hours later (after buying wine, or suffering through the “Call to Arms” 10 times in a row) and load our saved game, we find ourselves back in that really annoying level we were trying to beat, right? The one we were almost done with? No! We’re back in the museum, in that central hub, and guess what? We get to play that level all over again!

It’s a cardinal sin, my friends, to do that to a man (or woman). It’s not right to punish the player like that, but you know … I really don’t mind it that much anymore. When I play through another level again, I realize that Death Jr. is bland, boring, infuriating, and above all, painfully disappointing.

easy listen. tracks listed below:

1. Good morning: 0:00
2. 泉に誘って: 4:52
3. 電話しないで: 9:20
   4.シンジラレネーション: 14:34
4. 水の都: 18:08
5. コルトレーンで愛して: 22:51
6. Do you remember me: 28:22
7. 黒いマニキュア: 32:22
8. Good-bye Eggman: 38:20
9. シャレード’88: 43:10

Can ‘Final Fantasy XIII-2’ compete in a market dominated by Western RPGs like ‘Mass Effect’ and ‘The Elder Scrolls’? Read our full review for the answer!

From the earliest days of console role-playing games, titles produced in Japan have both defined and dominated the genre. The importance of Yuji Horii’s seminal Dragon Quest cannot be overstated, but no series did more to spread the international popularity of JRPGs than Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Final Fantasy.

Starting last generation, a shift began to take place. Studios like BioWare and Bethesda — both veterans of PC development — delivered titles that redefined just what console role-playing games could be. Ask today’s average North American gamer what her favorite RPG is, and you are far more likely to hear The Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect than anything from Japan.

This shift in RPG tastes coincided with a difficult period for Square Enix. The mixed reception to Final Fantasy XIII, and the slow-motion train wreck of Final Fantasy XIV, conspired to “greatly damage” the brand. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the series’ shot at redemption. Does the game successfully update the Final Fantasy formula for modern players? Read on for our full review of Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Though it is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 smartly does not count on players being familiar with that divisive game. Accessibility is a clear design goal of Final Fantasy XIII-2, from its battle system to the wealth of information offered in its Datalog menu, and players deterred by having not completed the first game will be missing out on an experience that easily competes with the best RPGs available.

Over the months leading up to Final Fantasy XIII-2’s release, Square Enix issued a frankly staggering number of trailers for the game. That abundance of sneak peeks does nothing to blunt the impact of FFXIII-2’s remarkable visual presentation. The game’s engine is astonishingly nimble, able to seamlessly move between rendered footage, in-engine cut-scenes and gameplay.

While Final Fantasy XIII-2 is jam-packed with screen-filling pyrotechnic spectacles of color and light, it is the game’s characters that leave the most vivid impression. Characters look simply fantastic throughout, with flowing hair and elaborate costumes and weapons. Textures are often astounding — facial details, particularly lips and eyes, are especially impressive. But it is not just technical excellence that sets Final Fantasy XIII-2’s visuals apart from the competition, it is the artistry of their execution.

The game’s characters, highlighted by protagonists Noel and Serah, have tremendously expressive faces. There are no dead-eyed automatons here, and the game neatly avoids any uncanny valley creepiness. Final Fantasy XIII-2’s story frequently shifts tone from whimsical to deadly serious, and the performances of the central characters always keep pace.

It’s not just the properly lip-synced dialog or the natural body language or the clarity of the emotions reflected on the characters’ faces, but also the cinematic camera work and the exceptional voice acting (especially from Spirited Away’s Jason Marsden as Noel and Darksiders’ Liam O’Brien as Caius) that makes Final Fantasy XIII-2’s cast so believably alive. Though it could not be more aesthetically different, only Uncharted 3 compares where character performances are concerned.

The game’s audio landscape is every bit as impressive as its visual assault. Cocktail jazz, orchestral bombast, and a convincing approximation of death metal (“Do it!”) all have a place in FFXIII-2’s aural spectrum, along with simple, melancholy piano and an explosive range of sound effects. Many games use music in an effort to amplify the emotional resonance of their onscreen action. Where others try, Final Fantasy XIII-2 succeeds.

The game’s audiovisual excellence is backed-up by a flexible, engaging turn-based battle system that offers a huge amount of depth, but does not require that players dedicate themselves to micro-managing every aspect. Again, accessibility is the rule. Players can assign custom roles to their characters and specify each individual attack. Alternately, they can allow the game to manage that for them, and simply rely on the “Auto-Chain” command.

Monsters defeated in battle can be recruited to fight alongside Serah and Noel, and can be leveled up just like the main characters. Finding and training new battle companions adds an undeniably Pokemon-esque element to the game that remains fun throughout. It helps that those monsters show a great deal of personality, and are often endearingly goofy, from Chocobos to the many iterations of flan — yes, flan, the caramel-topped custard — that appear (Flanbanero, Flanborg, Flandit, Flanitor, Miniflan… it’s a long list).

Battles are random, but not unavoidable. Players can choose to flee from monsters once they’ve appeared, though there is a benefit to landing the first blow, and a penalty should monsters do the same. That said, for long stretches of the game, there are many, many battles to contend with, and avoiding too many of them will leave players ill-equipped to face the gauntlet of bosses that await at the story’s end.

Final Fantasy XIII-2’s complex story is revealed gradually, and centers on Serah’s search for her sister, Lightning, who is lost not in space, but in time. It’s a novel and productive framework for the game, and the designers at Square Enix make the most of it. As Serah and Noel use the Historia Crux to travel through time, they revisit familiar locations at varying points in history, often to find stark differences — a peaceful and friendly locale in one time may be dark and dangerous in another.

Although destinations in time must be unlocked, players are free to explore available locations at will. Occasionally, this freedom makes it difficult to discern the path forward, though exploration has its rewards. In addition to the twisting central story, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is packed with optional side-quests, not unlike, say, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Those side-quests occasionally span multiple points in time, and cannot all be completed when first encountered, adding yet more playtime to an already long game.

The density of Final Fantasy XIII-2’s story can be intimidating. There is a degree of built-in ambiguity in the fragmented nature of the storytelling, and the central characters’ evolving understanding of exactly what is transpiring — to say nothing of the changes wrought by tampering with the timeline. What is important is that the story consistently connects emotionally — once again, thanks largely to the game’s amazing character work — and that the disparate story threads do come together to form a deeply satisfying whole.

Square Enix has been upfront about its intention to extend Final Fantasy XIII-2’s story with downloadable content, and it is widely known that the game ends with the words “To Be Continued.” Without giving away any specifics, I will offer this: Final Fantasy XIII-2 tells a complete tale and ends at a logical point. The events that set up the “To Be Continued” tag flow directly from the game’s story. In short, it’s more The Empire Strikes Back than Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows: Part 1.

If ever there were a game that deserved to resurrect the reputation of its franchise, this is it. More than just an update to a well-established formula, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is vital and modern, and deserves to be the blockbuster it was designed to be. Emotionally engrossing, technically dazzling, and deeply playable, Final Fantasy XIII-2 delivers the goods, and is highly recommended.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is available now on PS3 and Xbox 360. Game Rant played the PS3 version for this review.