Jack Jeanne

Genre: Visual Novel / Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

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Review:

Jack Jeanne, released in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, is an otome-style Visual Novel game with time management elements and some Music-Rhythm gameplay. The game puts players in the role of Kisa Tachibana, a young woman with dreams of being a performing artist that she had to put on hold to deal with family problems. Shortly after the story starts, she is approached by the principal of the famed Univeil performing arts school who offers her a strange but tempting proposition.

The principal wants to end his school’s outdated tradition of exclusively only allowing male students to attend, but fears that even someone in his position demanding such a change would receive so much pushback that it couldn’t succeed. To assist in his goal, he sought out Kisa, whose brother was famously a skilled student at the school, and asks her to apply for the school under the guise of being an effeminate male student, those typically cast in female roles in plays under the title of Jeannes (with male roles being called Jacks). If Kisa can not only manage to complete her time at the school without being detected, but also be so successful that she’s cast in the lead of the school’s graduating performance, he’ll take care of her financially-ailing family.

While such a gender-bending plot in an anime or otome genre would typically lead to all sorts of hijinks as the gender-disguised girl is nearly caught time and again, this game’s story wisely uses a good deal more subtlety and grace when it comes to the topic of gender. Five hours into my playthrough of the game, Kisa has worried a bit about getting caught when people compliment her on how well she passes for a woman, and at one point one of her friends and classmates freaks out when he tries to act through a kissing scene with her only to realize he can’t not see her as a woman, something he finds highly unsettling.

Rather, most of the plot here is focused on what it takes to be a skilled performer, and also finding out more about the school’s other students. To this latter end, the game does have a relationship system, and you’ll also be given narrative choices every once in a while, though the effect of these choices isn’t always clear and sometimes it just seems like both choices will do the same thing.

While the game does have a story that gradually progresses, as well as countless smaller character moments with the game’s various characters, there’s also the aforementioned time management system, where players must choose one of various classes to have Kisa attend each day, improving one of a handful of stats. Some of the effects of these stats are clear – for example, improving singing and agility will help you with the game’s Music-Rhythm sections, and various characters all have an affinity for one of these stats and building relationships with them will be easier if you put your time in that corresponding stat. However, apart from this, it’s often unclear what, if any, benefits these stats will bestow upon you. What does running, improving your charm, or studying art history do for you other than make the associated characters feel closer to you?

As you whittle down your calendar, you’ll eventually work your way toward one of a handful of major performances your character will be putting on, which come in the form of Music-Rhythm sections, one for singing and one for dancing. The dancing section plays more or less like Guitar Hero, with notes coming down various paths that need to be cleared with a corresponding button in time with the music. The singing portions are a bit more original, with players hitting buttons to shift a cursor left and right to follow a descending path. Both of these Music-Rhythm sections are decent enough, but these seem to be a less-prominent part of the story than the Visual Novel gameplay.

Overall, I think that everything this game does is good, but if I had to point to one complaint it would be that the pacing is a bit slow, with a lot of scenes that seem to boil down to “I need to practice even more!”

One element that I haven’t addressed here is the presentation, and it is absolutely gorgeous, with some stunningly-beautiful anime-style artwork with some rendered in watercolor. There are also brief moments of pre-recorded video and some 3D models, but it’s the hand-made art here that really shines. I do wish it would animate a bit more, but even with that small complaint, this game looks great.

And of course, in a game about performing with music would call for good music, and thankfully this game has a wonderful instrumental soundtrack with a lot of great violin and piano, with some of the highlights being Field of Dreams, Loneliness, Heads or Tails, Life of the Party, Onyx, Quartz, Rhodonite Pt. 2, House of Quartz, Memory About My Brother, Just Like a Robin, A Decadent Life, Snow Falls, A Light Far Away, The Circus of Kirze, and Beyond the Nation, and there are also some very nice vocal performances here, like Beyond the Plane Tree. In short, this game’s beautiful soundtrack is absolutely a match for its visuals.

This is all joined by Japanese-language vocals for most lines, though oddly not all. I don’t speak Japanese, but from what I can tell, the voice acting here seems pretty good to my English-only ears.

Overall, Jack Jeanne is a Visual Novel that I think has all the right elements to be one of the finest games in the genre, but it also packs in a bit more that drags it down a bit – the characters are great and the story is wonderfully-told except the pacing is a too slow, the Music-Rhythm stuff is fine but feels like it should either be more prominent or not included at all, and the lacking animation for the characters is disappointing when everything else about the presentation is absolutely beautiful. I can absolutely see why some praise this as the best Visual Novel game ever made, but personally I only feel that this is a very good entry in the genre… which is still to say that fans of this genre should absolutely get this game.

tl;dr – Jack Jeanne is an otome-style Visual Novel with time management and Music-Rhythm elements that puts players in the role of a young girl posing as a boy to enter a prestigious all-male performing arts school. The writing here is excellent, the visuals are gorgeous, and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful, though the game does have a few issues that drag it down a bit, such as slow pacing. However, fans of Visual Novels games should still absolutely get their hands on this game.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel, Best Music-Rhythm Game, Best Music (by Akira Kosemura)

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