Thank you Aksys Games for sending us a review code!

In Jack Jeanne you play as Kisa Tachibana (you can rename her) who is the younger sister of Tsuki Tachibana. Together with Soshiro Yonaga, they spent countless hours as kids playing out dramas and cultivating their imagination. Tsuki went to the Univeil Drama School and became a renowned actor and joined a popular acting troupe after his graduation. Sadly, nobody has heard from him since.

Not long after Tsuki’s disappearance, the principal from Univeil Drama School offers Kisa a free ride to the school as long as she meets three conditions. Since her parents don’t have much money, this is a very enticing offer. The conditions are that she must conceal her gender, as the students are all male. She must also earn the trust of her classmates and get a leading role in the final performance for the year.

On the day of auditions, Kisa sees her childhood friend, Soshiro, who is shocked to find her there. The principal makes an exception of Soshiro knowing her true identity. Kisa also makes some new friends as she finds out that she has been assigned to the Quartz class. The classes in Univeil Drama School are like factions and they compete against each other in the newcomer, summer, fall, winter, and final performances.

Each class has their own strengths like singing and dancing. The actors are also labeled as Jacks if they are playing male roles and Jeannes if they play as females. The lead roles are Jack Ace and Jeanne Ace. The more effeminate males are typically cast as Jeannes. Some of the teachers are pretty flamboyant as well. Your character will be cast in both roles. She will also be poached to switch over to other classes as a result of her performances.

As an Otome (reverse harem) visual novel, your female character can romance most of her classmates. The kicker is that most of them don’t know she’s a girl right away. This game is broken down into school days with a countdown until the next performance. Each day your character can decide on what to train on to increase her various attributes. Each of the love interests has a favored trait that you must level up to thirty to unlock all of their story sequences. On my first play through, I over-leveled the other attributes to fifteen and didn’t see all of the possible cut scenes with my childhood friend. If you don’t go past ten on your undesired traits, you should be fine. The traits are Spirit, Insight, Voice, Agility, Charm, and Drama.

During the week, each choice you make deducts ten points from your health. On the weekend, you can hang out with a student of your choice, or fully replenish your health. Hanging out with students raises their affection level towards you. During the school week, you can rest and recoup seventy percent of your health. If your health reaches zero, you may not successfully learn the lesson being taught that day.

Like any school year, students look forward to summer break. During summer break, any training you do has an experience bonus so this is an ideal time to focus on your desired trait. Each route has an awkward hot springs moment if you decide to risk going there. Christmas day is where you finalize your romance option and the story will be unique going forward including gender reveal methods and the format of the final performance where your character must secure a lead role to stay enrolled at the Univeil Drama School.

Replays in Jack Jeanne are a mixed bag. It’s nice that you’re able to fast forward through previously read text, but you still have to actively participate in selecting your daily training session and who you will hang out with on the weekends. Skipping the songs is helpful, but you have to complete them during the performances.

Jack Jeanne is the first visual novel rhythm game combination that I have played. There are two types of rhythm games. For the singing ones you have to use the left and right shoulder buttons to intercept the notes as they switch lanes. There are also sections where you have to mash the X button. The dancing rhythm game uses the left shoulder button, up arrow, right shoulder button, and the B button. In this mode, you have to hit the note as it lines up on the bottom of the screen. Each rhythm game lets you pick the difficulty level of easy, normal, and expert. Both rhythm game modes have special notes that will increase the affection of your love interest if successfully executed.

The rhythm game music is decent, but none of the songs were catchy enough for me to want the soundtrack. The background music is fitting and the Japanese voice acting is well done.

I like how the character’s facial expressions change as they talk. During the dance sequences the characters are 3D rendered and animated in the background. Like many visual novels, you can unlock character art as you play through the different routes. I wish replaying routes wasn’t as tedious though.

Morally, Jack Jeanne isn’t too bad. Some of the plays have violence, but no blood is shown. One of the routes has a theme revolving around suicide.  The story revolves around deception so that’s a big theme. There is some mild language (d*mn). One of the plays takes place in a town of pleasure and has some brothel scenes. Nothing is shown, just implied. There are some tight outfits and most of the male classmates go topless at the beach. For obvious reasons, your character does not. Last but not least, there are some references to gods as they interact with your character throughout the different routes.

Overall, Jack Jeanne has some interesting characters, but playing through their routes is a bit repetitive. It would be nice if the stats carried over, or if there was a way to skip ahead like other visual novels allow you to. The asking price is reasonable, but I would recommend holding off for a sale.