Jack Jeanne (ジャックジャンヌ, translated as Jack Jeanne) is a Otome game produced, scripted, worldview, and character setting by the manga Tokyo Ghoul author, and developed by Broccoli. At the beginning of the project, the setting of "the female lead dressed as a man to enter the opera school that only recruits male students, and then play a woman in the opera" attracted some attention; after the release, the 36 points of "FamiTong" and the evaluation of entering the Platinum Hall made more players look forward to it. Many people can't help but have similar questions: as an otome game, where did its "platinum hall" come from? Innovative gameplay, chic plot, or some other unexpected reason?
"Jack Joan of Arc" was produced by the well-known manga artist Tsui Ishida and set up a number of settings, and received praise after its release
The real Joan of Arc is hard to simply evaluate as "unexpected" or "reasonable". As far as the game itself is concerned, it has neither a major innovation in gameplay, nor a layer of reversals, nor a whimsical idea; correspondingly, its excellence is reflected in its solid quality and touching emotions - regardless of the genre, "making a good game with heart" can always be recognized.
(This article contains no spoilers, so please feel free to read it.) ）
Women dress up as men, attend boys' schools, play female characters... These core designs actually raised a lot of doubts about Jack Joan of Arc before it was released. One of the most important points is that since the heroine is a woman dressed as a man, will the male characters in the game have a bridge of "I actually have 'that feeling' for my brother" in the process of emotional interaction with her, or even deliberately curry favor with BL fans? For some Otome players, this is a matter of principle.
"Jack Joan of Arc" can not be said to be completely absent from such bridges, but the explanations are reasonable, and the more ambiguous interactions generally occur after learning the identity of the protagonist
In addition, "dressing up as a man to enter a male opera school, and then playing a female role in reverse" has also caused many players to have a nesting doll confusion - tossing half a day, the heroine is actually "playing herself", so is her excellent performance and praise in the story out of her own efforts, or gender dividends?
It has even been suggested that because the opera school setting in the game is too similar to the real Takarazuka Opera Company, it is difficult not to think of the problem of "gender interchange": if a male man dressed as a woman enters Takarazuka to play a male character and is well received, the truth will inevitably become a negative news after it is exposed. According to this logic, the identity of the heroine in the game must have a day when the truth is revealed, and how will the plot develop at that time?
Fortunately, after the official release of "Joan of Arc", players' doubts and concerns about the setting have been properly resolved. First of all, the game uses excellent plot and performance to give the heroine the identity and rationality of behavior, the whole process is smooth and natural; secondly, with the basis of the plot and performance, many idealized unfolding can also be explained by "once this setting is accepted..." - they are all fictional works, and women dressed as men to join the men's song and dance troupe are not more outrageous than men dressed as women as idols, not to mention the common settings such as "men go to girls' dormitories as dormitories" and "men go to girls' schools as teachers".
To evaluate an otome game, it is often impossible to avoid the three elements of plot, characters, and dubbing, and "Jack Joan of Arc" performs well in these aspects. To sum it up in one word, it is "solid".
From the beginning of the game, the player can know that the heroine Tachibana Sissa has loved singing, dancing and acting since childhood, and often performs with her brotherSabi Tachibana and Nagashiro Fa Xiaoshi. After the three grew up, his brother Tachibana Jixi entered the opera school "Univeil" and became a star of hope, but after graduation, he did not know where to go. Due to family changes, Hizo was going to give up his dream of acting, but he was suddenly invited by the principal of Univeil to agree to the 3 conditions proposed by the other party - hiding the identity of the woman, establishing a good relationship with his classmates, and playing the leading role in the final performance in exchange for a chance to take the entrance exam.
The heroine's brother also became famous in Univeil
In order to allow the heroine to enroll, the principal put forward 3 conditions, "can not reveal the identity" and "in the final performance to be the protagonist" determine the heroine's lifestyle in the school
According to the game's setting, Univeil is a well-known opera school, and students who can successfully enter this school are equivalent to one foot stepping into the door of the famous theater troupe "Tamasaza". Since Tamasa has only recruited male actors since its inception, and female roles are reversed by male actors, Univeil has also concocted the same method, accepting only male students, and classifying students according to the gender of the roles played - male characters are called "Jack", female characters are called "Joan of Arc", and male and female protagonists are distinguished by "jack Ace, Al Jeanne".
Univeil is divided into 4 academies (which also seem familiar): Onyx, who is good at dancing and has a mostly "Jack" team, Rhodonite, who is a singing specialty and consists mainly of "Joan of Arc", Amber, who is maverick, and Quartz, who is often regarded as a beginner and has a "rough" quality. There is no doubt that the heroine was placed in the Quartz class after entering the school.
The style of the 4 colleges is clear at a glance
With this as the background, "Jack Joan of Arc" tells a story of a royal campus youth with the growth of teenagers as the core. Tachibana's purpose in entering Univeil is not because she envisions a certain man, or the common "hope that someone likes to confess to me at the graduation ceremony under the cherry blossom tree", but to realize her dream of acting, so the problems she encountered in campus life, the interaction with her classmates and seniors, and even the contradictions and exchanges between the academy are closely related to the goal of "to present the best stage to the audience", and rarely "to enhance feelings for the sake of enhancing feelings".
The main plot revolves around 5 performances in the school. Players will soon discover that the script of each performance is actually a portrayal of the inner growth of the characters, and the rehearsal process between performances is an effective means of untying each other's hearts and uniting the entire academy. Because it is a campus story, the problems faced by the characters are also common interpersonal relationships, family relationships, identity, inheritance of previous generations, creative inspiration, etc. in such stories, without excessive exaggeration, and the intervention of the heroine is also reasonable.
It is essential for lone wolf players to realize that "the stage is the result of everyone's efforts"
At the same time, The identity of Hizzo's female costume as a man has become an indispensable means to advance the plot later in the game - although players know that her identity will be exposed, when, how to expose, and what kind of results are caused by exposure, it is still a major suspense that needs to be carefully constructed in the plot. For the avoidance of spoilers, I will not describe it specifically here, but what can be said is that if you have the impression that "even if the protagonist is not a woman dressed as a man, the story can be smoothly advanced, it is better to concentrate on the career", then the second half until the final performance is to make the key setting of "women dressed as men" the initial cause and inevitable result. In this process, the game performance continues to be consistently solid, laying the groundwork natural, the mood is relaxed, and the ending is also a natural success.
There are 6 actionable characters in Jack Joan of Arc: in addition to Shiro Nakiso, there are also Osakuma Shoushou, who is the same grade as the heroine, Miki Shirata, a second-grade senior, Mutsushisuke, a third-grade senior, Takako Kanefumi, and Nechi Kuromon.
The 6 characters all have quite distinct personal characteristics, whether it is the first impression label left on the player when they debuted - such as "red-haired and cheerful idiot", "proud and delicate flower", "reliable predecessor", "boy next door", or the personality gradually displayed in the main plot and personal events, which can generally meet the needs of Otome game "there is always a suitable for you". The heroine's interaction with them will inevitably have some cliché plots, but in the background of the youth and hot-blooded campus, there is also a kind of "routine is old, it is comfortable in people's hearts".
The scene in the main line CG where everyone appears at the same time is also very interesting
The game also puts a lot of effort into the shaping of undeterminable characters. Although the raidable characters are all in Quartz, there are many characters who often appear in the other 3 academies, not only with different personalities, but also complementing the background of the story, not purely tool people. Several seemingly villainous characters are either a tendon and later grow up with the protagonists; or they just don't fit in, but in fact, they only have performances in their minds, and the protagonist insists on his determination and dreams at key moments - the game grasps the scale of both friends and competitors between the characters, which makes it more "friendship, hard work, victory" of the juvenile flavor.
The Undeterminable Character also has many highlights
It is worth mentioning that the voice actors who voice the main characters have a remarkable performance. As a performance-focused game, in addition to interpreting the role, voice actors also have to perform "drama within a play" as roles, sing songs, and grasp the details of the change in tone, which is not easy. It is because of the performances of these voice actors that another of Joan of Arc's big features – play-within-a-play – can stand firm and impress players.
The core gameplay of "Jack Joan of Arc" is mainly composed of two parts: on the one hand, the heroine's daily homework, including running, theory, singing, dancing, role playing, and subject exercises, corresponding to the 6 values of spirit, reading, singing, dance, charm, and expressiveness, respectively, and each value is linked to the favorability of the attackable character. In short, this part belongs to the very common gameplay in the cultivation game, and it is not difficult to grasp which character you want to attack to give priority to increasing the corresponding value.
The value is increased to a certain level, and the corresponding character will also provide buff in the rhythmic gameplay
On the other hand, there is rhythmic gameplay. In the game, the heroine and her party need to go through 5 performances. The performance format is similar to a musical, in addition to the lines, but also to test the singing and dancing level of the characters, so each performance includes 2 to 4 songs, players need to get high scores in these performance tracks, so that Quartz Academy and the heroine personally won the gold medal in the performance rankings.
The rhythm play adopts a very common falling style, and is divided into "singing song" and "dance song" according to the operation distinction. During daily practice, both pieces provide only music, no lyrics, and lyrics, animation and special effects when performing officially - the singing song is matched with a still-screen MV, the dance music is slightly more complex, and 3D animation is used to show the performance of the characters.
"Singing Song" and "Dance Song" are played differently
A combination of similar gameplay is familiar to developer Broccoli, who has tried accordingly in the previous series of love adventure games "His Royal Highness the Prince of Song" and achieved good results. In "Jack Joan of Arc", with the background of the opera school and the growth trajectory of the characters, the rhythmic gameplay can be better integrated into the plot. The design of the stage in the performance itself is already a selling point, and the difference between daily practice and formal performance can make the player easily recall how the characters understood the script and honed the details of the acting skills during the game; if the player is particularly fond of a role, he can even find a lot of foreshadowing from it, which undoubtedly enhances the sense of immersion.
Dance music performed using 3D animation, but often too late to look at the background when focusing on the rhythm
However, perhaps limited to the technical level of the manufacturer, I personally feel that the effect of the still-screen MV in the performance track of "Joan of Jack" is better than that of 3D animation. Of course, this is a matter of opinion for different players, but in any case, its effect on the game experience is obvious.
As mentioned earlier, the biggest feature of "Joan of Arc" is "youth, campus, growth", and has created a solid plot and characters with distinct personalities around this theme. However, by the standards of Otome Games, these designs also create some hidden concerns.
One of the more obvious points is that the love "sweetness" in the game is insufficient. In the first half of the main story, the female identity of the protagonist is almost completely hidden, whether she plays a man or a woman in the script, she is faced with the problem of how to coordinate classmate relations and help other characters get out of difficulties, and even the small hair that knows her real gender rarely involves "actually a girl" in daily dialogue. This makes the main line itself not "sugary", and the experience of players being able to spend time with their favorite male characters only when they go out on rest days is even less romantic.
Some special event CGs also reflect the taste of friendship, and only the player has the consciousness of "attacking each other"
In the middle and late stages, the protagonist is in danger of revealing his identity, but the game handles this identity crisis as a choice between "hiding her identity" and "contributing a better performance", returning to the king of personal growth - this design is of course no problem, but for those who have love pursuits in the Otome game, it is undoubtedly too slow and hot. However, correspondingly, if the player is happy to appreciate this slow heat, carefully experiencing the growth story of the characters, then it is still quite good.
The game is also not flawless in terms of plot details. For example, at the beginning, the reason why the protagonist entered Univeil, the 3 conditions proposed by the principal to her, it requires the player to work hard to accept, and some of the foreshadowings related to it are not recycled until the ending, which is inevitable and regrettable.
In addition, the design of Jack Joan of Arc for multi-week purposes is not very perfect. Although you can skip some of the original dialogue during the multi-week program, many of the content is still lengthy, and the singing and dancing tracks in each performance must be honestly replayed every week... From the perspective of game integrity, this is understandable, but manufacturers should also know that this game has at least 6 character lines, and the story is long and text-heavy, and "giving the player convenience" should be a higher priority than completeness.
I have to repeat it every week, and it is indeed a bit overwhelming
If I were to recommend Joan of Arc in one sentence, I would say it was a solid group drama of youth growth. The game has achieved a good balance in all aspects, perhaps because the sweetness of love is slightly lower and it seems less "otome", but the excellent plot, characters, music, performances, and the touching brought to the player make up for the lack.
Because of this, Jack Joan of Arc is very suitable for players who do not know much about Otome games to "go into the pit", and the "King's Way" plot and game mechanics around their own characteristics can leave a good impression on them. Of course, veteran players can also get a lot of fun out of it.