#Rule of rose review ps2

It also has two prominent cases of romantic interest between some of the game’s female cast.

The story deals with dark themes in a heavily abstracted way, as I mentioned, and that includes sexuality and sexual abuse. But even now it struggles to hold even its cult audience, and there’s not so much as a digital release of the game available. As an exploration of individual trauma through allegory and abstraction it’s an unmitigated success, its truly disturbing yet hopeful story shining through in spite of its broken gameplay. Exploration reveals a game world that’s been structured as disparate puzzle pieces meant to be solved, half glimpsed secrets and monsters parsed through a limited understanding that nonetheless paints a picture of the horrors that ‘really’ occurred, all underscored by a beautiful and haunting soundtrack. It’s unquestionably an art game, touched on every level by the attempt to portray a warped vision of childhood: the menus as chalk drawings, the crayon storybooks that bookend each chapter, and the fact that the story itself is driven by the logic of a child’s nightmare.

It’s quickly evident that we’re visiting a version of Jennifer’s repressed memories James Sunderland-style, each event warped and inflated by a child’s fears and imagination, with only a loyal dog named Brown at our side. After witnessing a ‘burial’ given by the children and falling into the grave, Jennifer wakes to find the orphanage has become an airship, the children are demanding gifts from her to join the “Red Crayon Aristocrat’s Club,” and everything has become a frightful mirror of its former self. He then jumps off at the next stop before she can respond, and her attempts to follow him lead her to an eerie orphanage populated with cruel, bag-headed children. The game’s story goes thusly: 19 year old Jennifer is riding a bus to an unknown destination when a boy runs up to her and hands her a handmade storybook, begging to know what happens next. But there have been other games with frustrating controls and great stories that have survived the test of time – Psychonauts is the most famous, its witty writing and memorable characters making up for some truly eye gouging controls and camera issues, so why not RoR?Ĭute things in an art game? Can only end well Cursed with frustrating and literally broken combat and controls that are often stiff and unwieldy, it’s less likely to be challenging from user error than because of some cruel sadism on the developer’s part. Rule of Rose is the kind of game that basically requires a Let’s Play, at least in its current form. All of which is a shame, because in the moments when the game shines it reminds me of the very best adolescent anguish allegory parades in Utena and the uncanniness of Silent Hill.

#Rule of rose review ps2

It was passed on by several publishers while trying to find homes outside its native country, brewed in a controversy of accused lolicon content that was quite untrue, and sold so few copies as to be one of the rarest PS2 games on the market today. Once upon a time there was an unlucky girl, starring in a very unlucky game called Rule of Rose.