The unlucky girl. That’s what the protagonist, Jennifer, is
referred to as in Atlus USA’s latest game, Rule of Rose. Well, if this girl is
unlucky then I need to start buying lottery tickets. To start with, Jennifer is
an orphan in the 1930’s. Her parents were killed in a zeppelin crash and the
game starts off with our poor unfortunate heroine on the way to the orphanage.
Jennifer’s story, along with the gameplay, just goes downhill from there.
After a little bit of exploring around the orphanage Jennifer is
kidnapped by a group of children and taken aboard an airship. The children are
ruled by a group of girls that call themselves the “Red Crayon Aristocrats.” The
Aristocrats are led by the “Dutchess” Diana. She’s the type of girl that even
boys would gladly give their lunch money to if it would keep her placated. Next
is Meg, the “wise princess.” She’s the brainy one that comes up with all of the
laws and rules for the Aristocrats. Wendy and Eleanor are sort of a middle rank
with poor Amanda at the bottom of the pecking order. Jennifer starts off lower
than Amanda and has to work her way up through the ranks if she’s ever going to
have any hope of figuring out what on Earth is going on.
To placate this
Machiavellian group and advance up the chain of
command Jennifer must bring the Aristocrats a monthly tribute. The first gift
you’ll have to find is a butterfly, with each month’s offering becoming
progressively harder to obtain. Luckily, Jennifer isn’t alone in her endeavors.
Early in the game you’ll rescue a dog named Brown from the hands of the tortuous
Aristocrats. Animal cruelty is a running theme in Rule of Rose and it’s nice to
see that Jennifer does have some sort of a moral compass compared to the rest of
the depraved children on the airship. In return for your help Brown lends his
nose to Jennifer’s task. By selecting “Find” on an item in the inventory screen,
Brown can be commanded to track down various things. The majority of the game
consists of having Brown track down key puzzle items and then following that
scent to the next item. It’s an interesting concept, but it seems like the game
is leading the player around by the nose most of the time instead of letting you
find the clues on your own.
While you’re tagging along behind Brown you’ll often run into
various imps and ghouls that inhabit the airship along with the Aristocrats. Up
until now the game has been interesting, but here’s where it gets frustrating.
While I don’t expect Jennifer to be a Green Beret I at least expect a game that
includes combat to include a serviceable fighting system. To change Jennifer to
“attack” mode you hold down R1, then you just hit X over and over and watch
Jennifer flail around blindly with whatever melee weapon she has equipped. If
you’re lucky you may hit what’s in front of you, but the terrible fixed camera
might not let you see if there is anything in front of you in the first place.
The monsters don’t drop anything so it’s easier to just avoid them and hope they
don’t jump and grab Jennifer around the waist. If they do you’ll have to shake
the left stick like you’re having a seizure to get them loose all while steadily
losing health.
Luckily combat is easily avoided most of the time, but
unfortunately the game designers thought boss fights would spice things up. I’ve
made it fairly clear that the fighting system is weak but when the first boss
can kill a fully healed Jennifer in three to four hits and can take a ton of
damage before dying it just makes the game even more infuriating to play. It’s
not that the bosses have hard-to-follow attack patterns or are impossible to hit
either. They’re just incredibly cheap shots. Out of the umpteen times I replayed
the first boss fight, the boss knocked me down at least four times right after
loading the area before the game would even let me control Jennifer. I know this
game is supposed to be a bit sadistic but that’s just mean.
After struggling through the first boss fight though, the game is
a bit better about providing enough health items to keep Jennifer healed but
combat and boss fights remain the low point of the game all the way to the end.
Thankfully, the storyline continues to intensify with each chapter as Jennifer
tries to get herself out of the mess she’s in. It’s not of the best “games” I’ve
ever played but it has by far one of the darkest and most deviant storylines to
grace a game. It’s rare that I’ll struggle through a bad game just because it
has a good story, but wondering what was going to happen to the unlucky girl in
the end helped get me through the parts that made me feel like an unlucky
reviewer.
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Gameplay: 5.0
A
terrible combat system drags down yet another great adventure game. There’s no
point in putting enemies in your path if you can’t effectively dispatch them.
Sure, Jennifer isn’t Jill Valentine, but there has to have been a better way to
design the combat portion of the game.
Graphics: 7.1
Rule of
Rose has beautifully rendered cutscenes. The character’s facial expressions and
body language in the cutscenes tell just as much of the story as what the
characters are saying. The in-game graphics, on the other hand, are fairly
average PS2 fair. There’s a static-like filter on top of the graphics that give
it an old film look and adds to the feel of the game, but it doesn’t do much to
cover up the fact that all the corridors start to look the same after a while.
Sound: 8.9
The
voice acting is excellent! When Diana drawls out Jennifer’s name in a sing-song
manner it gives me the willies. The musical score is also well done and provides
even more atmosphere to an already dark and twisted game.
Difficulty:
Medium/Hard
Besides
a few of the puzzles the game isn’t incredibly difficult to figure out. What
will keep you up crying is the amount of times you’ll get killed because the
combat system is so wonky.
Concept: 8.0
Rule of Rose is sort of like
“Lord of the Flies” on an airship. It’s a downright creepy look into the mindset
of children left to their own devices. It’s not often a game makes you think,
but Rule of Rose sure will.
Overall: 5.9
The
story in Rule of Rose is an amazingly twisted macabre tale that you won’t find
on a daily basis in your local game store. Unfortunately, the design team
appears to have been so focused on the story part of the game that they forget
to actually put a game in it. If you’re at all interested in the demented story
and have the patience to stumble through the combat sections, then by all means
give it a try. Everyone else may want to find a different garden to play in.
