Rule of Rose

"A Brilliantly Melancholy Horror Experience"

Story ~ 9/10

Rule of Rose tells the tale of Jennifer, a timid and, frankly, frightened girl. Her parents died, and she was sent to a strange orphanage. On the lonely bus ride to it, she encounters a young boy. He gives her a storybook, and, as the bus stops, runs off. Jennifer chases him into the woods and before she can get back to the bus, it drives off. Alone and depressed, the unlucky girl stumbles upon the orphanage. It's quiet, other than a few giggles and chuckles coming from the shadows. Soon enough, she is taken to an airship occupied by a strange group that call themselves “The Aristocrats of the Red Crayon.” She is tortured and treated like dirt by the young members of the society. The unlucky girl is so confused, so afraid… and most of all, so lonely.

This game's story absolutely blew me away. I haven't seen anything this original in a commercial game in a while. The characters are realistic, the dialogue is good (though somewhat confusing at times, thus the point taken off), and the plot was wonderfully disturbing. I admit, it's confusing, but, like good ole Sweet Home for the NES, it's a story you have to figure out on your own. They don't give everything away, you have to put together the pieces. I do wish more stories in games would be as original as this.

Gameplay ~ 6/10

Blargh, here's where the game hurts. There are two parts to the gameplay, solving puzzles through Brown, your trusty canine companion and fighting monsters. While seeing Brown discover items and be a little enjoyable at first, it simply drags on after a while. The battles are the worst, though. Jennifer weakly swings around her weapon, hoping to hit something, while a thousand imps are tackling her. I guess it's appropriate, provided the fact that Jennifer is just a young girl, but it's slow, it's hard to control, and sometimes you can hit enemies dead on and it doesn't respond.

Graphics ~ 8/10

Woo! What beautiful CGI! The cutscenes in this game are lovely to look at, as they are creepy. You can really feel the emotion in some scenes, like at the end of the November chapter. The detail is amazing, and the style is very…ominous, for lack of a better word. In game sequences are similar to that of the Silent Hill games. It's not stunning, but it's certainly far from bad. The airship is very creepy, and the orphanage has an innocent distortion of sorts to it. There are some errors, like how when you equip long weapons they can go through walls and people (this bothered me a little.) I liked the character designs, everyone was made so perfectly to fit their personalities.

Sound ~ 9/10

Well, if a creepy story and creepy visuals weren't enough for you, wait until you hear the music. The violin is used in many of the tracks, which made it sound unique. The music in the airship fit perfectly, it gave a sense of hopelessness and loneliness. The music in the orphanage was good too, and, while there was only a few of them, the battle music was exquisite. However, one point was taken off for the voice acting, which has always been a problem in video games. In this case, some of the children sound older than they look. A good example of this is Meg, who sounds almost out of her teens.

Overall ~ 32/40 ---- Percent ~ 80%

This is a fine game, minus its rather boring gameplay. I recommend it to anyone who likes horror games, as I do to people who are tired of hearing the same stories over and over again.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/07