Atlus has made a name for
themselves publishing little known Japanese titles, but even Atlus fanboys
raised their eyebrows when they announced that they’d be localizing Rule of
Rose. Is America ready for a survival horror game that features a group of
sadistic young girls as the antagonists?
I’ve seen most of what the
survival horror genre has to offer, but none of it prepared me for my first few
hours of Rule of Rose. The game opens up with a beautifully rendered montage of
cut scenes that will probably make some folks a bit uncomfortable. You’re then
introduced to the main character, Jennifer “the unlucky girl”. The game jumps
right into the story, with Jennifer being handed a storybook by a young boy that
runs off into the woods. After following the boy to an orphanage, Jennifer is
kidnapped, for lack of a better word, by a group of children and taken aboard a
zeppelin. I know this isn’t making a lick of sense but bear with me.
The zeppelin appears to be
the main area you’ll be exploring during the game. After wandering around for a
bit, I found my way to a door that led me to the headquarters of the “Order of
the Red Crayon Aristocrats”. It seems the children have setup a make believe
royal court with each of them having an assigned role. Jennifer is at the very
bottom of the totem pole of course. The Aristocrats demand a monthly tribute so
it’s off to find whatever the little despots are craving.
Luckily, you’ll have the
assistance of a friendly canine named Brown. Brown follows Jennifer around and
can be used as a sort of guide. Almost all of the inventory items you’ll
collect can be set to “Find” mode. After choosing something, say a biscuit tin
for example, you can tell Brown to find and he’ll sniff out something. In the
case of the biscuit tin, he finds life giving biscuits of course. More often
then not though you’ll be using Brown’s nose to sniff out clues that will help
you get out of the strange plight Jennifer is in.
After a few hours of
exploring I ran into my first enemy. I was following Brown as he hunted down a
scent when a gray imp-like creature jumped out at me. A few awkward stabs with
a dessert fork and it lay dead. I’ve run into several more of them since,
groups of ten more sometimes, but I’ve yet to figure out how they fit into the
story. The first boss fight made even less sense. I don’t want to spoil the
plot, so I’ll just describe it as having a slightly deviant twist.
The game plays very much
like the early Resident Evil games. Each time Jennifer enters a room the camera
angle will begin in a fixed spot and follow Jennifer as she maneuvers. If you
have problems seeing you can tap a button to reorient the camera to a location
with a better view of the action. Combat is quite simple. You press the R1
button and hit X to attack. If an imp grabs you, you wiggle the left analog to
shake them off. You’ll thankfully be doing a good bit more exploring than
combat though.
So, we’ve got a zeppelin
manned by licentious girls with control issues, a loyal canine companion,
depraved boss battles, and lots of weird creatures running around. I’ve got a
ways to go before I can give a full opinion of the title, but Rule of Rose is
shaping up to be one of those games that mainstream gamers will never hear about
much less play. If you’re a survival horror fan and you’re looking for
something a little bit, strike that, a lot different, then you might want to
check out Rule of Rose when it releases.
