Rule of Rose

I myself am a great fan of horror games and especially Japanese horror games (Resident evil, Silent Hill, F.E.A.R, Calling etc) and I can’t believe I didn’t come across this came earlier! Thanks to a friend of mine on Facebook I got to know “Rule Of Rose” (ルールオブローズ,) which is a Japanese horror game made by Atlus who I am not familiar with. But they decided to make this game for the PS II and it was published in EU on the 3 of November 2006 but due to some problems in the game the game was NOT released in the UK.

The Story (from wiki since I can’t give a review if I haven’t played the game, duh!)

Players control Jennifer, a young woman who is led to an abandoned mansion by a small boy. She follows the boy into the mansion's attic, and is led to a grave in the courtyard of the mansion. She digs up a coffin with a bloody sack inside it. Four children sneak up on her and pour water on her, before shoving her into it. She passes out, and awakes in an abandoned airship ruled by a cruel group of children known as the Red Crayon Aristocrats. Under the threat of death, Jennifer must appease the Aristocrats by finding an offering for them each month. While doing so, she must piece together clues and recall forgotten memories which will ultimately allow her to escape. Each chapter of the game is introduced with a storybook that loosely describes the characters and the theme that it's based upon, each with a specific time in which it took place.

Jennifer finds and grows close to Brown, a dog who comforts her while she endures the torment inflicted on her by the other children. The sickly Wendy grows jealous, especially as her friend spends more time with the dog. As the game continues, it is revealed after Jennifer was orphaned, she was cared for by Gregory Wilson, an unstable farmer who renamed her Joshua after his dead son. Wendy discovered Jennifer, initially mistaking her for a boy, and eventually convinced her to leave; she helped her escape, but not before taking the gun Gregory owned. The two renewed their promise of "everlasting, true love" and Jennifer's stuffed bear is exchanged for Wendy's brooch. Wendy then took her to the orphanage.

Later in the game, the setting changes from the airship to the orphanage after Jennifer retrieves the stolen teddy bear and is made a member of the Aristocrat club. Frustrated, Wendy forces her to choose between her own life or Brown's and frightened, Jennifer allows Brown to be killed. Afterwards, she slaps Wendy and casts aside her brooch, hating the Aristocrats and herself for being too cowardly to oppose them. After this, Jennifer replaces her as the leader and the tale of the Stray Dog is cast aside as Wendy's lie. Angered by Jennifer's love for Brown, Wendy brings Gregory, whom she trained like a dog to obey her, to the orphanage and the orphans are slaughtered by him. Wendy then commands him to attack Jennifer before leaving.

Halfway through the fight, Brown inexplicably returns to aid her. After Jennifer manages to subdue Gregory, she walks outside and discovers that the boy is actually Wendy in disguise. She confesses that she was wrong, and gives Jennifer the gun that they had stolen from Gregory before he snatches her into the house. After attacking Jennifer, he apologizes to her and commits suicide with the gun.

Reflecting on her previously forgotten memories, Jennifer reveals that after it was discovered she was the lone survivor of not only the orphanage massacre but the airship crash that was thought to have no survivors; the murders were pushed into an obscure corner of the newspaper. She makes peace with her past and vows to remember her friends.

The game has been talked a lot about due to some of the content in the game; animal cruelty, sexual themes, and bloody violence amongst pre-teens which had awaken the fury in some countries. England forbad it to be released since they thought that It might affect many youngsters in the UK and they saw the PEGI rating as to low (16). In my opinion I want to play the game merely for the fact of it being trashed really hard. Many gaming sites has giving it a bad rate based on the game play but still most of them like the story.

The graphic of the game is highly stylized and resembles Silent Hill a lot and to an extent, Resident Evil. I can’t help but seeing Ashley Graham (from Resident Evil 4) in her with the little round face and all. A major theme in the game is the difference between a child's and an adult's way of thinking and how children might treat adults if they were given power over them. Players are helpless to prevent their adult player-character from being bullied by the children. Another is how attachment "to one thing can bring out the worst in people." But all in all this is a game that I would love to play but sadly can’t since my old PS II is no more. I don’t crave the game enough to want to spend money on buying a new PS II merely for the purpose of playing RoR (and I’ve thrown out all my old PS II games, lol)

Picture can be found here