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Not worth it . . .

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: October 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I should have listened to the warnings.

This game was so uninteresting from the beginning that I couldn't play it. Ultimately, I gave the game away.

You want great games? Try "Dragonquest VIII" or "Shadowhearts (from The New World)". Even "Magna Carta (Tears of Blood)" is better. Stay away from "Rule of Rose", it's not worth the price.

Beautiful game with a breathtaking soundtrack... but TERRIBLE gameplay!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: December 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game when it first hit the shelves. I was so excited as I am a avid survival/horror gamer and heard such good reviews about the game. It had been so long since a survival/horror game had been released for PS2 and I saw this as a definite addition to my collection. I played this game only once and will never play it again and here is why...

Right from the beginning, the audience is lost and has no insight to what is actually going on. You would think that this would change very soon or at least within the first half of the game... but I even finished the game and cannot recount any coherent story! Although it is the point of the game to uncover the events that had lead to Jennifer's current state, the audience gets very little story and no explanation for any of the fantasy that exists throughout the whole game. The audience must fill in 90 percent of the story in order to make this game pleasurable to any degree.

The movements and controls for Jennifer were terribly frustrating! Little things such as running and picking up items was a chore and made the gameplay very undesirable. The point of a survival horror is to either run or fight and Jennifer came up short in both tasks. Fighting was the most frustrating of all as the best weapon only reaches a few inches away from her body and she must also pause between hits. I know that the gameplay should be challenging to a certain degree, but come on! I had to attempt the same stupid battles over and over and over and over and... you get the point.

Many controversial statements have been made about the game that lead many people down a misleading path. Nothing about this game is disturbing and nothing remotely resembled what was said about the actions and events which occurred throughout the game. This was probably the main selling technique to get people to purchase the game as the designers knew they made a stinker! They had to come up with any reason for people to be drawn to the game and make up for the loss they foresaw. They spent a lot of time rendering the environments and characters and even more on the soundtrack... but as far as a stimulating storyline, scary atmosphere and great gameplay, this game is horrible as all three of these aspects prove otherwise!

The soundtrack was breathtaking and probably the best quality the game had to offer. I love strings and the orchestrations were impeccably written.

The cutscenes were also very beautiful even though they provided no information and did not bridge any gaps in the "storyline". As anyone who has played the game would say... this must be one of PS2s most beautifully drawn and rendered games ever.

Although I can find something good about the game... as a GAME it lacks everything possible to create a fun and exciting adventure. I highly suggest renting or borrowing this game before purchasing it as you will most definitely share my feelings.

Graphics are the only thing to look forward to.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: January 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game had little to no story line and a defective battle system. The main character was easily killed and the endings were poor and did not help explain the story at all. This should be a rental only. You should not buy this game. It is a waste of money.

Animal Abuse Hell

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 12
Date: March 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you love animals stay away. Brilliant in many area horrendous in others the ending does not allow for anything but anger and misery IMO

So bad, so very bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 26
Date: September 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is slow moving (no run ability?), there is no onscreen life meter (WTF?), no ability to target enemies, imprecise controls, terrible combat system, yet extremely well done strange & bizarre cutscenes with beautiful graphics. I can understand people loving the trailer for this game, the cutscenes really are some of the best graphics I've seen in the PS2, but this is a game, not a movie. The control & combat sections (random guys each level and boss battles) are why this is so bad and many of the combat parts you cannot avoid.
This is the equivalent of a "dumb blonde" videogame - it looks really nice, but when you interact with it you realize it is borderline retarded.

Should Have Been a Movie...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I admit, I haven't played a lot of survival horror. I rented this game because I thought it would be a good intro to the genre without the need to worry about twitch shooting and ammo counts. Plus, the story sounded interesting.

Things didn't turn out that way. The game is SLOOOOWWWW. Action? What action? You spend your time running around through the same areas, looking for items. Sometimes you end up in combat. Mostly you run around.

I use the word "run" loosely, since Jennifer does not seem capable of fast movement. Imagine running with your legs tied together - that's her speed. (To add insult to injury, if you make her move too much, she bends over and pants once you stop her...)

On the other hand, graphics and audio are very well done.

There are many better survival horror/adventures out there...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I don't see the controversy in this game that everyone was talking about. It's disgusting yes, it may make you cringe, but not in a way other survival horror games do since all the freaky moments in this game involve being poked in the face by rats tied to sticks. Oh boy! Sign me up!

Just kidding. While that's reason enough to move on to many of the better survival horror games out there (Silent Hill and Siren are great), the controls in this game are utterly useless, since there is no gameplay whatsoever. You spend half of each level encountering no monsters, just running around telling a dog to find stuff, and that's worse than you think. You'll find an item that has no use but so that the dog will smell it and find another item that has no use, and so on and so on, until you finally find a healing item that will heal about 3% of your health bar. Oh happy day when you find that reclusive item.

And you'll need it because the boss battles are out of hand. And any of the monsters basically. This is one where you fight only if necessary, because if you want to stand in a room and fight the main character just closes her eyes and blindly stabs while 10 monsters overtake her. The boss battles are incredibly one sided, as they require you to dole out 50+ hits while dodging. attacks that will take huge chunks out of your life bar, and are almost unavoidable.

I'm not going to say that Rule of Rose is one of the worst games I've ever played, but it is slow, boring, and has a difficulty that will drive even the most hardened adventure and survival horror players like myself away from it. If you can keep from breaking your controller in disgust of the game over screen, and keep from falling asleep during the cutscenes (I literally did so twice), then you might be able to withstand Rule of Rose. I just hope you don't pay $30 like I did.

Could've been much better...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have mixed feelings about this game. I appreciated the simplicity of the puzzles, the neat graphics, and great music. The down sides, however, are many. The main character is, frankly, a wimp, and she moves verrryy slowly. Loading times for scene changes are WAY too long...I counted almost 30 seconds for some. Bosses can be hard to defeat simply because the main character moves so slowly and is so fragile, and it becomes frustrating to keep starting over, especially if your save point is far away. I'm still not quite sure what the actual storyline is, and aside from some expected gore, the brutality of some of the scenes bothered me. It could've been a lot better and I don't think I would pay a whole lot of money for this one again. It's definitely an interesting adventure game but I think its potential to be great was lost from the start.

But with big sister dead in a pool of amber blood, who is there to read the letter to? Bah bah.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: August 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As the teen and young adult male populations tend to consume the profit-making minds of game developers, anything (even superficially) deemed too "kiddie" or "girly" is often left out. Females that aren't either boring sex ciphers, perky and cute anime archetypes, or unrealistic, token "strong women" are a rare sight in the video game universe. Young children in active roles are practically non-existent.

It's encouraging, then, to see Rule of Rose break these two annoying trends. The player takes control of Jennifer, an English schoolgirl who arrives in a bus at a big, spooky house. The premise may seem entirely generic at first, but this is intentional. Absolutely nothing is know of Jennifer's past or even her life at the outset. However, as the game unravels, more and more is revealed until we learn her devastating history.

As a mystery/horror story, Rule of Rose is a sparkling success. Jennifer runs into and is basically imprisoned by the girls of the Red Crayon Aristocrats. Each girl has a widely different personality, but they are all sadistic yet vulnerable. The Aristocrats function as a sort of female version of Lord of the Flies. Those on top are treated as royalty, while those on the bottom are treated as sub-human filth.

This game achieves what so little others do: The player strongly feels for Jennifer and is worried for her. While playing, I felt as Jennifer felt, and desperately wanted her to escape.

The children accentuate this by being perfectly voiced, with not a rotten apple in the bunch. Everyone has genuine English accents, which is vital for believability. No one sounds as if they are simply reading lines, and I never even thought about the voice acting while playing. Which is as it should be.

Slow strings are the musical medium of choice for much of Rule of Rose, and they go well enough with the atmosphere. Slow, tense music plays during suspenseful moments, dramatic songs play during emotional scenes, and faster, intense strings play during battle. Again, it all fits the mood nicely, but there's nothing here that's memorable or of interest outside the game.

Clever visual motifs further engross the player into this strange world. Wiggly, child-like animations are used quite a bit, such as in loading screens, chapter introductions, and in books (which serve a similar purpose as memos or notes do in other horror games). These childish doodles often portray brutal content, making them eerie and surreal.

The in-game graphics are at about the standard for PS2 horror titles. There's nothing here pushing system limits, but nothing noticeably sub-par either. The main cast are understandably much more detailed than other characters.

With such a nice environment and theme, the developers had a real gem in their hands. It's too bad, then, that they actually make you play the game.

As Jennifer explores, she will inevitably encounter odd, child-like ghouls. Sadly, she will virtually only encounter these creatures. Lifeless, malicious zombie children? Sure, that's pretty creepy. Unfortunately, the scare factor is completely eliminated when you see them every other step.

Jennifer must use whatever she finds lying around to fight her pursuers. Not many guns or swords here. Sure, Jennifer shouldn't be a naturally gifted warrior, but she should cause damage when her entire weapon and arm go through a fiend's body.

Even worse, most foes can harm Jennifer with punches or stabs from several feet away! Or sometimes, even when they're facing the other direction! Horrid hit detection mars Rule of Rose consistently and significantly. This is an unacceptable game design flaw, as it makes combat almost unbearable.

This nagging problem particularly shows its ugly face during the few boss fights, which should be the peak of enjoyment in most games. The bosses in Rule of Rose are uniformly monotonous, cheap, and tiresome.

Most of these bosses are challenging for all the wrong reasons. They perform the same actions again and again and are entirely predictable. It doesn't matter, though, for along with the monstrous hit detection, Jennifer is as slow as a slug. Both in terms of running speed and arm swing, my 87 year-old grandma is faster.

These flaws make battles more a game of luck than a test of skill. Did you see that move five seconds in advance? Too bad, you die regardless. Did you work to get behind an enemy to stab him in the back? Oops, missed anyway!

The exploration elements aren't much better. The game is primarily set in a bizarre, 1930's-style airship, and that's where you'll be exploring most. While this airship is fascinating at first, you will quickly grow tired of it as the game requires you to traverse the same areas over and over. Jennifer's lethargic trot doesn't help matters here, either.

Jennifer is accompanied by her dog Brown through most of her journey. While he helps a tiny bit in combat, Brown's main function is to sniff out hidden items. You can let Brown sniff most items in the inventory, and he'll find something related. While this is a novel and interesting aspect, it can get tedious after a while. It does help the player feel affection for Brown, at least.

I often found myself struggling through the game in order to see what happens to Jennifer next. I'm not sure who's crueler: the Aristocrat girls for their evil antics, or the developers for creating such an irresistibly addicting yet agonizingly flawed game.

Judging games like this, ones which have disastrous gameplay yet are good to perfect in every other area, is always difficult. Should you play Rule of Rose? It ultimately comes down to personal taste. If gameplay is categorically the most important part of a game to you, with no exceptions, then absolutely not. If you're willing to ignore severe blemishes to witness a wonderful drama, then yes.

Personally, I am willing to trudge through the depths to find beauty.

New Rules

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Rule of Rose is a game that definitely shows promise but for some odd reason can't live up to all that promise. The game, in terms of being a survival horror has the components down really well. It's got its creepy hair raising moments, complete with a creepy and disturbing look to most of it. The problem with Rule of Rose isn't in it's interesting story, or in it's interesting look; it's in the gameplay itself. Rule of Rose would instantly be better if it was simply fun to play.

Jennifer is a timid unlucky girl, who gets stuck at an orphanage in 1930's. It's a strange orphanage which consist of cult like rituals. She explores this orphanage only to discover that it's not what it seems. She later discovers that there's a secret society called the Aristocrat of the Red Crayon. This society captivates her interest, and so does a dog named Brown which she rescues. There's actually kind of a neat thing going for this game. For one, the story is interesting. It also manages to be really creepy and strange. It'll also make you think too. From there, though, the game doesn't have very many places to go.

For starters, the game is overall pretty boring. You'll find yourself exploring your surroundings, finding items, avoiding enemies and solving puzzles. Pretty standard and run of the mill for a survival horror game. A lot of the time Brown is with you, and he's quite a companion to have around. He can lead you through some of the game as well. You can have him sniff items in your inventory and he'll go off to discover similar items. If you're ever unsure of where to go you could probably just turn to Brown and he'll help you out. Exploration, however, somehow feels empty. Especially because there's not much combat involved in exploring, and at the tims when there is an enemy around, you won't really have to fight, you can easily just pass on by... which actually is a good thing.

There isn't a lot of combat or anything like that to be done in Rule of Rose. When there is it's a little unsatisfying. This is because Jennifer isn't really a confident fighter. When the games tells you she's timid they're not joking. Combat isn't difficult but it is frustrating. You'll have to hope beyond hope that her attacks hit their mark with your enemies. Brown can distract some of them, but it still boils down to Jennifer having to be accurate. You'll get by in the game, but there are moments when the gameplay is just frustrating.

Even worse for the combat is when you take damage. You don't know how much damage you're taking from an enemy. You might be dead before you know it simply because you don't know how much damage your taking. This can sometimes be frustrating. It wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if save points weren't few and far between in this game. You might be playing through long segments over and over again simply because you didn't know you were moments away from death.

Part of the gameplay issues also come with how repetative the game is. You'll find yourself going down several hallways and corridors that look just like other ones you've gone through. It's really easy to get turned around in this game. The game does have some good visuals, but they won't be found in the environment. They'll be found in the characters and cutscenes which are absolutely breath taking. The soundtrack is even better, being fairly creepy all together and being able to give you an uneasy feeling. The music is just fantastic overall.

The storyline to Rule of Rose will probably be enough to keep you going in this game, but the repetative nature of the gameplay and environments make the game more frustrating than it has to be. It's actually not a bad game, it's just a game that didn't live up to potential. For fans of the survivial horror genre, you might want to give it a try. For others, it's probably not your cup of tea.

The Good

+Interesting storyline
+The game has great character models and cutscenes
+Fantastic sound

The Bad

-The environments are repetative, and so is the task of exploring all the rooms throughout the game
-Combat is unsatisfying and frustrating
-The game is just boring to play
-The control scheme isn't all that great (not mentioned above)
-Because of the repetative environments, it's easy to get lost

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