Reviewed: September 12, 2006
Reviewed by: Mat Houghton

Publisher
Atlus Software

Developer
Punchline

Released: September 12, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Mature

7
9
10
7
8.0

Supported Features:

Despite the slightly unbelievable premise Rule of Rose is a very stylish survival horror title, which does something that most titles in the genre do the opposite of; it implies a lot of the gore and violence in favor of focusing on the more psychological elements. In other words, where Resident Evil has a lot of gross out and “jump” moments Rule of Rose is just flat out creepy all the time.

What sets Rule of Rose apart is that for the most part you’re better off avoiding combat and many of the items that you need in the game are not found by you, but instead by your dog. Combat avoidance is usually something that happens early on in most survival horror titles – that is until you find the shotgun, or enough ammo to not have to worry about wasting a few clips on the next shambling monstrosity. In Rule of Rose the enemies, when they appear, are basically endless so running is pretty much your only option.

This is good and bad. Good because it fits with the character who isn’t exactly the poster girl for the next action star, and it does a lot to fit in with the over-all feeling of helplessness and confusion that is a part of the game. Bad because the controls in general, and for combat specifically, are kind of like trying to do brain surgery with a thick pair of gloves on. Sure it can be done, but why would you want to?

I wouldn’t make such a big deal out of it if you could completely skip fighting in the game, but there are times when you just have to fight. Most of the problem comes from it being difficult at best to line up your attacks, which you wouldn’t think would be a problem because all you have are melee weapons. It is nice to see your character sort of flail away in what looks like a completely ineffectual manner, and when you think about it that also makes a certain amount of sense, but at the same time it makes hitting things chancy at best. On the bright side though, most things that attack you don’t do a whole lot of damage so even though combat is sort of clunky at least it is also very forgiving.

So you are avoiding combat as much as possible, that means the bulk of the game play revolves around something else, most likely puzzle solving. The nice twist that has been placed on finding the pieces you need to solve these puzzles is that you have a helpful nose on four legs to track stuff down.

Early on in the game you find Brown, a sort of tan colored mutt who is your loyal companion, distracting would be attackers, and faithfully following any scent you give him. While this is a novel concept, like many in video games, it becomes more than a bit over used, and you end up basically just having Brown find the scent of everything you pick up in order to find the next item or place you are supposed to go.

Worse is that you can’t find most of these items on your own, so unless you are using the dog to find something you can’t come across it just by wandering around. Needless to say, there are a LOT of hidden items in this game.

The only other really bad part about the controls is that some things have a very wide activation area, so you could be trying to check a corner of the room and accidentally open the door, or look at a nearby item that you’ve already examined. There aren’t too many places where this causes problems, but it does happen.

On the one hand you have a feeling of sort of light fantasy, but smashed right up against that is a table with a bunch of bloody scalpels. Even worse, and this has to be deliberate, a lot of the movie cut scenes have an element of sexuality to them, nothing overt really, just little hits like the focus or the angle of the camera, or the posture or body language of the characters. So you feel not only this sense of impending doom, or perhaps a messy end of childish things, but there is also a sense that something just isn’t right about what’s going on.

As far as technically, the graphics are amazing for what you would have expected to be a budget title. It’s a company you’ve never heard of, from Atlus who doesn’t usually produce the next visual blockbuster, so it’s a bit of a surprise to see such detailed textures, especially on the clothing and hair. The character models are also fantastic. As mentioned above the facial expressions on these characters are nearly perfect.

To see a little girl’s face go from fearful and nearly crying to maniacal glee in the space of seconds is not only chilling, but to see it accomplished graphically is something that very few studios have accomplished. The only real slam I can give to the graphics is that occasionally they are mapped on to the characters awkwardly. There is one scene where a character’s neck just doesn’t look right, like the drawing is in the right place but the form underneath doesn’t match it properly.

While the lighting in the game doesn’t go into all the DOOM 3 engine spectaculars, this is a part of the game that not only lends the proper tone, but also is accomplished well. There is generally a low lighting spread through most areas, but sometimes there are over turned desks with fallen lamps, or little rents in the wall which light pours through.

Finally, and what is a nice touch, unlike all the other survival horror games I’ve played, in Rule of Rose you have some camera control. While you cannot rotate it through 360 degrees, you can flip it to get the reverse angle of where you are looking right now, so with a little effort you can search a whole room just by rotating your character.

The effects also set just the right tone, from children giggling over a fence at you as they duck out of sight, to odd screeches and groans, to crying or heavy breathing. Everything is either just too normal or just off so the whole just ends up sounding disturbed.

I do sort of wish there were more voice acting to this game, but the little that is there is perfect. The characters sound crazy when they need to, and all the lines are delivered in a believable tone. It kind of makes you wonder why more games can’t get it right.

Also, and this is a personal thing, but I found I really couldn’t sit and play for more than a couple of hours at a time. Something about running around trying to appease psycho children just makes one uncomfortable, at least if that one is me.