It’s not fair to see how the various kids in the game are also suffering from the vicious actions of the adults around them. Many victims of abuse can turn their lives around or go on to do great good for the world and others, but in this game, abuse only seem to replicate itself. I honestly have a very hard time playing this game because I can’t handle how heavy its themes are, and how the game forces you to stare into the way abuse can poison the lives of those it victimizes. The cruelty swirls around this game in an atmosphere of utter despair that feels inescapable. It’s not fair.īut what about the story or themes of Rule of Rose is fair? The game is a quagmire of different abuses heaped on its children and characters, with the abused in turn becoming abusers themselves. Your enemies tend to be incredibly lucky as well, hitting you when they looked like they missed. It’s a recipe for a potentially-aggravating combat system, but this is further compounded by combat quirks where your swings seem to miss when they really should have hit, or long periods where you can’t hurt your foes. So, you have an aggressive, fast, and persistent enemy force facing off against a young woman that can barely fight back. You can tell from her posture and movements that she doesn’t know how to fight, and likely doesn’t want to. Her attacks don’t often have much reach and are so slow that they leave her open to being hit back. She leans away from her swings, turning her head and bringing her free hand up to protect her face. Jennifer is far from confident in her fighting abilities, swinging small kitchen utensils and other weapons of opportunity with little force. What can Jennifer do about these creatures in Rule of Rose? Not much. That doesn’t even factor in the game’s bosses, which hit harder and are far more durable than our goblin-like companions. There will likely be many times where you’ll die having been able to do very little about it, then sent back to a (likely distant) save point to try it all again. These little beasts tend to travel in packs, can grab Jennifer and hold her in place, and can often attack fast enough to stun lock her in place long enough to kill her. Besides the vicious cruelty of the other children from the orphanage, there is also the misshapen, ghoulish creatures that often tail her throughout the game. She constantly finds herself surrounded by ruthless beings that mean her harm in this world. It’s a disturbingly cruel place she finds herself in, and she’s relying on you to carry her through it. They taunt and pick at her from the shadows, steadily drawing her deeper into the orphanage and a world woven of childhood trauma made manifest. Jennifer, our deeply unlucky heroine, has returned to a strangely-familiar orphanage, one filled with alarmingly-cruel children. It’s frustrating and disempowering and nigh-futile because that is the battle you’re fighting as a child in danger. The combat, as enraging as you may find it, fully captures the helplessness of a child struggling to fight against the cruelty of the monstrous beings around them. It’s also a vital part in creating the mood of the game. It’s easily the game’s most frustrating element. In the state it’s in, combat is a frustrating affair where you’ll find distances difficult to parse, enemies have large invincibility windows, and you’ll often be outnumbered as you literally flail around trying to stab something with a dessert fork. Rule of Rose has a complex story that may have, arguably, been better served as a pure adventure game without combat, or as a narrative-based experience. It may also make you hurl your controller across the room in a blind rage at its clunky, unwieldly combat. It’s gut wrenching in its unflinching look at its themes, being a work that can be deeply upsetting to take in. It’s heartbreaking in its depiction of children being left forever damaged – forever reshaped into their own kinds of monsters – by the abuses of adults around them. Rule of Rose is a game about cruelty and abuse, and how these horrific behaviors feed into themselves, creating further harm in a cycle that needs to be purposely broken. Purposely Wretched – The Thematic Power of Rule of Rose’s Combat
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