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shamanicshayminI'm copypasting all my Rule of Rose thoughts from the Empty Movement Discord server! Enjoy my scattered thoughts, haha. XD
Me: I started watching an LP of Rule of Rose, and holy fuck, Utena everywhere.
Me: There’s even a dickhole Prince giving Jennifer orders and bragging that she can never escape.
Friend: My favourite LP is prolly Geek Remix's
Friend: She's really sensitive about those kinds of topics
Me: Oooh, I’ll check that out!
Friend: Up to you, but her sense of humour literally makes everything brighter
Me: That’ll come in handy for a Dickensian orphanage. : p
Friend 2: Oooh : O I should watch that LP. I've been meaning to re-watch anyway
Me: Bratty kids everywhere. Though I know those kids are gonna have Tragic Backstories Ahoy. :o
Friend 2: Y ea h they're pretty Fucked
~
Me: Been watching Geek Remix’s LP, and holy shit. The combat in Rule of Rose is cursed.
1. You can easily get ganged up by thousands of zombie babies in the hallway. By the time you shake yourself free, you’re grabbed by others before you even get the chance to move or swing your weapon.
2. Jennifer’s hitbox is enormous. An enemy could swing and miss her completely, and she’ll still take damage.
3. A Snorlax could nap in front of Jennifer and she still won’t be able to hit him. An enemy could be blatantly in her face, and she’ll still miss. Over and over and over. We’re talking Dr. Jekyll from NES Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde levels.
It’s a shame too, ‘cause everything else (graphics, music, atmosphere) is decent. And I want to know where the plot is going. Just dear god, bring this poor game some play-testers and fix the bugs in the combat system so it can actually be playable. DDD:
Friend: YCVGJHBK YEAH
The combat is
Really Deeply Fucking Cursed
~
Me: Whew, I was up all night finishing watching an LP of Rule of Rose. I still have a whole bunch of theories and analysis to read and catch up on. I’ve got time to say this before I take the puppies out though (Spoilers ahoy!)
Fuck you, Wendy. You don’t deserve a fucking lick of sympathy from me. Knowing that you made up lies about Jennifer, which was probably why the other kids detested her in the first place? You were never a friend. You straight up manipulated and gaslit your crush because omg how dare she love a dog and not love only you? You, Jennifer, and Brown could have found solace in each other, but you chose to throw it away and destroy one of them. You deserved to have your plans backfire and be crushed by the “Stray Dog.” Rest in fucking pieces, all alone forever inside the empty orphanage, bitch.
~
So I have mixed feelings about Rule of Rose. I love the storytelling and the way it lets you dig for clues. It lends itself to analysis as easily as Utena and the atmosphere is delectably creepy and tragic. My gripes are more... personal, which isn’t the game’s fault. If I had played this on my own rather than watching a LP, fought through the frustrating combat system all the way to the end, if I didn’t have Internet that would let me read in-depth theories and analysis about the game and secrets I would’ve missed, I would’ve felt angry and frustrated that I spent all this energy on a hopeless, cruel, cynical game.
The cast isn’t given the same... empathy? (I don’t know the right word) as the Utena cast. While the Utena cast is made up of a bunch of assholes who would be completely unlikable and shallow in a lesser series, they’re explored with a human lens that makes them interesting and/or sympathetic even if their actions are still sickening (Nanami in particular, and Saionji is surprisingly perspective when the duel system isn’t bringing out the worst in him) The orphanage kids are given glimpses and hints of depth, but they’re not given the Nanami-esque arcs I was hoping for. It’s easy to hate Nanami for drowning a kitten out of jealousy, but you can also see she was very much an abused and neglected child clinging to Touga as the only thing that provides her love and self-worth, and she’s clearly horrified at the “sacrifice” she made and how far she was willing to go for her brother’s love, and that is key to her development in her final episodes.
Meanwhile there’s Wendy, who does something similar to Nanami. She’s lonely and in love with Jennifer, and is ironically more like Tinkerbell in her jealousy. She’s willing to turn the entire orphanage against Jennifer and kill her puppy in order to draw her back to her side, and when that didn’t work, use the “Stray Dog” to intimidate everyone. But unlike Nanami, she’s less a lonely abused girl and more like a spiteful manipulative yandere. A victim-turned-abuser similar to Ellen from The Witch’s House whose actions go way beyond the pale into straight up sociopath territory. While I’m disgusted with what Nanami did, I understand why she did it—I cannot say the same for Wendy, who remains a cruel irredeemable monster who could have done anything but what she did. I just can’t empathize with a girl who feels this much disgust for animals and who would rather selfishly manipulate and gaslight the girl she “loves” because she’s too jealous to share her with anyone else. (I have trouble sympathizing with jealous characters, oops. Mainly because I was a lonely kid myself and I was totally open to having as many friends as possible)
As a bullying victim myself, I didn’t blame Jennifer at all for feeling closer to Brown, especially after Wendy turned the whole orphanage against her. Animals had always been a constant in my life who always offered me unconditional love and companionship, and have never stabbed me in the back. So I hated Wendy even more that she spat on the one other friend Jennifer had (her dismissive attitude towards animals matching that of the adults) and expected her to drop him for her.
(Pro-tip: If a friend or datefriend has a dismissive or repulsed attitude towards your pets or animal friends and would rather you dump said pets/animals and spend more time with them instead, RUN THE FUCK AWAY. That is a scarlet-drenched flag right there, they are NOT worth your time or energy) (Not that poor Jennifer had a choice. She and Brown would’ve been screwed no matter what. D: )
Amanda is basically Keiko; she’s tired of the mistreatment she gets from being the bottom of the rung, and was willing to do anything from becoming last place again, including backstabbing friends. Which is a painful reality and how a lot of bullying victims become bullies themselves. The problem is, the game is also, “Ew, she’s fat, look how gross and greedy and piggy she is.” and that rubbed me the wrong way. Like, you got a perfectly good reason why she is selfish and cruel right there, “being fat” didn’t make her that way (unless she was bullied and at the bottom of the rung because she was fat, which would’ve been a great exploration of how society’s reaction to fatness rather than fatness itself is the problem, but the game doesn’t delve into it. Missed opportunity!) Her greediness and pigginess feel tacked on because “fat” and that felt gross in a not-good way.
To take a break from complaining, I’m pleased how the boys were handled in the grand scheme of the story. RoR is heavily centered around girls, but it isn’t a female-only society where men conveniently don’t exist. It’s subtle about the toxic effects of the patriarchy without slamming it in your face. In a lesser story, the few boys would be dominating the orphanage with an iron fist, abusing and sexually assaulting the girls because “all men are evil horny monsters even as little boys, duuuuuuuh.” RoR does not do that. While the boys don’t give a damn and ignore Jennifer, that’s in line with the girls at the orphanage too. It shows them as regular boys without being “boys will be boys” if that makes sense? There’s no romantic (or bullying for romance) subplots with the boys and dear god it’s so refreshing. What’s also refreshing is they’re there as background dressing and don’t overshadow the narrative of the girls, because it’s usually the other way around. Instead, all male abuse on the girls is centered around the pedophiliac headmaster, which is the perfect demonstration of how poisonous and hideous the patriarchy is and how its abuse is carried over for generations. Clara was definitely one of the more sympathetic characters for me, and the Mermaid Princess is one of the creepiest and most heartbreaking bosses I’ve seen in ages.
Another thing I found refreshing about the game is it doesn’t have a black-and-white view regarding little girls. They’re not sweet and innocent little victims who helplessly flop like fish as they’re kicked by the patriarchy, but can be tools of the patriarchy to beat each other up. It presents female bullies as ruthless and not in a petty Regina George “tee hee I told everyone you’re a slut who slept with all the quarterbacks!” way (not that that isn’t shitty too, but you know what I mean) We’re talking hazing like shoving a live (and later rotting and maggot-infested) rat in your face, tying you up in a bag and dropping poisonous bugs and spiders inside, and even things that are downright dangerous. Lethal. What Wendy did would make the Heathers raise an eyebrow and slowly back away (and Heather Chandler was killed by poison for chrissakes!)
Another thing I liked is that the lesbian relationships aren’t ~ * ~ uwu puuuurrrre ~ * ~ It can be argued there is a bit of Predatory/Deranged Lesbian in the lesbian characters (particularly Wendy), it feels a bit minuscule considering practically every girl but Jennifer is cruel/predatory/deranged in some way. The game shows how girls and women can be cruel and abusive to each other, and that includes wlw relationships. I didn’t get the same vibe of “oh they’re like that because they’re lesbians” the way I felt with Amanda’s fatness. Wendy could have platonic feelings for Jennifer and I totally believe she would’ve done the exact same shit she did in-game.
The work and potential are there, I just wish I was able to forgive and pity the girls and Mr. Hoffman the way Jennifer could. If I had been her, I would’ve looked back on the orphanage with infuriated disgust and vowed to protect Brown and the Browns of the world from people like them. Maybe I would’ve been locked in a bad ending purgatory with Wendy’s constant obnoxious laughter. Who knows. :/
If you’ve recently lost a beloved pet, do not play this game. I’m fine because I have Neville, Lulubelle, Niko, and Frisk, and enough time has passed for me to start healing from Riley and Chara’s (maybe even Freddie’s still) deaths, but if I had watched a LP right after them, it would’ve made me humongously upset. The game is about the guilt and grief Jennifer feels from being unable to save and protect Brown, and it can hit close to home. :(
As far as animal abuse goes, the worst of it you see is Brown’s adult corpse being dragged (he later comes back to life to help you for the final boss) or a bunch of kids with bags on their heads beating a bloody sack with a stick. You hear no squeals or whimpers from the bag (none that I recall, so it’s not like the puppy screaming as it’s being beaten in Elfen Lied. A lot of the animals you find are already dead, with the abuse/torture/neglect having happened off-screen. So the animal abuse isn’t as awful as it is on Cannibal Holocaust levels, but I’d still take caution.
So overall, I’m not sure I love this game as much as I hoped. There’s a lot of elements that deserve praise, but there’s also the cursed battle system that prevents you from fully exploring and appreciating the story of the game, if the constant bleakness and cruelty with seemingly no hope in sight doesn’t turn you off first. It’s kinda a mix of genuine flaws, but also mostly a Not For Me kind of feeling. I had this response toward The Witch’s House too. I can appreciate the story and the brilliance of the twist, it just was Not For Me.
~
Person: Puri would you recommend geek remix's LP? Ive been meaning to watch this game for a while
Person: or whichever one u watched
Me: I’m not the best when it comes to reccing LPs, haha. XD GR’s is nice, but the stream chat window can be distracting.
Person: Gotcha! Itd be interesting to watch someone stream this but like nobody owns this game RIP
Me: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72J-b3WSuGEAKUO3n5_7vSFppk_-22p0 I heard this LP is decent?
Person: I'll have to check that one out, thanks!
Me: Maybe I need time to warm up to the game. Who knows.
Me: I often don’t trust my first impressions. XD
Me: Ex. I absolutely despised Monika from DDLC, now she’s one of my favorite characters. XD
Person: Yeah I feel that, and even if the game just isn't for you theres no shame in that either!
Me: I love the main theme, haha. It’s so old-timey and haunting, yet comfy.~
Person: oh my god you made it into the rule of rose trauma club
Person: congratulatiosn and condolances
Person: that game does some damage
Me: Do I get a red crayon?
Person: i've straight up issued the demand that if any of my friends play the game they get my save file so they can at least have jennifer swingign aroudn a frozen tuna that one-shots stuff
Me: Also, if a stuffed cigarette meme hasn’t been made of Jennifer with the crayons stuffed in her mouth hasn’t been made yet, I’m going to be disappointed.
Person: i haven't gone back and read all your spoilers i'm just always amazed to see someoen else that made it through the wringer
Person: cause like
Person: you hit the mermaid boss fight and that is a point where anyone would jsut quit
Me: I mean, I watched an LP since the game is rare and frustrating to play through. XD
Person: oh oh i get you
Person: that is a ver ywise decision
Person: frustrating is just
Me: Jennifer, just hit something, pleeeeeeeease
Person: there was one point late game where i walked up soem stairs? and three of the bird monsters were right at the top and as soon as i loaded in they chain-pecked me to death one chunk of health at a time and i hadn't saved in an hour
Person: r u l e o f r o s e
Me: Fiona will let you borrow Hewie to protect you and Brown, just stop getting ganged up by zombie children and taking naps on the floor before taking a million hours to get up.
Person: hewie the goodest dog
Me: Hewie is the battle boy, Brown is the item hunter.
Person: rinoa's dog launcher but it shoots hewies
Me: Niiiiiice.
Me: I think you can make a full RPG team with Hewie, Brown, and Angelo.
Me: Hewie the warrior, Brown the healer, Angelo the mage.
Person: boney as the wise mentor
Person: toby fox as the secret joke character
Me: Oh yeah, Boney! I can’t believe I forgot him.
Me: lol Annoying Dog is the troll.
Person: anyway to be clear you absolutely got the best of the experience watchign an LP, i'm not kiddign when i say this game actually kind of hurts you with the misery it puts you through in order to see it through
Person: by the tiem i got to the final chapter my broken little lizard brain was like "oh maybe it was worth it, there is a point in the end"
Me: Annoying Dog: HERE I COME A TROLLING
Jennifer: :(
Annoying Dog: Oh uh... wow. Looks like everyone has beaten me to it, huh. (takes pity on Jennifer and leaves her with the best weapon)
Person: if the LPer knew what they were doing i don't know how i can ever possibly stress that it is exponentially worse on your first time through
Me: You miss a lot on your first playthrough.
Person: jennifer gets hurt, you get hurt, everyone has a Bad Time
Me: This next LP I’m planning to watch is supposed to cover more secrets.
Me: I had no idea you can get perfumes in the game.
Person: i actually like the story when it finally gets down to brass tacks but it makes you slog through this exhaustively tedious framing narrative for something like 75% of the game's runtime
Me: And Geek Remix was playing blind and didn’t know you could interact with so many items pumped with lore in the Once Upon a Time chapter.
Person: oh no
Me: Though understandably she’s fought her fucking ass to the end, let her have her happy ending and say goodbye to Brown. ;;
Me: Knowing the game is a narrative about Brown helping Jennifer confront her trauma and be able to heal does make me feel a little better.
Person: i like where it ends up but i do not like the mile of broken glass you crawl through on the way there lol
Me: No kidding. @.@
Me: Rule of Rose is like if Lemony Snicket made a video game, but forgot most of the black humor.
Person: instead of jokes, gremlins in pigmasks stun-lock you in tiny hallways
Me: And goat masks and bunny masks and rat masks...
Me: Don’t you dare ruin goats for me, game. I played Undertale!
Me: Rule of Rose, where instead of Akio the Prince is Wendy.
Me: Dios? Also Wendy.
Me: Which perfectly fits the Dios/Akio parallels.
Me: At least now I have a go-to line for all my female friends playing Rule of Rose:
Me: “You poor unlucky girl.”
Person: i did think it was a neat twist that the
Person: wait let me double check that i got the tags right check
Person: ok cool hah hah
Person: i did think it was a neat twist that wendy was such an overwhelming force in the story that the violent abusive father figure wound up a literal animal at her command acting out her unrelenting grudge
Person: even he was nothing next to that intensity
Me: I’m imagining an AVGN episode of RoR where AVGN is furious about the combat, and all the skits involve him being bullied into hopeless misery by various figures of his past (Shit Pickle, Glitch Gremlin, etc.)
Me: By the end of the episode, AVGN goes on to praise the game’s story, but vows never to play it again.
Person: AVGN plays rule of rose would have him jsut compeltely drop character halfway through the ep and just have somber monologues on how we hurt each other
Me: Oh yeah...
Person: not even the angriest nerd can withstand that onslaught
Me: Nope. : p
Me: At least Rule of Rose didn’t scare my chinchillas like Haunting Ground did. I had to turn the lights on during that LP because one of them was barking pitifully.
Person: oh no
Person: i guess that makes sense though, it's not a sensory overload sort of game
Person: just a misery overload sort of game am i right [bowtie spins]
Me: lol
Me: Haunting Ground at least has Daniella’s gloriously creepy laughter as she rips out Fiona’s uterus. :D
Me: The thing ripped out of Jennifer is her heart’s joy.
Me: You can keep my uterus, but dear god, not my dog! D: D: D:
Person: i could swear i remember that at the very start as you're walking to the orphanage you can stop off at brown's old shed and get a message something like "you don't know why but this palce feels sad"
Another Person: Daniella should not have worked as well as she did as a character
Me: She’s my favoriiiiiiite
Another Person: But she's one of the best parts of the game
Me: And I ship her and Fiona so hard with all its disturbing glory.
Person: https://twitter.com/SarahSSowertty/status/1047203601372864512
Gaming Hell (@SarahSSowertty)
The Capcom logo in Haunting Ground (PS2). Do your best, Hewie! https://t.co/5y7GxPRNqz
Person: hewie will save us
Me: Bring back the Girl & Her Dog subgenre plz
Me: That’s actually my first idea for a pixel horror game too. The MC meets a Chinese Crested and he performs tricks to help her solve puzzles and escape the haunted creepy theme park.
Me: And you can find items to increase his bond with you, like sunscreen for his skin~
Me: (Since Chinese Cresteds are mostly bald and need sunscreen to prevent burns)
Person: MCs that cover each other's weaknesses and cooperate to get through is a sorely underused setup
Me: I don’t know if I’ll merge it with my Horror Version of Pokémon idea or not, but I very much want to write a Girl & Her Dog horror game story. ;;
Me: [[shows various pictures of Chinese Cresteds]] Look what adorable freckles this one has!
Me: (The doggie next to it is also a Crested, called a Powderpuff. They exist in every litter so the hairless Cresteds can stay warm~)
Me: I’ll be back for more RoR and HG glory later, I gotta shower.
Me: That’s the true reason Juri has Sad Gay Showers all the time, Shiori gave her RoR as a gift and she still can’t get past the Mermaid Princess.
Person: see that's the fun of the NG+ content, is killign the fish-gremlins and the mermaid wit ha whole-ass frozen tuna
Me: Shiori: She can’t beat it either, I’m finally superior to her over something HAHAHA
Person: shirori would definitely see that shit through the the bitter end
Person: you know that part where juri knocks and she answers the door
Person: she was playing rule of rose then
Person: it's canon
Me: God Shiori would fit right into RoR universe, that makes sense.
Me: (Okay showertime)
Person: oh man how did i forget that the theme to rule of rose is named "a love suicide"
Person: yep.
Me: What if the Rose Garden Orphanage was the orphanage Chara ran away from?
Me: Also: the Aristocrat Club is made up of Floweys.
Me: But even Flowey would be bullied without mercy at the Aristocrat Club.
Person: [[sunflower smilie]]
One More Person: for whoever was asking about Rule of Rose LP's, this is my go-to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GWGYzMHPbA&list=PLb-F7qdEhuYPAv9RLProYBHC0g5PknFIq
Me: Oooh.
Me: I started watching an LP of Rule of Rose, and holy fuck, Utena everywhere.
Me: There’s even a dickhole Prince giving Jennifer orders and bragging that she can never escape.
Friend: My favourite LP is prolly Geek Remix's
Friend: She's really sensitive about those kinds of topics
Me: Oooh, I’ll check that out!
Friend: Up to you, but her sense of humour literally makes everything brighter
Me: That’ll come in handy for a Dickensian orphanage. : p
Friend 2: Oooh : O I should watch that LP. I've been meaning to re-watch anyway
Me: Bratty kids everywhere. Though I know those kids are gonna have Tragic Backstories Ahoy. :o
Friend 2: Y ea h they're pretty Fucked
~
Me: Been watching Geek Remix’s LP, and holy shit. The combat in Rule of Rose is cursed.
1. You can easily get ganged up by thousands of zombie babies in the hallway. By the time you shake yourself free, you’re grabbed by others before you even get the chance to move or swing your weapon.
2. Jennifer’s hitbox is enormous. An enemy could swing and miss her completely, and she’ll still take damage.
3. A Snorlax could nap in front of Jennifer and she still won’t be able to hit him. An enemy could be blatantly in her face, and she’ll still miss. Over and over and over. We’re talking Dr. Jekyll from NES Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde levels.
It’s a shame too, ‘cause everything else (graphics, music, atmosphere) is decent. And I want to know where the plot is going. Just dear god, bring this poor game some play-testers and fix the bugs in the combat system so it can actually be playable. DDD:
Friend: YCVGJHBK YEAH
The combat is
Really Deeply Fucking Cursed
~
Me: Whew, I was up all night finishing watching an LP of Rule of Rose. I still have a whole bunch of theories and analysis to read and catch up on. I’ve got time to say this before I take the puppies out though (Spoilers ahoy!)
Fuck you, Wendy. You don’t deserve a fucking lick of sympathy from me. Knowing that you made up lies about Jennifer, which was probably why the other kids detested her in the first place? You were never a friend. You straight up manipulated and gaslit your crush because omg how dare she love a dog and not love only you? You, Jennifer, and Brown could have found solace in each other, but you chose to throw it away and destroy one of them. You deserved to have your plans backfire and be crushed by the “Stray Dog.” Rest in fucking pieces, all alone forever inside the empty orphanage, bitch.
~
So I have mixed feelings about Rule of Rose. I love the storytelling and the way it lets you dig for clues. It lends itself to analysis as easily as Utena and the atmosphere is delectably creepy and tragic. My gripes are more... personal, which isn’t the game’s fault. If I had played this on my own rather than watching a LP, fought through the frustrating combat system all the way to the end, if I didn’t have Internet that would let me read in-depth theories and analysis about the game and secrets I would’ve missed, I would’ve felt angry and frustrated that I spent all this energy on a hopeless, cruel, cynical game.
The cast isn’t given the same... empathy? (I don’t know the right word) as the Utena cast. While the Utena cast is made up of a bunch of assholes who would be completely unlikable and shallow in a lesser series, they’re explored with a human lens that makes them interesting and/or sympathetic even if their actions are still sickening (Nanami in particular, and Saionji is surprisingly perspective when the duel system isn’t bringing out the worst in him) The orphanage kids are given glimpses and hints of depth, but they’re not given the Nanami-esque arcs I was hoping for. It’s easy to hate Nanami for drowning a kitten out of jealousy, but you can also see she was very much an abused and neglected child clinging to Touga as the only thing that provides her love and self-worth, and she’s clearly horrified at the “sacrifice” she made and how far she was willing to go for her brother’s love, and that is key to her development in her final episodes.
Meanwhile there’s Wendy, who does something similar to Nanami. She’s lonely and in love with Jennifer, and is ironically more like Tinkerbell in her jealousy. She’s willing to turn the entire orphanage against Jennifer and kill her puppy in order to draw her back to her side, and when that didn’t work, use the “Stray Dog” to intimidate everyone. But unlike Nanami, she’s less a lonely abused girl and more like a spiteful manipulative yandere. A victim-turned-abuser similar to Ellen from The Witch’s House whose actions go way beyond the pale into straight up sociopath territory. While I’m disgusted with what Nanami did, I understand why she did it—I cannot say the same for Wendy, who remains a cruel irredeemable monster who could have done anything but what she did. I just can’t empathize with a girl who feels this much disgust for animals and who would rather selfishly manipulate and gaslight the girl she “loves” because she’s too jealous to share her with anyone else. (I have trouble sympathizing with jealous characters, oops. Mainly because I was a lonely kid myself and I was totally open to having as many friends as possible)
As a bullying victim myself, I didn’t blame Jennifer at all for feeling closer to Brown, especially after Wendy turned the whole orphanage against her. Animals had always been a constant in my life who always offered me unconditional love and companionship, and have never stabbed me in the back. So I hated Wendy even more that she spat on the one other friend Jennifer had (her dismissive attitude towards animals matching that of the adults) and expected her to drop him for her.
(Pro-tip: If a friend or datefriend has a dismissive or repulsed attitude towards your pets or animal friends and would rather you dump said pets/animals and spend more time with them instead, RUN THE FUCK AWAY. That is a scarlet-drenched flag right there, they are NOT worth your time or energy) (Not that poor Jennifer had a choice. She and Brown would’ve been screwed no matter what. D: )
Amanda is basically Keiko; she’s tired of the mistreatment she gets from being the bottom of the rung, and was willing to do anything from becoming last place again, including backstabbing friends. Which is a painful reality and how a lot of bullying victims become bullies themselves. The problem is, the game is also, “Ew, she’s fat, look how gross and greedy and piggy she is.” and that rubbed me the wrong way. Like, you got a perfectly good reason why she is selfish and cruel right there, “being fat” didn’t make her that way (unless she was bullied and at the bottom of the rung because she was fat, which would’ve been a great exploration of how society’s reaction to fatness rather than fatness itself is the problem, but the game doesn’t delve into it. Missed opportunity!) Her greediness and pigginess feel tacked on because “fat” and that felt gross in a not-good way.
To take a break from complaining, I’m pleased how the boys were handled in the grand scheme of the story. RoR is heavily centered around girls, but it isn’t a female-only society where men conveniently don’t exist. It’s subtle about the toxic effects of the patriarchy without slamming it in your face. In a lesser story, the few boys would be dominating the orphanage with an iron fist, abusing and sexually assaulting the girls because “all men are evil horny monsters even as little boys, duuuuuuuh.” RoR does not do that. While the boys don’t give a damn and ignore Jennifer, that’s in line with the girls at the orphanage too. It shows them as regular boys without being “boys will be boys” if that makes sense? There’s no romantic (or bullying for romance) subplots with the boys and dear god it’s so refreshing. What’s also refreshing is they’re there as background dressing and don’t overshadow the narrative of the girls, because it’s usually the other way around. Instead, all male abuse on the girls is centered around the pedophiliac headmaster, which is the perfect demonstration of how poisonous and hideous the patriarchy is and how its abuse is carried over for generations. Clara was definitely one of the more sympathetic characters for me, and the Mermaid Princess is one of the creepiest and most heartbreaking bosses I’ve seen in ages.
Another thing I found refreshing about the game is it doesn’t have a black-and-white view regarding little girls. They’re not sweet and innocent little victims who helplessly flop like fish as they’re kicked by the patriarchy, but can be tools of the patriarchy to beat each other up. It presents female bullies as ruthless and not in a petty Regina George “tee hee I told everyone you’re a slut who slept with all the quarterbacks!” way (not that that isn’t shitty too, but you know what I mean) We’re talking hazing like shoving a live (and later rotting and maggot-infested) rat in your face, tying you up in a bag and dropping poisonous bugs and spiders inside, and even things that are downright dangerous. Lethal. What Wendy did would make the Heathers raise an eyebrow and slowly back away (and Heather Chandler was killed by poison for chrissakes!)
Another thing I liked is that the lesbian relationships aren’t ~ * ~ uwu puuuurrrre ~ * ~ It can be argued there is a bit of Predatory/Deranged Lesbian in the lesbian characters (particularly Wendy), it feels a bit minuscule considering practically every girl but Jennifer is cruel/predatory/deranged in some way. The game shows how girls and women can be cruel and abusive to each other, and that includes wlw relationships. I didn’t get the same vibe of “oh they’re like that because they’re lesbians” the way I felt with Amanda’s fatness. Wendy could have platonic feelings for Jennifer and I totally believe she would’ve done the exact same shit she did in-game.
The work and potential are there, I just wish I was able to forgive and pity the girls and Mr. Hoffman the way Jennifer could. If I had been her, I would’ve looked back on the orphanage with infuriated disgust and vowed to protect Brown and the Browns of the world from people like them. Maybe I would’ve been locked in a bad ending purgatory with Wendy’s constant obnoxious laughter. Who knows. :/
If you’ve recently lost a beloved pet, do not play this game. I’m fine because I have Neville, Lulubelle, Niko, and Frisk, and enough time has passed for me to start healing from Riley and Chara’s (maybe even Freddie’s still) deaths, but if I had watched a LP right after them, it would’ve made me humongously upset. The game is about the guilt and grief Jennifer feels from being unable to save and protect Brown, and it can hit close to home. :(
As far as animal abuse goes, the worst of it you see is Brown’s adult corpse being dragged (he later comes back to life to help you for the final boss) or a bunch of kids with bags on their heads beating a bloody sack with a stick. You hear no squeals or whimpers from the bag (none that I recall, so it’s not like the puppy screaming as it’s being beaten in Elfen Lied. A lot of the animals you find are already dead, with the abuse/torture/neglect having happened off-screen. So the animal abuse isn’t as awful as it is on Cannibal Holocaust levels, but I’d still take caution.
So overall, I’m not sure I love this game as much as I hoped. There’s a lot of elements that deserve praise, but there’s also the cursed battle system that prevents you from fully exploring and appreciating the story of the game, if the constant bleakness and cruelty with seemingly no hope in sight doesn’t turn you off first. It’s kinda a mix of genuine flaws, but also mostly a Not For Me kind of feeling. I had this response toward The Witch’s House too. I can appreciate the story and the brilliance of the twist, it just was Not For Me.
~
Person: Puri would you recommend geek remix's LP? Ive been meaning to watch this game for a while
Person: or whichever one u watched
Me: I’m not the best when it comes to reccing LPs, haha. XD GR’s is nice, but the stream chat window can be distracting.
Person: Gotcha! Itd be interesting to watch someone stream this but like nobody owns this game RIP
Me: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL72J-b3WSuGEAKUO3n5_7vSFppk_-22p0 I heard this LP is decent?
Person: I'll have to check that one out, thanks!
Me: Maybe I need time to warm up to the game. Who knows.
Me: I often don’t trust my first impressions. XD
Me: Ex. I absolutely despised Monika from DDLC, now she’s one of my favorite characters. XD
Person: Yeah I feel that, and even if the game just isn't for you theres no shame in that either!
Me: I love the main theme, haha. It’s so old-timey and haunting, yet comfy.~
Person: oh my god you made it into the rule of rose trauma club
Person: congratulatiosn and condolances
Person: that game does some damage
Me: Do I get a red crayon?
Person: i've straight up issued the demand that if any of my friends play the game they get my save file so they can at least have jennifer swingign aroudn a frozen tuna that one-shots stuff
Me: Also, if a stuffed cigarette meme hasn’t been made of Jennifer with the crayons stuffed in her mouth hasn’t been made yet, I’m going to be disappointed.
Person: i haven't gone back and read all your spoilers i'm just always amazed to see someoen else that made it through the wringer
Person: cause like
Person: you hit the mermaid boss fight and that is a point where anyone would jsut quit
Me: I mean, I watched an LP since the game is rare and frustrating to play through. XD
Person: oh oh i get you
Person: that is a ver ywise decision
Person: frustrating is just
Me: Jennifer, just hit something, pleeeeeeeease
Person: there was one point late game where i walked up soem stairs? and three of the bird monsters were right at the top and as soon as i loaded in they chain-pecked me to death one chunk of health at a time and i hadn't saved in an hour
Person: r u l e o f r o s e
Me: Fiona will let you borrow Hewie to protect you and Brown, just stop getting ganged up by zombie children and taking naps on the floor before taking a million hours to get up.
Person: hewie the goodest dog
Me: Hewie is the battle boy, Brown is the item hunter.
Person: rinoa's dog launcher but it shoots hewies
Me: Niiiiiice.
Me: I think you can make a full RPG team with Hewie, Brown, and Angelo.
Me: Hewie the warrior, Brown the healer, Angelo the mage.
Person: boney as the wise mentor
Person: toby fox as the secret joke character
Me: Oh yeah, Boney! I can’t believe I forgot him.
Me: lol Annoying Dog is the troll.
Person: anyway to be clear you absolutely got the best of the experience watchign an LP, i'm not kiddign when i say this game actually kind of hurts you with the misery it puts you through in order to see it through
Person: by the tiem i got to the final chapter my broken little lizard brain was like "oh maybe it was worth it, there is a point in the end"
Me: Annoying Dog: HERE I COME A TROLLING
Jennifer: :(
Annoying Dog: Oh uh... wow. Looks like everyone has beaten me to it, huh. (takes pity on Jennifer and leaves her with the best weapon)
Person: if the LPer knew what they were doing i don't know how i can ever possibly stress that it is exponentially worse on your first time through
Me: You miss a lot on your first playthrough.
Person: jennifer gets hurt, you get hurt, everyone has a Bad Time
Me: This next LP I’m planning to watch is supposed to cover more secrets.
Me: I had no idea you can get perfumes in the game.
Person: i actually like the story when it finally gets down to brass tacks but it makes you slog through this exhaustively tedious framing narrative for something like 75% of the game's runtime
Me: And Geek Remix was playing blind and didn’t know you could interact with so many items pumped with lore in the Once Upon a Time chapter.
Person: oh no
Me: Though understandably she’s fought her fucking ass to the end, let her have her happy ending and say goodbye to Brown. ;;
Me: Knowing the game is a narrative about Brown helping Jennifer confront her trauma and be able to heal does make me feel a little better.
Person: i like where it ends up but i do not like the mile of broken glass you crawl through on the way there lol
Me: No kidding. @.@
Me: Rule of Rose is like if Lemony Snicket made a video game, but forgot most of the black humor.
Person: instead of jokes, gremlins in pigmasks stun-lock you in tiny hallways
Me: And goat masks and bunny masks and rat masks...
Me: Don’t you dare ruin goats for me, game. I played Undertale!
Me: Rule of Rose, where instead of Akio the Prince is Wendy.
Me: Dios? Also Wendy.
Me: Which perfectly fits the Dios/Akio parallels.
Me: At least now I have a go-to line for all my female friends playing Rule of Rose:
Me: “You poor unlucky girl.”
Person: i did think it was a neat twist that the
Person: wait let me double check that i got the tags right check
Person: ok cool hah hah
Person: i did think it was a neat twist that wendy was such an overwhelming force in the story that the violent abusive father figure wound up a literal animal at her command acting out her unrelenting grudge
Person: even he was nothing next to that intensity
Me: I’m imagining an AVGN episode of RoR where AVGN is furious about the combat, and all the skits involve him being bullied into hopeless misery by various figures of his past (Shit Pickle, Glitch Gremlin, etc.)
Me: By the end of the episode, AVGN goes on to praise the game’s story, but vows never to play it again.
Person: AVGN plays rule of rose would have him jsut compeltely drop character halfway through the ep and just have somber monologues on how we hurt each other
Me: Oh yeah...
Person: not even the angriest nerd can withstand that onslaught
Me: Nope. : p
Me: At least Rule of Rose didn’t scare my chinchillas like Haunting Ground did. I had to turn the lights on during that LP because one of them was barking pitifully.
Person: oh no
Person: i guess that makes sense though, it's not a sensory overload sort of game
Person: just a misery overload sort of game am i right [bowtie spins]
Me: lol
Me: Haunting Ground at least has Daniella’s gloriously creepy laughter as she rips out Fiona’s uterus. :D
Me: The thing ripped out of Jennifer is her heart’s joy.
Me: You can keep my uterus, but dear god, not my dog! D: D: D:
Person: i could swear i remember that at the very start as you're walking to the orphanage you can stop off at brown's old shed and get a message something like "you don't know why but this palce feels sad"
Another Person: Daniella should not have worked as well as she did as a character
Me: She’s my favoriiiiiiite
Another Person: But she's one of the best parts of the game
Me: And I ship her and Fiona so hard with all its disturbing glory.
Person: https://twitter.com/SarahSSowertty/status/1047203601372864512
Gaming Hell (@SarahSSowertty)
The Capcom logo in Haunting Ground (PS2). Do your best, Hewie! https://t.co/5y7GxPRNqz
Person: hewie will save us
Me: Bring back the Girl & Her Dog subgenre plz
Me: That’s actually my first idea for a pixel horror game too. The MC meets a Chinese Crested and he performs tricks to help her solve puzzles and escape the haunted creepy theme park.
Me: And you can find items to increase his bond with you, like sunscreen for his skin~
Me: (Since Chinese Cresteds are mostly bald and need sunscreen to prevent burns)
Person: MCs that cover each other's weaknesses and cooperate to get through is a sorely underused setup
Me: I don’t know if I’ll merge it with my Horror Version of Pokémon idea or not, but I very much want to write a Girl & Her Dog horror game story. ;;
Me: [[shows various pictures of Chinese Cresteds]] Look what adorable freckles this one has!
Me: (The doggie next to it is also a Crested, called a Powderpuff. They exist in every litter so the hairless Cresteds can stay warm~)
Me: I’ll be back for more RoR and HG glory later, I gotta shower.
Me: That’s the true reason Juri has Sad Gay Showers all the time, Shiori gave her RoR as a gift and she still can’t get past the Mermaid Princess.
Person: see that's the fun of the NG+ content, is killign the fish-gremlins and the mermaid wit ha whole-ass frozen tuna
Me: Shiori: She can’t beat it either, I’m finally superior to her over something HAHAHA
Person: shirori would definitely see that shit through the the bitter end
Person: you know that part where juri knocks and she answers the door
Person: she was playing rule of rose then
Person: it's canon
Me: God Shiori would fit right into RoR universe, that makes sense.
Me: (Okay showertime)
Person: oh man how did i forget that the theme to rule of rose is named "a love suicide"
Person: yep.
Me: What if the Rose Garden Orphanage was the orphanage Chara ran away from?
Me: Also: the Aristocrat Club is made up of Floweys.
Me: But even Flowey would be bullied without mercy at the Aristocrat Club.
Person: [[sunflower smilie]]
One More Person: for whoever was asking about Rule of Rose LP's, this is my go-to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GWGYzMHPbA&list=PLb-F7qdEhuYPAv9RLProYBHC0g5PknFIq
Me: Oooh.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-17 06:22 pm (UTC)I’m thrilled to see someone else I know talking about this game. I first played Rule of Rose nine years ago and I’ve loved it ever since. I’ve been meaning for a replay lately. After hitting up the usual suspects (Tvtropes, which I won’t link because your time is important to me) I’d recommend spending
dayssome time on the now defunct fanblogRule of Rose Mysteries. I needed it to quench my thirst.My posts on the game are literally from nine years ago where my already not-so-stellar writing style was especially not-stellar, so I can’t really link them in good faith, but I can comment a bit here without feeling like a total buffoon. As someone who has played the game through twice, I can say that… yeah. The combat can be very frustrating. Hitboxes are super wonky, and the forced combat rooms are excruciating. The drama of the Mermaid Princess starts to wane a bit when she’s constantly knocking Jennifer down, screeching, and then vanishing before she can recover. The lack of invincibility frames for Jennifer’s recovery makes it stupidly easy to die even to basic bitch mobs who surround you and submit you to a death of a thousand pokes.
Certain enemies are especially bad. The Bird Heads are aggravating, though fairly uncommon, but great googly moogly the friggin’ Pig Heads are the absolute worst. They run around like the damned Juggernaut and facing more than one is a quick ticket to the game over screen. I already mentioned the Mermaid Princess, but Hoffman’s boss battle is almost as agitating. Talk about your beef gates. This all felt especially bad coming off the tail end of playing Haunting Ground another PS2 horror girl-and-her-dog game, but which played infinitely better.
But the rest of the game? God, I am so here for it. The music, the asthetic, and I’m honestly a fan of the terribly cynical, tragic tone. YMMV, of course. Speaking of YMMV…
Wendy.
Hoo boy.
Right, so, I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying. Wendy’s pretty awful. As if the gaslighting behavior toward the other children wasn’t bad enough (though, sadly, not something uncommon among children—or adults—in the realm world) her horrible actions literally led to the deaths of nearly everyone at the Orphanage, and she preyed upon a mentally unstable older man and used him as a literal weapon*. It’s not really actions that could be considered “redeemable”. That being said, I still find that I empathize with her a little. Call it sympathy for the devil—and I don’t think this justifies and/or excuses her actions—but her situation is a little different from Nanami. Wendy wasn’t raised in privilege, and England was an especially terrifying place in that time period. She didn’t have family or friends, and to top it off she was pretty sickly. The desperation she must have felt when it looked like Jennifer, her “Prince”, was going to stop caring about her drove her over the edge. She was just a little girl—and children aren’t known for their emotional maturity. I think Wendy is a really tragic figure, and so much of that tragedy is that she had the power to change the entire situation if she’d just been transparent about her feelings with Jennifer, and come to accept Brown as a friend, but she choose not to.
Then again, how many real life adults make those same self-destructive decisions again and again?
I’m mostly just playing devil’s advocate here. I didn’t love Wendy—I didn’t even particularly like her as a person—but I still found her to be sympathetic in a way.
There’s so much to talk about in regards to RoR that I just went with the biggest point I felt out of what you put. If you end up with more posts about it though, you can expect at least a swooning comment from me.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-23 09:25 am (UTC)Oof, Hoffman. Another creepy and agitating boss. He reminded me of the sadistic headmaster from Pink Floyd's The Wall: both of them brought up in England's terrible school system and going on to become as cruel and torturous to children as the teachers before them. The difference being that Hoffman was a pedophile on top of all that. :( (Jesus Christ, he even dry-humps you during his battle. *shudder*)
You have a point! If anything, Wendy is an effective villain, because a lot of people IRL could end up just like her in the same situation. I have no idea if she and the other girls would fare better at Ohtori. If anything, due to Akio, it might be worse. DDD: I listened to My Medea by Vienna Teng again, and I feel it's a very interesting interpretation of Wendy if you analyze the lyrics from her POV (with "this child I would destroy" as Jennifer). What do you think? :o