Rule of Rose is a survival horror game, my favorite genre. And in it, you’re not fighting zombies, angered and crazed villagers, or nurses with knives. No, you are fighting something far more terrifying. Children! Well, sort of. Children run the show and you fight “imps” which are deformed children. I guess. Who really knows?

It only takes a complete watch-through of the opening CG to completely chill you to the bone. Bits and pieces of the story play out in the excellently done cinematic and both make you want to play the game and make you want to turn it off and huddle in the corner. We are talking about seriously disturbing imagery here. The static backgrounds are very nice and are reminiscent of Resident Evil, taking you through an orphanage, an airship and a few other locales in between. Areas range from dank and forbidden, to nicely appointed, but all convey the feeling of abandonment and disarray.

At first, the music can seem redundant, yet haunting. But as you progress through areas it changes, and in some, it matches in a disturbingly perfect way to where you are and what you are doing. For instance, there’s an area where you must rescue a pet bird and the music seems to chitter along nervously. Brilliant! Voicework is well done – the main character, Jennifer, and the children she encounters all have lovely British accents and seem so demure and refined… until the torture begins.

Character design is pretty good. Jennifer, the main character, is a 19 year old quiet blonde and she reminds me a lot of the main character from Haunting Ground. She eventually finds Brown, her trusted canine companion, who looks and acts like a real dog would, in most cases. Brown’s “voicework” was so realistic that I have to wonder what they did to the dog to capture the whimpers and distressed barks. My dog literally stared at the TV when Brown was crying and barking and was visibly distressed at what he was hearing. Either the sound guys were really good or really evil.

You begin Rule of Rose as Jennifer, an orphan on a bus who encounters a young boy who gives her a strange storybook and then runs away. She chases after him and off the bus, only to find herself left on the side of a deserted road. She takes the logical path and comes upon a strange building, what she later finds is an orphanage. It is here that her journey begins.

During her investigation of the area, she sees a group of children with bags over their heads beating something in a bag mercilessly. This happens on numerous occasions, by the way, the beatings and such. And yes, they disturbed me greatly every time. She starts making her way around the grounds and into the building, seeing odd notes inscribed with red crayons, along the way. She eventually realizes that the place is run by the “Red Crayon Aristocrats”, a group of cruel little girls and some boys as well, who require obedience, gifts, and the occasional act of evil and cruelty if, as a newcomer, you are to survive. At times, traumatic things will happen to Jennifer and she will pass out. When she awakens, she’ll be in a different location, maybe on a once-luxurious airship, or in a rose garden. This is the way the game plays out. There’s a story to be told here, one that is very intriguing, but it’s like pulling teeth to figure out what is actually happening and what has happened in the past. When you save your game, you’ll notice it records the “month” in which you are playing. It will jump around from March, 1930 to July, then to October and back again. This is because you are remembering what really happened. Or at least, as far as I can figure, that is what is happening.

At times, you will face the girls in different situations and they will require you to go on fetch quests. These are told in the form of "storybook", crudely drawn books with clues for your tasks. Usually, during these missions, you will encounter enemies in the form of imps, children either with twisted faces or wearing bunny masks or pig suits. It’s all really twisted and messed up in the head. You don’t always have to fight them. In fact, most of the time, you can simply run around and avoid them. However, there are times you are forced to deal with them. This will happen when you go into a room, a cut scene shows a child with a paper bag over its head peek into the room and slam the door shut. Then you know you have been locked in and must fight. Most of the time, you can run around, taking each one on at a time. You won’t have much in the way of weapons – you’ll find a dessert fork, a few knives, a meat cleaver and an iron pipe along the way. I’m told there’s a gun, but I haven’t found it yet. Most of these weapons are short range and let them get some good licks in on you before you can kill them. The pipe is slow, but long and allows you to keep your distance. All of this would be fine were there more in the way of health, but there’s not. You can use Brown to sniff out candy and treats (health), but the game often has you running across such large areas, that if you don’t gather enough health prior to embarking on a big battle, you are screwed.

This is my primary beef with the game. Not enough health available and also, picking up items that should be able to be used for health, but can’t be. Take the two half-eaten cookies I find, for instance. I use them to locate a gluttonous little boy who keeps eating and dropping them. So they are in my inventory, but yet I can’t use them for anything other than finding this boy! Ludicrous!!! Personally, I am about 3/4 of the way through the game, and I am stuck in an area where imps box you in during several different encounters. I can get through the first couple, but then there I am with no health except for these friggin’ useless cookies. Sadly, I will never know how the story resolves because I can’t seem to get past this area with no health and unless I travel back through the entire game looking for extra cookies, this is the end for me.

As previously mentioned, Rule of Rose lacks sorely in the health department. Sure, you might find three scones in a row, but that only means you are about to get your ass kicked by freaky, tall bird things with scissors for beaks… or something like that. The weapons aren’t good for much and as I mentioned earlier, the game can leave you in seemingly impossible situations with no health and no real way to progress. Boss battles can be annoying. They are more of an exercise in patience than simply hard. In one, you have to fight an adult teacher who seems to be chained up, but can still put the serious hurt on you. Here, your dog Brown will help you by busying the man so you can run around and whack him with your pipe. In yet another boss battle, you are fighting a “mermaid” who drops from the ceiling and spews acid at and on you and Brown, and she also strikes out to slap you. I tried to defeat her using my trusty long-range pipe. I hit her over 25 times and she still didn’t die! Finally, I started being careless in my attempts to get extra hits in and died. The game waits you out until you get tired of doing the same wash, rinse, repeat moves and you get careless. Argh! There’s also a control issue that makes the game more difficult, but I will address that in Game Mechanics.

Rule of Rose does have one completely annoying control issue that I simply must mention. When Jennifer is fighting and she gets knocked down or stunned or even burned by the aforementioned acid, when she gets back up, it is impossible to make the girl turn around to retreat. She insists upon going forward to turn around, leaving her walking further into the acid or into an enemy’s swings. Hence, she takes more blows. Then, as her health depletes, she slows down and stumbles about, making it impossible for her to get away. I always thought this was a good mechanic when it was used in Resident Evil, but here it almost seems to render her useless too quickly and seals her fate.

Another great frustration are the abysmally long load times. When the game begins, you have to see the mini opening credits, every time you play the game. No fast forwarding through these, folks. Then there are certain CG events that you are forced to watch. If I’ve seen it once, why make me see it again? Also, as you travel just between corridors, you can experience long load times. I know the game is pretty and we need to allow time for things to get loaded up, but these load times are simply too long.

On the upside, one really interesting mechanic is your companion, Brown. Once you find Brown, you can use him to find things for you. When you pick up an object, it goes into your inventory. When you look at your goods, you can choose to do things like “find”, “use”, “drop” and “look”. So if you find a scone and want Brown to sniff out more of them, you’d select find and hit the triangle button and he’ll search out more if there are any in the immediate area. This really comes into play when someone drops a little something and you can use Brown to find that person to progress on in the story. It’s a very helpful mechanic and I found myself using it far more than simply exploring the area, once I got Brown on my side.

Now, a little housekeeping. As you can see, this is a Mature rated game. This game is for grown-ups only. Even though little kids are in it, it’s still has very mature themes. These kids brutally murder things, beat the living hell out of adults and animals, torture one another with both living and decaying rats tied to sticks, and much more. There are not-so-hidden lesbian undertones, hints at inappropriate relationships between teachers and students, and just some generally disturbing and somewhat heart-wrenching stuff. This game is one of those that makes you feel like you need a shower after playing. It’s just so damn wrong in every way. Now, that being said, I have had a good time unlocking bits of the story. The game is intriguing, despite the huge frustrations I have encountered. I do want to see the story through to the end. Maybe one day when I feel like exploring an entire airship for cookies…