If there's grass on the field, play ball....
User Rating: 6.5 | Rule of Rose PS2
I have been wanting to pick up this title since its initial release date, but strayed away due to lackluster reviews. Well, I've been on a retro kick with my PS2 games and found this at a bookstore for $5.99. Let me say that I love horror-themed games and this one does have a fair amount of creepiness to it, but the story isn't that great and the actual gameplay is incompetent. I had to struggle through the broken gameplay just to see if the story would start to make sense, but once you get to the revelation at the end you more or less feel like "meh". It is easily forgettable. Back on the gameplay, I literally had to always click multiple times or reposition myself to pick up an item. The controls are highly unresponsive. Also, the combat system is almost non-existent, I guess mainly because you are supposed to try to evade battling through most of the game. This can be frustrating especially during a boss battle when it is hard to hit the enemy with a tiny knife (the metal pipe has the best reach, but is terribly weak) and evade. Still, the Aristocracy of the Red Crayon is a creepy, sadistic lot and the enemies, although there is not a whole lot of variation, are still bizarre as hell (the wooden water-drinking bird thing is by far the creepiest). Also, the first boss was pretty demented in my opinion. All in all, hardcore survival-horror fans need apply only.
