After putting some time into Rule of Rose I've sort of worked out what it's about, though the reasons for it's mass banning are still a bit muddy.
For those who don't know, Rule of Rose is a Japanese developed survival horror game that wasn't released in several countries for various reasons. Those reasons ranging from the game containing minors and depicting sadomasochistic themes, which is kind of true to an extent. The game wasn't so much banned in Australia as it was never submitted for a rating by the distributor and thus couldn't be sold, I'd assume this was on the back of all the controversy in the European territories.
Lucky enough I managed to pick up a French copy of the game, which does indeed have an English option, even if all the case and manual are in French.
While the game certainly deserves something consisting of a high rating, I'm not sure if it deserved to never be released. While it's certainly not a stellar game, the story it different and interesting. It really does give you that creepy feeling while playing, especially the cut scenes. It's almost like watching one of those extremely bizarre experimental independant movies that just make no sense, but compel you to watch because they just make no sense.
The thing is with this game, the visuals are fairly bland, there isn't anything special about it, for the most part it just looks like a Silent Hill game. The music is interesting and quite fitting with an eerie feeling for the most part. The combat, oh lord, this seriously has to be some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. No matter what weapon you have equipped, there it no real way to target an enemy, you just seem to randomly flail about trying to stab or hit things. This makes boss fights horrid, one in particular was so irritating I just wanted to beat it for the satisfaction that I could see the bitch die. Oh and multiple enemies, yeah prepare to be totally fucked by them.
Another issue with the game, is that it seems to have a lot of backtracking and general fucking around. So much back and forth finding items, some of which I still have no clue what are used for, maybe finding other items, which seems a trend in the game.
After all this what compels me to play such a game, honestly, the story. I just want to see where something this messed up goes. It does have a certain charm and it one of those games for people willing to submit to it's flaws. There are a lot of "What the Christ?" moments within it, mainly from the CGI cut scenes, though they do tend to be the most entertaining part.
