Rule of Rose/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: There's a theory that claims Brown was only a doll all along. This casts Wendy's actions in a somewhat more sympathetic light, and casts an unfavorable light over Jennifer's.
  • Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack.
  • Crack is Cheaper: Due to the poor sales of the game, it's nearly impossible to find a copy without spending some serious coin.
  • Cry for the Devil: After playing the epilogue, you'll feel deeply sorry for the two people largely responsible for all the bad things that happened in the story: Wendy and Gregory. It's utterly heartwrenching to watch Wendy silently plead for you to stay when you know it's impossible, and listen to Gregory trying to put together a happy story to read to his dead son.
  • Damsel Scrappy: If YouTube comments are anything to go by, fans get annoyed by Jennifer's submissive behavior by the time the third chapter rolls along.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: All the aristocrats get a bit of this, though Diana's the most frequent. She's attractive, has the most tragic backstory (and her current life isn't much better), and Jennifer notes that when away from the others she occasionally showed kindness and empathy towards her. This doesn't, of course, entirely excuse the fact that she's normally their ringleader in tormenting Jennifer, and that she's horrible even to her friends.
  • Everybody Is Jesus in Purgatory
  • Les Yay: A bunch. And all those involved are children. Although unlike the infamous trailer would hint, the examples are quite non-sexual in nature.
  • Most Annoying Sound: Olivia's crying. You only hear it two or three times, but dear god can it get on your nerves quick.
    • The loud, looping music that plays during cleaning time in "The Funeral" chapter.
  • Narm: While the Mermaid's appearance and implications are quite horrifying, the sounds she makes can make the fight hard to take seriously: "Wheeee!!"
  • No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Averted, big time. The developers hired a publicist to hype up the game in the Italian press by significantly overstating its graphic and sexual content in an effort to cause controversy. It worked a little too well once the made-up story reached the UK, where its release was canceled due to the ensuing controversy. Not to mention the game outright bombed in the countries it was released in.
  • Player Punch: Brown. Oh, god, Brown.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: If you got annoyed by Jennifer's submissive behavior, chances are you'll forgive her by the end of Chapter 9.
  • That One Boss: Most likely Clara from the Mermaid Princess chapter.
  • Warped Aesop: The game's fairytale narrative is rife with these, and each episode's storybook is an increasingly appalling version of this, all to drive home what monsters human beings are. Subverted in the end, as the final, picture-only storybook closes the story on a bittersweet, but uplifting note.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The whole game is rife with a bizarre, surrealist aesthetic that involves, among other things, roses, butterflies, mermaids, stick figure drawings, imps and dead fish floating in mid-air. Not quite all of it makes sense.