This review will contain some spoilers but I don't think you should care
Where did I find it?
We've all seen those ads. They're all over facebook, absolutely bizarre, and usually, have nothing to do with the subject matter. Blood & Roses came up on my feed as one of these with an ad that I remember being completely baffling (In future I will be screenshotting these ads for your viewing pleasure). However, from further extensive research (A google search), I discovered that this "free" (Trust me, the quotations are necessary) game is one of many games from a collection of Japanese games called "Shall We Date."
So is this a cross-cultural misunderstanding or simply a weird as hell game?
Let's descend down this pit together, shall we?
A plot synopsis;
Your main character is a young girl (I'm sensing a theme in these games) who is tasked with discovering the source of brutal attacks on members of her village. She has also descended from some Witch named Tatiana? Anyway, her and a cute as hell wolf-dog-thing (My personal favourite character in all of this) venture into the forest to investigate where they discover a vampire/supernatural hotel. She lies her way into a job there in hopes of discovering more about the attacks. Then, like somebody with one singular brain cell, manages to get herself nearly killed. Her only option? Be bitten by a vampire in order to survive, leaving her with three days to find a rose garden and drink the dew of some rose in order to not turn? Or something. I don't know, it's not very clear half the time.
Whose pants are we getting into?
This game has, in total, 26 different romance options. Now I'm dedicated to this endeavour but you could not pay me enough to try all 26 of these. So I'm going to give you the man/vampire I chose at random instead.
Rogan - The website (Yes, they have a god damn website for these games) gives you this little character card for our man.
"Rogan is a security guard at the hotel. He likes to be alone and places a distance between himself and others. But seemingly. he is friends with Harold and Raymond. Although he remains a man of mystery to me, he might open up his heart to you."
Now firstly I don't know who the hell "me" is referring to but maybe it's a translation error? But more importantly, from what I played.
This guy is a jackass.
I don't know what is supposed to appeal to a woman about a guy treating her like trash, being emotionally vacant, and brooding like a moody teenager but lord I have dated men like this. This is a trope I see constantly in romance and one I want to set on fire. I don't know how I got unlucky enough to pick this prick but I regretted it almost instantaneously. Aspiring visual novel writers take note; this crusty old trope needs to f**cking go.
What I did enjoy
The character designs are stunning. Whoever took the time to design and execute them is wasting their talents and needs to be doing much better things. Illustrate a manga, work on concept art for an anime, do another BETTER visual novel. Anything, anything, but this. The characters were mostly okay but there was such an excess of them that I found myself forgetting/not caring about most of them. The concept/set up was also an ok idea but the execution? Not great.
Also the dog, by far the best-written character I loved him dearly.
What I didn't enjoy
Buckle up kiddos this is going to be one hell of a ride.
I will begin by saying that I'm aware that this game is probably translated from Japanese to English. I get it, that's probably why the writing is clunky as all hell. But screw you, this is my blog, and the writing in this thing is mind boggling bad. Here some of my favourite screenshots of some true gems.
I somehow don't feel all that threatened
I would pay real money to watch somebody try this
Error 404: grammar not found
I also managed to stumble across the surprised Pickachu meme
To be completely blunt; the weird grammar and broken lines were the only entertaining part of this experience. Everything from the repetitive music to the game's convoluted menus and constant spam of notifications was god awful. But the worst thing about it all, it's unforgivable sin, is-
Microtransactions
I spent 10 whole- real ass- dollars on this game just to progress to the point I did, which was not very far. And I'm not talking about waiting times or paid scenes/choices, oh no, I'm talking literal paywalls where you have to pay real money to acquire fake money in order to buy a fake object to be allowed access to the next chapter. Can't afford it? Sucks to be you, you can't move forward. EA move over because the game straight up lies to you when it claims to be free. Crappy writing? I can forgive. Being held hostage by capitalism? No. No, I cannot.
My final verdict
Don't play this, DON'T PLAY THIS. D o n ' t p l a y t h i s.
I wasted my limited time on this earth and threw away my hard earned money to bare this burden for you. Please, there are so many incredible and free visual novels out there that aren't terrible and also aren't blatant scams. Don't give this thing your time and money.
I give it the tinniest bottle of vodka/5
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