A Ghostly Rose
Note: A Ghostly Rose is a full blown remake of Three Ghostly Roses. It is not the same game. If you played Three Ghostly Roses, this will be an entirely new experience.
The Web is ablaze. Four bright flames that will forever change the very fabric of the Web. An unstable place, with a canvas that is painted from willpower. It has a reality that is far too flexible. Without an anchor, who knows the terrors one would become?
The laughter never ends. Bouncing off the hollow walls, tainting the weak and strong alike.
Edmund found himself entrapped. He does not know where he is. He does not know how he got there. Edmund knows he is in a most terrible place and that he must stop at no end to fight his way through.
With nothing but the clothes on his back, Edmund must punch and kick his way past anything that stands in his way. He cannot hold back. Edmund must smash heads, snap arms, and break legs. Anything to shatter the foe. Even the slightest hesitation would mean defeat. And defeat in this terrible Web is a fate much worse than death.
Edmund will do anything to see her again. One last time.
Gameplay
A Ghostly Rose is a SNES inspired turn-based RPG with a strong focus on character. Discover who Edmund is in this surreal and gloomy world, where he must break his way through a variety of dungeons and crush the bones of his enemies.
Edmund fights alone. He must use Martial Arts to injure the foe’s body parts and shatter them mentally. Be warned, the enemy can injure Edmund’s body parts as well.
Discover what Mentally Breaks each foe. Is it a Head Injury? Or is it being near death? Perhaps it can be Edmund’s sheer refusal to lose.
Features
– An emotional character based story. Find out who Edmund is and face the uncomfortable truths of death.
– Deep turn-based RPG battles, fast turn-based RPG battles. Find out what Mentally Breaks each foe by using deadly Martial Arts.
– User-friendly level design. No random encounters. Completing the room of enemies means they stay gone.
– Not too long. Not too short. Around 8 hours of gameplay.
– All original pixel art.
– A haunting original FM Synth inspired soundtrack.
Game Discussion
Steam User 0
(Full review here:
A Ghostly Rose is a remake/reimagination of the freeware Three Ghostly Roses - which had at one point been voted the best RPGMaker game of all time. (
That is, you'll never need to grind to get past any obstacle - or, say, keep track of how many healing items you own, since you only have your Estus Flask and 1-Up equivalents that are generally refilled after just a handful of encounters - and so, after an intentionally easy, Hulk-like prologue, those encounters (including boss fights) are generally finetuned so that you'll lose many of them without knowing what you are doing, but would have decent slack for making suboptimal decisions if you have paid attention to what your abilities do and what the enemies' likely weaknesses are (Scan command is a free action here!) While levels technically exist (representing how much money you invested into upgrading character skills), money is always abundant, and most of the progression is gated by story, as there's a shonen (?)-like approach where key abilities often require the main character, Edmund, to be driven to intense emotions in specific encounters to unlock them.
Thus, as you can tell, it's a very narratively-driven game - and luckily, that narrative is pretty good. As noted, the basic idea would be immediately recognizable for those familiar with LISA - but while this particular setting is hardly sanitized (some bosses hate Edmund enough to swear intensely at him and while this page does not show this, there are actually QUITE a few female enemies who are all-but-naked), it is nevertheless much less vulgar, and the dialogue is generally very appealing to read. I found surprising parallels here with Furi - in that much of the narrative is also delivered by/revolves around a guide character. That, and the question of main character's morality vs. that of the bosses is often just as acute.
Truth be told, I don't think this game always sticks the landing narratively - i.e. the story of the King and Queen clearly intends to echo the classic "Lennon ruined by Yoko" storyline (or whatever its equivalent might be in the world of hip-hop) - but it doesn't seem to keep track of the supernatural aspects of the situation very well, and their implications make a supposedly clear-cut situation so ambiguous as to make it remarkably difficult to side with anyone. Having said, very few games have consistently great stories from start to finish - and on the bright side, the unique battles you get there also feature the absolute best of the already good soundtrack in the game. While all of it is at the very least good enough for the situations they are played in, two tracks from that chapter are now in my playlist. Graphically, the game is also generally pretty good; while some facesets could do with more work and some interiors could have a bit more decor, my overall impression from the graphics is very positive - particularly thanks to the evocative Broken sprites of the enemies, which always make the damage you have inflicted seem significant.
In all, I recommend it - and I am now quite interested in the creator's next game, Kissed by a Star, which is due to release today! (Will update this review once I have played and reviewed that one as well.)
8/10