the only thing stopping this game from being perfect is the combat, it would work so much better as a walking simulator! other than that, rule of rose masters everything else. i love seeing female adolescence and trauma through the lens of fairytales and flowery language to remind the audience that jennifer was too young. a silly yet efficient reminder that these are just kids, capable of doing awful, awful things, but still, kids playing a game.
diana in special stands out to me the most: she's just awful. maybe there's a reason for that, after all the adults around her aren't exactly teaching her to be a good person. but to jennifer, she's just a mean girl. the things diana did might not impact her, she might not even think about it often, but to poor jennifer, it's a scar she carried for a long time, something that takes a long time to make peace with.
rule of rose tells this bittersweet tale in a way that haunts me, if i think too much about it: it never hide its horrors, only try to cover it a little with rose motifs, because it's a children fairytale. but in its core, it's a letter full of empathy to all those kids that were mistreated, and it says "you can survive this, and you can move on"
hits too close to home and i know i'll keep this game in my heart for a long time.