Not the best horror game, not the worst. Not a RE or a SH clone either. Worth to take a look.
That's why things went wrong with Rule of Rose (ROR).
The team behind this game made a really beautiful game.
When I mean beautiful, it's because, the models are nice, so are the textures, and there's a lot of work in characters design, sound, etc.
That's the best way to describe it: A LOT of time spent to make a great game.
GRAPHICS
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If you have a PS2, you know graphics are a little out of date, so here's where the intelligence are really important. How to get the best out of a 7 years old system. Well, actually ROR looks really nice, you can notice that this game was exclusively designed for this console, and it's NOT a port with sloppy graphics.
The rendered cg animation are excellent, and help a lot to understand the story.
SOUND
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Sound is pretty good. It really helps to create a creepy atmosphere. The translation of the dialogs are ok, and the sound effects are good.
The music can be somehow repetitive, but it fits. It would have been better if the loops were larger.
CONTROLS
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Well... something went wrong here. Jennifer moves really slow. Even of you run at full speed, it is slow. I can't complain, because I'm sure the creators of this game meant it to be this way, it is clear they don't want you to run away fast.
They tried something similar with the combat system, and it failed.
I know your character is scared, but it is SO frustrating... you can get killed anywhere just because it is really hard to hit your enemies. And they don't move fast, or a lot faster than your character, but it seems like they really screwed up trying to make the combat system realistic for a scared girl.
I won't write anything about tilt or value.
Instead I'll say that if you are a fan of the horror genre, take a look at this game, maybe you'll find it fun, at least for a while, because level design is very repetitive, but maybe you'll play until you reveal the whole story.