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A ROSE IN THE TWILIGHT (VITA)
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Publisher: NIS America.
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software. Released: April 2017. Genre: 2D Platformer; Puzzle. Other versions: PC. Posted 5th September 2018. By Tom Clare © 2018 |
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“The whisper is louder than the shout”, as the old saying goes. It’s a perfect fit for Nippon Ichi’s 2017 adventure A Rose in the Twilight. In a market where big-budget, noise ‘n’ spectacle games make a play for people’s wallets, this clever, graceful 2D adventure created no more than a modest ripple in the broader gaming whirlpool. Modest, but no less worthy.
A Rose in the Twilight’s name is the first of many small hints towards a degree of subtlety and culture to its development, something that gaming has still to become completely acclimatised to at this juncture. Therefore it’s not going to attract the masses, but there is an underlying quality and intelligence to its design, that is born out in how it plays. A Gothic adventure which involves tackling platforming and puzzling within a sequence of rooms set around a seemingly long-abandoned castle and its immediate surrounds, it goes about its business in an understated, quietly affecting manner.
Rose and the Giant run the gauntlet in the Clock Tower sequence
A spiritual successor to Masayuki Furuya’s flawed but impressive htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary, A Rose in the Twilight quickly establishes its superiority. Improvements are subtle, common sense ones, which benefit both the gameplay and the general aesthetic. Recognising the awkwardness of touch-screen control for sequences that push the player for time, ARitT wisely opts for a more conventional, analogue and buttons approach. As a result, and despite its taxing nature, it’s more playable and less frustrating. Beautiful, distinctive visuals also mark a step forward. Opting for a sombre monochrome appearance punctuated by angry, visceral streaks of red, A Rose in the Twilight reflects superbly its melancholic mood and the undercurrents of danger. It’s neatly reinforced by a pretty soundtrack and the simple but insightful sprinkling of cut-scenes that offer a hint of backstory, every now and again.
Control is divided between Rose, a frail youngster whose garb, memories and mannerisms, hint at a royal lineage, and Giant, a silent, lumbering stone golem-type straight out of a faerie tale. The player can switch between the two instantaneously with a tap of L. As a team, they make for an unlikely, intuitive fit. Giant will occupy the majority of the player’s time, for two main reasons. Firstly, he can carry Rose in his arms and thus save walking everywhere twice. Secondly, and rather handily, he’s impervious to damage, and can’t die save for being carelessly deposited down a pit. He is Rose’s shield, the brawn to her brains if you will, there for the heavy lifting. The ability to carry and throw objects means he’s instrumental in the completion of puzzles.
Control is divided between Rose, a frail youngster whose garb, memories and mannerisms, hint at a royal lineage, and Giant, a silent, lumbering stone golem-type straight out of a faerie tale. The player can switch between the two instantaneously with a tap of L. As a team, they make for an unlikely, intuitive fit. Giant will occupy the majority of the player’s time, for two main reasons. Firstly, he can carry Rose in his arms and thus save walking everywhere twice. Secondly, and rather handily, he’s impervious to damage, and can’t die save for being carelessly deposited down a pit. He is Rose’s shield, the brawn to her brains if you will, there for the heavy lifting. The ability to carry and throw objects means he’s instrumental in the completion of puzzles.
FOCAL POINT: BOSSING IT
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You’ve got to hand it to A Rose in the Twilight. For a game that features no combat whatsoever and treats platforming gingerly and with a healthy dose of suspicion, its pair of boss fights are absolutely spectacular. Both see you’re intrepid pairing besieged with vines, spikes and traps that, at times, bring to mind bullet hell titles as you desperately seek the small chunk of screen that offers safety. Quick thinking and a creative mind is required to beat these fearsome antagonists, not to mention some dextrous skills as both Giant and Rose will need to get their hands dirty to succeed. Whilst these encounters could so easily have seemed off-kilter amidst the typically more composed pacing of the game as a whole, they instead come to provide a perfect test of the skills you’ll have learned over the course of the journey.
Rose makes for a great heroine, and a very different kettle of fish. Her fragility is emphasised by her bow-legged movement, and the ease with which she can trip, or even die, from modest falls or confrontation. A macabre adventure wouldn’t be complete without a slightly creepy twist. Rose’s chief ability, an element around which nearly all of the environments and puzzles revolve, is her ability to draw blood (or, if that makes you queasy, we can go with ‘red pigment’) from inanimate objects, storing it in the large rose she carries at her breast. In short, she can give or take life from and object or being. Transferring it can allow lifts to function (or halt), items to attain tangibility so Giant can move them, or to move (or stop) falling debris or platforms. Then there’s the usual mobility strengths and weaknesses that the duo bring to the table: Giant can traverse parts of the castle with thorns that would be fatal to Rose; she in turn can climb ladders and explore small passageways that are beyond his capability. The tricky part, as you’ve probably guessed, is that you need to get both to the exit in order to finish each room.
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Initially, it isn’t a scenario that seems likely to last the course of a full game. Credit where it’s due though, A Rose in the Twilight eeks the maximum from its concept. It’s an engaging, thought-provoking adventure, and its adaptive ideas will surprise, helping the gameplay to evolve and remain admirably fresh. As well as taxing your platforming acumen, the library sections see Rose recolouring paintings so as to depict particular scenes, and to locate and place books in a specific order, so as to unlock the path forward. For the courtyard sections, she is briefly armed with a watering can, granting the ability to pour the red on to items at a distance, and these are some of the most complicated, brain-taxing challenges you’ll face.
The boss fights are supreme, breathless affairs that go far beyond what you would have thought possible from a game that spends much of its time encouraging quiet reflection and chin-scratching at a reasonable pace. Once you’ve bested the game, you’re encouraged to tackle it all again, a level at a time, shaving minutes and seconds off your time in an attempt to capture those last few tricky trophies. Indeed, it’s a perfect example of smart trophies complimenting a game’s lifespan. I would estimate that the “Speed-of-God Star” trophy, for finishing all of the levels in less than one hour twenty minutes, roughly doubled A Rose in the Twilight’s longevity.
The boss fights are supreme, breathless affairs that go far beyond what you would have thought possible from a game that spends much of its time encouraging quiet reflection and chin-scratching at a reasonable pace. Once you’ve bested the game, you’re encouraged to tackle it all again, a level at a time, shaving minutes and seconds off your time in an attempt to capture those last few tricky trophies. Indeed, it’s a perfect example of smart trophies complimenting a game’s lifespan. I would estimate that the “Speed-of-God Star” trophy, for finishing all of the levels in less than one hour twenty minutes, roughly doubled A Rose in the Twilight’s longevity.
It’s perhaps not quite as accessible as Hue, and there are occasions where the controls, particularly with Rose, are not as urgent as the player would like them to be, especially during a speed run where mistakes are costly. Can it be a fiddly at times? Certainly. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s the price for playing something a little more adventurous, more ambitious.
Nippon Ichi’s attempts to push original properties is brilliant, and it’s clear that Furuya has made great strides with A Rose in the Twilight, which bodes well for the future. It’s an absolute work of art, and if you like platformer-puzzlers, this is well worth a look.
Nippon Ichi’s attempts to push original properties is brilliant, and it’s clear that Furuya has made great strides with A Rose in the Twilight, which bodes well for the future. It’s an absolute work of art, and if you like platformer-puzzlers, this is well worth a look.
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VERDICT
"A Rose in the Twilight marks a concerted step forward in the work of Masayuki Furuya. If you can overlook some small control issues, you're left with a gorgeous, clever and creative adventure that offers some surprisingly decent replay value too." OVERALL: 8/10 |