Mask of the Rose Review (Nanako =^.^=)
The core of a great game is here, but it is held back by the ways in which we're forced to interact with it, and some design choices that limit our access to the wonderful content.
Mask of the rose is an atmospheric, yet frustrating game. Intriguing, yet unfair. Well written at times, yet janky at others.
I wanted to like this, I really did. I bought it the moment it was released
Its a visual novel/life sim based on time management, in that respect it feels a little like the persona series. But while persona is a sprawling experience with plenty of headroom for error, Mask of the Rose is a short, tight, rushed experience, that practically forces you to make mistakes and then unreasonably punishes them
The Good First:
The visuals are awesome and moody, seeing london burning was a real treat. Everything is polished and pristine.
I love the setting and atmosphere, i'm a longtime fan of failbetter's work, and have played sunless sea, skies, and fallen london for more time than youd probably believe. I am a huge fan of their world
I like the outfitting options, its very fallen london esque to change your outfit.
I love the writing - when it works. The stories and characters are well written, expressive, and believable, its interesting to understand them and their nuances. With so many branching options, its nice too how they account for many things, commenting on the day's news
The storycrafting system is a neat idea. Its really just a fill-in-the-blanks mystery solving minigame, but the flavor text that accompanies it is rich, flavorful and inventive
The achievement system being the walls of the bazaar, and correspondence runes gradually inscribing on it, is a really cool idea
However:
Mask of the rose is not just short. It is tragically, unreasonably short. I know you aren't supposed to be able to everything in one playthrough, but I did not manage to achieve ANYTHING on my first run.
It feels like to accomplish anything, you would need to have a single minded focus on that activity to the exclusion of almost all else. Which does not lend itself well to roleplaying, and makes you feel rushed.
The timeslices are unfair. Gameplay is divided into days, with each day having two slots where you can go and do something. You pick a location and the activity you want to do there. It seems like a good system but it runs into some frustrating friction:
-Sometimes when you talk to someone, you have the choice to exhaust all dialog options and do everything possible in one visit. Whereas other times, you can only do or talk about the one specific thing that you picked, and then you're kicked out. It costs the whole timeslot either way, and there seems to be no consistency to this. Sometimes I can do some shopping at ivy's stall after we talk, sometimes I cannot
-Some actions are more gameplay oriented than story oriented, particularly handing in census results, and shopping for clothing. It doesn't feel right that these activities take up a timeslot like anything else. This wouldn't be a problem if time were more generous, but with the cripplingly short length, it feels like a waste. And it also encourages some un-fun minmaxing, since you can buy out the store, or hand in all census results in a single visit, saving them up seems to be the optimal strategy
And as mentioned above, sometimes shopping segways into a conversation and sometimes it doesnt. IT sucks to go see Mr Pages intending to hand in reports and then ask about stuff, only to get kicked out with many things left unasked
Regrets
-No manual saving or loading. This feels like a nannyish design decision. The game autosaves whenever it feels like it, overwriting one save. If something goes wrong, or you waste a timeslot, or even just misclick, you can't usually reload and try again, you're stuck with it. Its one thing living with the consequences of your actions, but it sucks to waste half a day on nothing.
While the storycrafting system is very interesting, its a feature designed for trial and error. You assemble a theory about a crime, which allows you to go ask people about it and glean information. But there are myriad problems - not with this system, but for how it grinds against the timeslot stuff.
-Even when assembling a completely different theory and asking about different details, talking to the same person again will often just yield the same information and nothing new
-The system is full of red herrings and its easy to go down a dead end
-You can only hold one story per quest in your memory at a time, allowing only one theory you can quiz people about. If that doesn't work out, you need to go back to the drawing board, discard it, make a new one, and then go spend another timeslot on EACH person you want to interrogate about this new theory
-Doing anything with your story requires spending a timeslot. And given the above two cases, there are many times when this will be wasted
Conversation options are obtuse. You can never tell what is going to just be a side topic for casual discussion, and what will move things forward, discard all others, and end the conversation. I missed out on a ton of things this way, accidentally ending conversations early. And of course, unable to reload and try again
Pacing:
I'm sure others have commented on this, but I ought to also. This is a game about love and romance, you can date almost everyone in it. But due to the short length, there is not really enough time for courting, and its aware of that. So literally every time you talk to someone, you are obliged to pick how you feel about them. Sometimes there is a "not sure" option, sometimes there isn't. You can pick your one true love in the first conversation within two minutes of meeting griz, and the game is constantly asking you to decide how you feel - and commit to it - about people you barely know.
Even after finishing it i'm still not sure about how i feel about many of these people. I didnt have enough time to interact with them. I gathered a little information about each of them, and was still vaguely deciding who i might like to spend more time with, when the game suddenly ended
So far, I have only finished one playthrough, and I know that this is meant to be replayed. I will give it another try. I know there's lots of wonderful content here.
But what we remember most about games and works of art, is how they make us feel. So far, playing Mask of the Rose made me feel rushed, frustrated, treated unfairly, cheated out of time, and forced to live with things that I didn't even know were choices or decisions.
I have a few suggestions for easy fixes:
1. Make certain actions, like handing in forms, and shopping for clothes, not take a timeslot. Let us just go back to the world map unless we choose to get engaged in a conversation
2. Clearly mark options as to whether or not they will advance/end the encounter. I need to know which things are safe to do for some optional lore and smalltalk.
3. Add more days to the seasons. They don't need any new content, i'd be happy to not have a newspaper story every day. We just need more time to explore the content that's here. Enough so that we can make some mistakes and still reasonably finish out one path in a playthrough. There is still more than enough to incentivise several runs even if time were extended.
4. Enable manual saving and loading. I know your reasons for doing it, but they shouldn't be forced upon us. Let people play how they wish. There are so many pitfalls that it rarely even accomplishes the goal of forcing people to live
Currently, I would give Mask of the Rose 5/10. It contains so much potential which is currently squandered due to being inacessible and unfair
I really hope that it will not just be called done and move on. It would be a shame to see it remain in its current state