Journey of the Garden Rose

Journey of the Garden Rose is a retro aesthetic souls-like adventure game with great art direction, and solid writing. I love the fairy tale framing of the story, and the look of the game is fantastic! I wasn't expecting the writing to be so good either, but i found myself reading almost every book I came across in the game. And best of all, plays pretty well on the steam deck! Worth your time.

This is a fun, challenging little game. A bit Dark Souls-y in the combat, but not overly so. I was lured in by the polygonal graphics, and I was not disappointed. You really can't go wrong with picking this up if you're looking for a bite-sized action-adventure game. I might have been the first person to buy the game, and the developer helped me several times on the discussion board, so the developer is well worth supporting. A word of warning for the arachnophobes out there: There are very large big boys in the game, and you fight a giant tarantula boss more than once. \\ _ // :(||)(::(3 // ''' \\

The latest Renegade Sector game has you strutting through winding gardens and hallways while poking bugs with a stick so hard that they explode. The fencing has a good soulslike rhythm of exploiting enemies when they leave themselves open and doing extra damage on wall slams makes for satisfying positioning strategies. As the castle is large and lacking in a map, you may find yourself needing a pen and paper to draw your own as you explore if you're prone to getting lost.

not as tight as reavers of new rome but i love the atmosphere and world. just fun to beat up oversized fairytale bugs. the pinball effect where slamming enemies into walls and objects like pots deals extra damage is really enjoyable to pull off would prefer that once a switch is activated it stops being a potential lockon target. it makes things a little jankier than it needs to be to keep locking onto a switch i cant do anything with

Played the game start to finish in one sitting and absolutely loved it. By far this is my favorite Renegade Sector Game and it really blew my expectations out of the water. Some of the jank can be frustrating at times but, overall, I find it charming in the same way both the audio and visuals have this beautiful feeling of sincere Outsider Art. All of the classic Renegade Sector Games level design is present: some rooms will feel familiar to those who played Diorama Dungeoncrawl, but the new perspective and lock-on targeting are refreshing. There are a few other new mechanics that I feel were explored thoroughly throughout the game's encounters and the pacing in terms of difficulty ramping up felt much better than previous RSG titles. The new addition of cutscenes, dialog, and other storytelling elements added so much for me. I really got the feeling of Pulp Storytelling that I wanted just a bit more of out of previous RSG games, and this game is full of very heartfelt and sincere writing. As someone who struggles with ADHD, forcing myself to sit down with this one and focus on actually reading through the text of the various books throughout the game felt super rewarding and really enhanced the time I spent with it. I'm walking away from this one feeling refreshed and inspired; it is like a balm for my withered attention span. Definitely check this one out if you're in the mood for a charming indie passion project about the nature of love, memory, and the self with a healthy dose of bouncing enemies off of walls and furniture.

Another great journey from Renegade Sector! Always worth your time for the aesthetic alone, let alone the combat and level design.

I wanna start this review by prefacing that I absolutely LOVE the artstyle and the world design as a whole. While the writing was a bit too obtuse and abstract for me to understand the story fully, it's still got plenty of quality behind it, if that's your thing. This game could be an easy recommendation if not for one thing: The later boss fights tend to be add-heavy, which essentially means you're getting ganked by multiple enemies at once, on top of trying to fight a big boss. The first instance of this was the Giant Tarantula, and while I seemed to luck out for the first encounter, I wasn't so lucky during the Tower grind. The Tower absolutely sucked since it was meant to be an endless gauntlet with only one checkpoint in between that I know of. I managed to skip having to grab a key from the Laboratory by finding an extra key in the Library and using it on the locked door, essentially skipping the first instance of the Malformed Rose Things' Boss Fight, but then the Tower reared its ugly head with another instance of the Malformed Rose Things. For context, you gotta fight what's essentially four mutated versions of yourself all at once with no rest. No way back to where you came from. No assistance here, no tricks. Lily cannot attack fast enough to keep up with all the multiple enemies ganking her on all sides. That was when I decided to just quit. As much as I wanted to love this game, the semi-final section was just too much for me...

Unless you're already a fan of this developer's other work, stay away. Combat is stiff to the point of dysfunction due to inconsistent range and hit detection, and the lunge will send you seemingly a random distance forwards. Movement feels like the character's ankles have been bound while enemies zip around you with no restraint. The music is short loops of blaring trumpets, the textures give no sense of space or direction, and above all else the game just feels abhorrent to play. I'm a big fan of overambitious jank with low budget and obvious concessions. Just this week I played Bargalian Regicide and that's just as rough in a lot of ways. The difference is that it was $2, felt good to move in, and wasn't endlessly dripping in delusions of grandeur.

Journey of the Garden Rose is a lot harder than Renegade Sectors previous titles. Its more of a puzzle than a on the rails story line. You will be backtracking a lot within the castle looking for secrets and where to go next. Its a bit frustrating what appears to be multiple paths lead to the same thing (3 entrances to the cabin area, and some other small areas that when maped out make no logical sense, just teleporting the player, making any mental maps is near pointless, the quest your dad gives you). The storyline itself seemed a bit overwhealming with 25+ lore books spread about in random order. I kinda wish by now there would be voice acting in the game instead of just big dialog boxes. The books glitch out when opening them some times. For a small studio you cant really have huge expectations, Overall i was happy with the game.

I'm sad to say that I really don't like this one. After loving Reavers of New Rome, I was looking forward to Journey of the Garden Rose since it was announced. But after slogging through two hours of janky combat, confusing areas, and LOTS of text on screen, I can't even bring myself to open the game and keep trying. I hope the next game from Tales of the Renegade Sector recaptures the pace and whimsy of Reavers, rather than the pretense and sprawl of Garden Rose.