Journey of the Garden Rose

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 rea…

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…

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.

This is... not good at all. Wooden gameplay, ugly visuals, I didn't enjoy it at all.

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.

i reccomend this game not because it is particularly stellar- but because it is a small project made with love. The game is clearly very rough and unpolished- the sound can be grating, but i think if you are looking for something retro and looking to shake up the usual intake of AAA slop, why not spend a few dollars to support an attempt.