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Certain problems cannot be solved through careful discussion or compromise. Sometimes it isn’t enough to give a verbal beatdown to your rival – you must throw hands as well. The Rose & Camellia series was built upon the idea that not only is a good old-fashioned slapfight fun, but it is often the only dignified way a true lady of society can resolve her problems.
We love the concept of Nigoro’s Rose & Camellia Collection, brought to Switch in the West by WayForward. The series started life as a Flash game before getting a mobile port and now finds its way to Switch. On paper, this is a perfect transition for the franchise, in which ladies in Victorian-era high society engage in dignified slapfights to determine everything from the correct line of succession within a family to encouraging the pushy saleswomen at the door to go away. The Switch incorporates both touchscreen and motion controls, allowing you to really get into the spirit of slapping people across their smug faces.
WayForward has said that Rose & Camellia Collection consists of five “distinct” games but that feels like a bit of a stretch. Even in the main menu itself, these games are referred to as scenarios and they play out pretty similar to each other. Each one involves slap-battling a series of five or six opponents of increasing difficulty, though the extra difficulty mainly stems from how much health they have.
The controls are always the same regardless of who you’re fighting. You can slap by swiping to the left or holding ‘A’ and swinging the Joy-Con or dodge by swiping right or holding ‘R’ while swinging the Joy-Con. There are some more advanced moves, like feinting and countering, but they all stem from these two basic actions. Unfortunately, the controls can be frustratingly imprecise. We found the motion controls slightly more reliable and fun, but both were hindrances at times.
Normally we’d be more forgiving of these sort of control issues because of how unique they are. Swinging the Joy-Con does a reasonable job of emulating actually slapping your opponent, after all, which makes this one of the few games where this motion control scheme is warranted and well-used. However, because the gameplay relies so heavily on timing to work correctly, the small delays in registering our movements were the difference between victory and defeat. Too often we found ourselves fighting the controls rather than our opponent.
Some technical limitations left us scratching our heads as we played. The loading screens are bafflingly frequent. You’ll sometimes encounter more than one per cutscene, which is strange because the cutscenes are primarily still images with small amounts of animation and text at the bottom of the screen. Nothing in the game should require so much loading time, even on the Switch, yet it is a noticeable issue.
Where the Rose & Camellia Collection really shines is in the absurdity of its concept, which it revels in throughout. There is a glorious escalation to the plot. The first scenario starts with Reiko Tsubakikoji trying to claim the inheritance promised by her late husband, which results in her slapping her way through her in-laws before doing battle with The Grand Madame who lives in their attic to absorb her mythical slapping power. The illogical nature of the story works because it makes you believe that this is a world where everything from inheritance disputes to learning how to be a competent maid relies on slapping your rival across their stupid face.
Further scenarios involve one of Reiko’s sisters-in-law challenging her newfound power, a maid going on a slapfighting world tour, and a group of ninjas attempting to steal the Tsubakikoji’s family secrets to create the ultimate slapfighting robot. The final scenario involves a crossover with developer Nigoro’s La-Mulana game series, which is where the characters get really outlandish. Every fight is so weird but the characters are all so wonderfully distinct and stylised that, from a visual standpoint, Rose & Camellia Collection never gets old, even if the gameplay gets repetitive.
The biggest flaw in this game isn’t just the frequent load times or the imprecise controls, though. It is just how short it is. Perhaps that’s a blessing given how repetitive it can get, but even with some of the fights taking several attempts to get the timing down, it only took us a handful of hours to complete each scenario. The local VS mode sees one person play as one of the heroines of the story and the other play as one of more than 20 potential enemies from across the games. Due to there only being one Switch touchscreen, this mode is only playable via the Joy-Con controls. While it is a nice addition, it only highlights the issue that every character plays the same, making them purely a cosmetic choice.
There is some fun to be had with Rose & Camellia Collection. We loved the absurd characters and bonkers escalation that they brought with it. The music is evocative of the period and the characters are gorgeously designed. The voice acting is solid in both the English and Japanese language tracks. The special moves that two characters unlocked provided a necessary relief to the monotony of the gameplay, but the imprecise controls, short length, and bafflingly frequent load times make this a tough one to recommend at full price.
Conclusion
Rose & Camellia Collection gets away with a lot of its technical imperfections simply because of the strength of its concept and its solid presentation. The music and art style will keep you interested for at least a few hours – which is all it will take to complete the story mode. However, the bizarre anime logic can’t distract you from the frequent loading screens or the frustratingly imprecise controls. This one is worth picking up, but only if you catch it on a good sale.