Rose & Camellia Collection review

Once a free Flash-based novelty, this Brontë-esque brawler doesn’t quite make it as a paid game.

When a free game transitions into a commercial product, the process can feel Faustian. That’s certainly the case with doujin circle Nigoro’s Rose & Camellia. Originally released as a Flash game in 2007, the title quickly becomes a viral sensation given the game’s ingenious theme: you got to slap the shit out of aristocrats.

Here, a young woman named Reiko has married into a noble family during the Victorian era. But shortly afterward, Reiko’s husband died, and the women of the house begin treating her with contempt. Instead of submissively withdrawing, the strong minded widow engaged in a series of slapping contests that played out like a simplified version of Punch-Out!!, only with frilly collars, disheveled coiffures, and period-specific melodies. Largely, the concept was fetching enough to support a trio of sequels and a pair of crossovers with Nigoro’s La-Mulana as well as Fata Morgana.

Turning the Other Cheek?

In 2020, Rose & Camellia received a mobile port. And while the game had in-app donations, users could play for free. Four years on, everything but the Fata Morgana amalgamation has been bundled into Rose & Camellia Collection. And while the anthology’s twenty-dollar price point isn’t completely outrageous, the slap-happy series feels like a novelty that’s been stretched too thin.

The game’s Switch port also has a few glaring issues. Inexplicably, Rose & Camellia’s range of difficulty settings have been removed, leaving a fixed level of challenge. But more bothersome is the modification made to the control scheme, which replaces the mouse-swiping movements of the original games. Undoubtedly, there’s potential is the physicality of swiping Joy-cons. But the requirement to hold a button down while delivering an air-smack is problematic.

Ouch, That Stings!

Sadly, there is also a lack of responsiveness to the control scheme, which was unanimously noticed when attempting to enjoy the Switch port’s new two-player versus matches. Although each of my three rivals appreciated the cartoonish contortions when characters got slapped, the delight was soon overcome by the frustration of consistently evading and attacking. In the original games, each challenger had weak points on their chins, necks, eyes, or noses.

Largely, the collection’s substitute is the inclusion of a Slap Rush, which recalled the Wii-era of maniac controller waggling. Like many of the gimmicky motion control games of the era, it’s funny the first few times, but the mechanic grows tiresome quickly. On the upside (and for Switch Lite owners), Rose & Camellia Collection does accommodate a touchscreen swiping method, but it’s only for the game’s single-player component.

Smack My Switch Up

That said, the collection isn’t a total wash. The art has been upscaled, allowing you to savor the swollen eyes and unsightly bruises that you dish out. The inclusion of English and Japanese voice acting is also a nice touch. Now hearing the exchange of put-downs and affirmations provides a better sense of context, even if the accents aren’t quite as snobbish as you might expect.

And much like the original releases, discovering rivals tells and opportunities for counterattacks can offer enjoyment in small doses. Success is about reading unambiguous gestures and responding quickly, but it’s all exceedingly simplistic. Just like Punch-Out!!, each challenger is a puzzle of different slapping styles. I had a hard time finding a justification for playing through the five, largely similar games more than once.

Effectively, Rose & Camellia Collection is an assemblage of five of the series’ six games with Joy-con play and a two-player competitive mode patched in. While the decision to preserve the now-defunct Flash games is reasonable, it feels like the publisher should have expanded the games. Inserting the catfights around an expanded visual novel would have nurtured a sense of tension and would have been a welcome supplement that would have helped justify the shift toward Rose & Camellia becoming a paid product.

Rose & Camellia Collection was played with review code provided by the publisher.