Visual novel Rose of Winter tells the story of a mercenary named Rosemary hired to take one of four handsome princes over the treacherous Mount Needle. While it relishes romance novel cliches, Rose of Winter also strives to tell an affecting, human story, about how it feels to fall in love for the first time.
Rose of Winter is a simple choose-your-own adventure style storyâlots of reading, with a couple of moments to choose how Rosemary will respond to a prompt. While the choices donât make the plot branch too wildly, they still feel like youâre guiding the adventure to a discrete conclusion.
Rose of Winterâs greatest strength is where it departs from visual novel and romance story tropes. While the gameâs endings are delineated into âhappyâ or âsad,â as per the achievements, theyâre less extreme than say, Mystic Messengerâs bad ends where you get kidnapped and die. The good endings in Rose of Winter donât always result in wedding bells and anguished declarations of love, either. The stakes here arenât centered on external drama, but small moments between you and your chosen prince.
In Rose of Winter, first loves are presented as learning experiences. Rosemary and the princes all grow as a result of knowing each other, whether they stay together or not. All the endings, regardless of relationship status, are a little bittersweet. Even after a brief time together both of these people have been changed, and no matter if itâs happy or sad, change can be overwhelming. Rosemary as a character is capable and brave, if a little naive (âExcuse my language, but weâre in a bit of pickle!â). Sheâs clearly worldly, having chosen at a young age to leave her familyâs farm to become a knight, which makes her tenderness with her suitors moving. She isnât afraid to tell Tirune that sheâs not afraid of him, or the arrogant Falkner that he acts like a huge jerk, and sheâs not afraid to dive deep into a crush when sheâs just met them either. Her innocence is meant to take you back to that exploratory age when crushes devour you, when youâre eager to act on your feelings, and when you donât yet know what heartbreak feels like.
It fits, then, that the paths to each ending isnât always obvious. As a player you might want to have Rosemary tell the Edward Cullen-esque Prince Tirune that she trusts that he wonât eat her, but is that really what Tirune needs to hear? You might want to believe Prince Kuuya when he says heâs a ferocious warrior, but maybe heâd prefer it if Rosemary took the lead. These choices arenât esoteric, but they demand that the player pay attention to what these suitors say and how they behave. In short, itâs asking you to fall in love, just as Rosemary is.
If youâve never played a visual novel before, you could do a lot worse than starting with Rose of Winter
