Late night viewers of G4 from back in the day might remember Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions. It was the more adult-oriented version of Cinematech, a series that collected game trailers, cutscenes, and other odds and ends of video game ephemera. In a pre-YouTube era, it was a must-watch for any gamer who wanted an easy place to keep track of big releases. Nocturnal Emissions was a bit of an odd beast, however, mixing up the usual trailers with bits from porn games, imports, and old stuff from the 90’s. It was a strange, surreal trip of a program that introduced many to an eclectic mix of games.

But one game, more than most others, was a repeat offender on the program – Punchline’s misbegotten masterpiece, Rule of Rose.

"A Story Too Cruel To Go Untold"

Released in 2006, Rule of Rose follows Jennifer – a young woman in 1930’s England. On a nice afternoon out, she finds herself trapped in an abandoned orphanage and promptly knocked unconscious and dragged to an abandoned warehouse. She’s then forced into indentured servitude by the Red Crayon Aristocrats, a terrifying group of preteen girls who basically exist to make Jennifer’s life a living hell. They verbally and physically degrade her, as she tries to both unravel the mystery of the group and uncover a series of repressed traumas.

This is the most barebones descriptor of the plot possible, as the actual narrative content is among some of the most tragic, twisted, and flatout bizarre in the medium. In 2006, Punchline dealt with heavy topics like suicide, child abuse, queer sexuality, and gender dysphoria, contextualizing all of them in the framework of a psychological thriller. It’s the sort of thing that would be difficult to get funding for today, and it’s almost unbelievable that it could get made when it did.

That goes double for the way most of these issues are depicted in-game. The game gives credence to the sexual orientation and sexualities of literal children in some deliberately uncomfortable cutscenes, and enables players to actually murder child-like creatures called “imps.” It’s the sort of thing Lars von Trier would probably make if he were in the business of making video games, and the type of content most publishers wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

Which was why Sony Computer Entertainment refused to publish it in the West. Despite being a Sony venture in Japan, and despite being a game that Sony commissioned specifically because they wanted a horror game, both the European and American branches of the company took a hard pass on the title. Sony’s official stance was that the game “wasn’t really in sync with their corporate image,” and wanted it to be a “little tamer.” Eventually, 505 Games and Atlus stepped in to take over publishing duties in Europe and America, respectively, but neither were exactly powerhouse publishers at the time – almost ensuring the game would wallow in obscurity.

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Moral Outrage Is The Real Monster

At least, it would have, had a moral outrage over the game’s content not put the title front and center for a hot minute. Early prerelease info in Italian gossip rags spread to UK tabloids, and quickly turned the heads of certain politicians. European justice minister and noted religious zealot Franco Frattini took up a moral crusade against the game’s content, alleging that it was adjacent to child pornography and featured “children buried alive underground” and “in-game sadomasochism.” Despite these being entirely spurious claims, Frattini was able to whip up enough of a frenzy to scare away 505 from putting the game out in Australia and New Zealand, and eventually the entirety of the United Kingdom. To date, the game hasn’t seen a release in these territories.

It’s worth noting that, while Rule of Rose does have some pretty bleak and troubling content, it’s not exactly pornographic or heinously violent. Most of the violence is implied, and the sexuality alluded to. And while the imps Jennifer kills are childlike, they’re a far cry from the photorealistic babies found in stuff like Doom 3 or Dead Space 2. Really, the driving force behind this game being campaigned against so hard probably has something to do with the fact that it addresses queerness and PTSD in children – a double taboo by 2006 standards.

Punchline wasn’t out to ruffle any feathers, though. In a 2006 interview, the game’s director was explicit in his intent: “We wanted to create a different kind of fear […] It’s the fear that comes out of children being genuine and without boundaries.” The game’s producer went on to describe the game as “from the heart,” stating that “the main theme is really about trust and fealty.” When actually playing the game, those statements ring true – Rule of Rose is, at its core, a story about the confusion that comes with adolescent yearning and the difficulty expressing that in clear terms. Furthermore, it’s a narrative built around the fragile bonds formed between survivors of abuse, and how desperately some cling onto those hoping to give their life some sense of purpose.

But see – that’s not marketable. Rule of Rose hit the West exactly two months before the PlayStation 3 came out, meaning that most people were preoccupied on the bombast and excitement of stuff like Resistance: Fall of Man. Furthermore, Sony handing over the reins to a small publisher like Atlus was a good way to ensure that it could never get any sort of effective marketing budget. Couple that with niche subject matter and a general air of disgust surrounding the game’s content, the corporate giant essentially sent this gem of a game they’d commissioned out to die.

Clipped Wings

And die it did. The initial print run of Rule of Rose was comically low – general estimates put the game’s sales somewhere between 10,000 – 20,000 copies, if even. After a year or so of languishing in bargain bins, copies of the game began to disappear from the wild. In 2012, a mint copy went for $80 - $100 USD. In 2019, a complete NTSC copy will run you anywhere between $300 - $500 USD, depending on the condition – an amount that only goes up with each passing year.

To date, it is arguably the rarest standalone PlayStation 2 game.

Both Franco Frattini’s manufactured controversy based on outright lies and Sony’s unwillingness to commit to a product they commissioned succeeded in dooming Punchline’s ambitious title to obscurity. Back in 2006, when I was watching those initial trailers late at night on G4, I knew there was something special about this game. Throughout high school, it was something that spoke to me on an intimate level, and that helped me sort through my own complicated feelings on my gender and sexuality. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but no game is, and at least Rule of Rose tries to do something different. For that, it was cast out of public eye and into the shadows – erased by an industry focused on the next big technological breakthrough and profit venture. The most acknowledgement Sony has given it since has been uploading the entirety of its soundtrack onto Spotify with no fanfare.

As I type out this last paragraph, I look over at my bookshelf and see my copy of Rule of Rose. I think of everything it has to offer, and all the raw ambition contained on that tiny disc. It deserves better than to sit on dusty bookshelves and price-gouged eBay auctions. It deserves to be widely played, discussed, and loved for the flawed, beautiful gem that it is.

Hopefully, Sony realizes that one day.

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