For “It grew,” you need to increase a hidden “corruption” stat, which is mostly done by killing people! Kill all the bandits that attack you on the road, kill Garrett after interrogating him, go to the Devil’s Bridge and get aggressive with and kill the guardian, go to the Cathedral and kill the man in the mob who attacks you. I don’t remember how many kills you need exactly, but that should be enough! The achievement will pop when you’re in the safehouse.
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Here are a few of them:
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To see j_glass, when you’re lost in the tomb at the beginning, after passing through the old door, choose “You carefully make your way towards the exit and look out.” and you should get right to it. You can’t see it and get the coin in the same playthrough.
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You get light_purse by spending 3 or more gold before getting to the Ministry. It just adds a line of flavor text if you find (and take) Aurelius’ stash.
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As far as I can tell, these are independent variables: hadrian_promise becomes true if you fight at the harbor then meet Hadrian at the Cathedral and tell him about it and promise him you’ll be careful (friend or romance), hadrian_assertive becomes true if you follow his romance and then choose to tell him “how to greet you” at breakfast in chapter 7, and hadrian_doubting becomes true if you follow his romance but don’t take his hand at the very end.
*7. To get vaughn_respect, you need to give up Beka to the guards and then invite the Captain to sit with you at breakfast in chapter 7.
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I finished the book, and now I am almost genuinely depressed. It feels like nothing will come even close to this. Those dialogues, action scenes, and Alessa. Oh, and the grins. Gonna miss it.
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Maybe the sequel will? I actually think there’s supposed to be multiple sequels? So it’ll be much more satisfying once you can play them all at once
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I finished Golden Rose a bit more than a month ago and it really did feel like a million words. I was astounded by the length of this thing and I enjoyed the week it took me to read it. Golden Rose has some very good writing to it, every bit and piece is narrated with such detail which helps in immersing yourself in the world and city of Tarragona. So congrats to your writing, a lot of work was put into it and it shows.
I’d compare Golden Rose to a very large cake. It tastes great, but it keeps going and going and by golly, you will finish this entire cake someday. This is sort of a review for Golden Rose, highlighting what I liked and disliked about it.
Some spoilers in my thoughts
Enjoyed
Writing
As stated before, the writing in Golden Rose is done very well. It’s vivid, descriptive, all words I used in the first paragraph. The point is, every sentence paints a picture of Tarragona and I think that’s something specific to the book. Golden’s speciality is its very descriptive narration. One of my favourite areas was the cave (or something) under the Devil’s Bridge, it was a great side-story as we learned more about the “heretics and cults” that thrive in the world rather than information regarding Raphael.
Characters
I love Alessa and Hadrian, they fit great with us, they feel real. We have a lot of moments with the duo and I can feel the friendship between us, Alessa and I making fun of Hadrian, the hangouts we get, the fact that we talk to them so many times during the story. They’re beautifully well crafted and I’m not even focusing on the other characters like Vallen, the Bard or Beka.
Even the side characters are great, like the cult lady, she’s probably my favourite character aside from Beka just because she was so different compared to everyone else. The talks she had with us about the other believers and religion was fascinating and made me care about the actual religion of Golden Rose (in other books, I don’t particularly care about faith, like in Evertree, the deities aren’t exactly too important). She is one of the most interesting characters and it sucks to see her go so quickly, maybe we’ll be able to meet the cults she’s associated with in book two. Other notable characters are Beka! The little girl which every player adopts, having a cute mascot is great. Pirate King stole the show at the harbour immediately, he is way too suave. Vallen is peppy and feels like she makes the room shake from excitement whenever she appears.
The characters of Golden Rose are written wonderfully, they feel like real people and I can’t wait to see our interactions with the rest of them.
Extras
The addition of artifacts is a lovely extra addition, adding extra depth or side-content. Just seeing our inventory fill out with all the junk we collect from a gold coin at the ruins to a glass owl which serves little purpose but hey, I took it, it’s mine. I can’t wait to see how much stuff we collect over the series and the things we’ll find which we’ll force MC to shove it in their pockets.
Dialogue Variety
Short one, you really took the time to give us so many ways to respond to people. These responses weren’t simple either, they all felt correspondent to their personality trait as well as certain attributes like faith. They were lovely, talking to everyone with snark was great. It gave more ways to show how your character acts, well done on that.
Disliked
While it was a blast to read the book, there were also quite a few issues I could count on not just with book one but with the possible future of the series. Perhaps this is advice for the future books or maybe people see otherwise but these are the things in book one which I didn’t particularly enjoy. This part is also much longer than what I liked, that doesn’t mean it outweighed the pros, I’m just better at complaining than appreciating.
Length
Golden Rose is long. This is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, who doesn’t love a really long book? It’s an adventure which doesn’t end. However, on the other hand, it takes the wind out of you to read it. Several times during my first playthrough, I thought to myself “We’re still going?”. I felt tired after a point where I just couldn’t find the energy to keep going with it. Having a long book is wonderful, it means there is so much content to find and explore. However, Golden Rose has length placed into less-than stellar areas. This is especially proven in chapter 4, where you explore Tarragona.
In chapter 4, there are five areas for you to explore. These were all wonderful and very well-written, I loved being in these areas… until I was allowed to do a third one. And then a fourth one. Golden Rose is a book which forces you to explore three out of five side-stories (which are all rather long). The kicker is that you’re optionally given a fourth chance to choose between the last-two areas. This is a problem which ties into replayability which we will further add upon. This makes the book “feel” longer than it really needs to be. The actual plot of chasing after Raphael and dealing with the invasion of Tarragona is near the very end of the book. While I don’t want to call the content filler, it really does feel that way where there is more emphasis on exploring than going with the actual story. Even the ending is pretty abrupt which I think is ironic given a book of this size and the ending just cuts off. This complaint makes me seem like someone who hates length and content in my choice games, but this amounts to a bigger problem.
Replayability
Many people I discussed Golden Rose with mentioned many times that they don’t have the energy to replay the thing again. A very big part of this is due to a distinct lack of replayability in the book.
- Too much stuff is given to us, there is little mystery to go back and find when all the cards the author has are shown to us.
- Length, every time I go through a playthrough of Golden Rose, it is an effort which takes a week. This problem also ties in to the first problem, this length is because so many options are just given to us.
Replayability is one of the most important mechanics in choice books. Golden Rose does not do this well, there are numerous times in the story which show problem one. Chapter 4 of Tarragona where we are allowed to explore four out of the five areas. If I did do a second playthrough, I would end up having to go through at least two of the same areas just to see the fifth one I missed. Never mind that these areas are also extremely long themselves, featuring dialogue with characters where I just ask every single question and exhaust all the options. They’re long and while I wouldn’t say they lack depth, they certainly don’t feel like they’re some important choice to make to unravel the mystery like in Evertree where every choice you do unlocks hints and you have to piece together everything from what you know (as well as bonus stats but that’s a different conversation). These are probably an investment for book two and that’s understandable, that’s just the issue with having it set up like this.
Another rather jarring event was the death of Aurelius. I was thinking we had a limited amount of time for this since his guards were around the corner and this was supposed to be an urgent problem where we had to find anything on Raphael before the guards came. But no, we do every single option given to us and then the guards come. It took me out of the plot for a while and made me think that this entire series is going to be based on picking every single option with the illusion that our time is limited.
That’s the point of this problem. Both the length and overabundance of choices given reduce the replayability to negligible. Even other seemingly important choices which stick for the rest of the game such as Beka and Captain Whatsherface, I wonder which I would choose? Adorable thief girl or crazy psychotic guard who wishes all criminals had their heads on a pike. The choice is there but why would I pick option two.
For future books, I would suggest not showing everything you have to offer in a single playthrough. Make it so that we have to go back to explore these new areas, new choices in a follow-up. Don’t give us everything in one go. This would help with the replayability by a bit, it gives reason to do a second playthrough but the important thing it fixes is reducing the length. Every time I want to replay Golden Rose, I have to go through some of the exact same areas as last time, and make the exact same choices I did last time (because we’re allowed to select everything.) as well as go through one million words. It is certainly a daunting task and I can’t find the energy to come back to Golden Rose for a very long time.
Romances
This is a point separate from book one. This is an issue for the entire series. When I say romance, I don’t mean “Oh, the romances were bad”. The romances were enjoyable! There were good moments that just made your heart stop for a few seconds like the rice pudding with Alessa. When I say romance, I’m talking about the future of The Golden Rose.
Golden Rose as it is built right now has eight romances. I’m not counting the mystery RO, those usually have special requirements which change up your story or require specific choices to unlock; Mankernol from Soul Stone, Noh from Mind Blind, Galimar from Pon Para could all fit here. These romances are split into three women and five men. Originally, this was three women, three men but Raphael and Lance were added to the roster. The problem with adding these extra characters is that in doing so, a severe imbalance was created in the romances. It is 3 to 5 as stated, that’s alright. However, a problem I would like to focus on is one of the characters (it’s probably Neia) and the decision to restrict her to female characters. In doing so, that 3 to 5 imbalance is now a hefty 2 to 6. Two out of the eight romances are available if you’re playing a straight male, this seems like a pretty big issue for readers such as myself. In terms of romance content, there just isn’t much for us and I can’t exactly recommend the series heavily to any straight men who love romance because there’s just not much content compared to what everyone else gets.
Straight women get 5 out of 8
Gay men get 4 out of 8
Lesbians get 3 out of 8
Straight men get 2 out of 8.
You are the author, and you can make decisions to fit the story, making one of the characters a lesbian, not making Vallen a romance, everything is rightfully your decision. However, in doing so, a gap has been made in your audience where compared to everyone else, we have so little in comparison. This becomes a problem for the series as a whole as for the entire four book run, we are left with playing the books twice, a very large replayability issue (on top of everything I mentioned). It’s an issue that is difficult to get rid of, changing Neia to be available to all romances is probably not a good decision and it’s difficult to just add more romances. But this is a problem created now, and it’ll be a problem that will most likely stay with Golden Rose until the end of the series. Maybe a DLC addition when you’re all done?
Before the response I get is “You could play a female character and romance the third”, I could, but that is sidestepping the issue and downplaying its significance. It’s a problem and we shouldn’t ignore it like that with an excuse. It’s a problem that will plague the series for its entire four book run.
Conclusion
Like I stated, Golden Rose really felt like a million words. It was great to lose myself in the vivid writing of Tarragona which stretched on for page after page but too much of anything is a bad thing. It did take me a week to finish and I think of myself as a fast reader. It’s been more than a month since I finished my first playthrough and I still don’t think I have the energy to start another playthrough. I can see it becoming more of an issue when the other books come out if they follow the same formula of “choose every option for the one hundred choices you’re given”. Nonetheless, the characters and writing kept me seated and I’m glad I eventually did finish the Golden Rose. I’d love to see what else you cook up, especially with the little itty bitty pirate problem and hey, I got a couple of years to recharge.
26 Likes
This subject has been talked about before. It’s a problem only if you decide to see it as one. Do you normally try to romance all characters possible and replay again and again just for that or do you choose one or two of the romance options and stick with them for your different playthroughs? As someone who’s only interested in women,like you, I loved all three options given to us. Did you really not like any of them and want more because of that? Or did you want more options just because there were more men? My humble opinion is that you should stop counting ROs and enjoy what we’ve been given. Alessa, Neia and Ysabella are all interesting characters whom I can’t wait to learn more about and I prefer 3 well-written characters to 10 bland characters who’re there just because people wanted more women.
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Well fuck, i was hoping that i could go down that road without yeeting Garret and the Guardian in the afterlife (don’t want to permanently antagonize the templar lol, also the Guardian gives out some juicy lore) but i guess i have no choice unless just 2 corruption points aren’t enough
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I always play a bi women so I didnt realize that the number of ros was such a big issue especiallt for people playing as straight male. Though I can see that there will be problem for people who are restricted to just 2 ros, as @think_manner said the development of the character matters rather than the numbers. I believe that the ros should leave us wanting to know more about them and Alessa and Ysabella, I believe, do an excellent job at keeping our interests in them. If one is not interested in them then it becomes slightly dissapointing but still their friendship routes doesnt dissapoint.
And again its the author’s decesion and we shouldnt keep on arguing about it. So lets not keep coming back to this point, as anathema already addressed this issue.
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I also tend to play bi women and men and I’d be more understanding towards straight men’s plight but. But it seems to me, after seeing many of those complaints, that they are not angry at only having two RO’s available for their characters, just peeved some other people might be getting more.
And that I have no sympathy for.
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I played a lesbian mc the first playthrough and I never felt the need to have more than 3 ros cause just those three were enough for me. So I dont really understand the need for more ros just because others get them. For me, the most important thing is the development of the character I am interested in, how real they feel in their interactions with the mcs. I think that, for me, is the most valuable and not the numbers. I also didnt realize that some may get upset because others are getting access to more ros than them.
That is understandable, not everyone will like to romance Alessa or Ysabella, but we will have to accept it. Its not a flaw of the story as the story doesnt need romance to continue, its a bonus morelike.
So constantly criticizing it as if the story depends on it and ignoring the author’s explanation is just annoying. I can fully understand why people are peeved if they dont like the ros but we cant keep questioning the author’s decesion to why she doesnt have vallen as an ro or why she chose to add lance and raphael when she has already given us an answer. We really have to stop arguing about this point.
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I don’t think that’s a problem that needs fixing, although I can somewhat see where you’re getting at. I personally find it preferable if I have wider variety of romance options so I can choose the one that fits my taste the most. I was also a bit disappointed when I realized we only get to have 2 ROs, however I think best girl Alessa’s route so far is quite satisfactory so I think there is no point in complaining about it.
As has been said before, we should probably just let go of the RO thing, it’s been discussed already and it’s going to go nowhere. On the other hand, I think the argument about The replayability thing is more of a problem, especially chapter 4.
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It’s a good idea to move on. Readers who just finished the Book 1 are free to leave their review here but further discussion about number of ROs has been already discussed and nothing good can come of it that it’s getting circular.
I encouraged discussing other topics aside from quantity of RO debate.
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switch neia to bi and problem solved but anyway with game this big even two good ro are more than enough…i don’t know i have it in me to replay this game three times for the sole purpose of ros lol
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Please tell me you are sad because the story has come to an end, and not because the ending was depressing.
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Response
As Ana said, adding two more characters does not restrict content from anyone in the audience. What I’m fixated on is the decision to further remove one of the available options given with these additions in mind. Two characters are added with the backing of “This doesn’t change anything for anyone” and then one character is restricted from an already small group.
I definitely don’t mind people getting more, more content to everyone is great. My feelings on the matter is that “one of the only options we have is gone”. The addition of Lance and Raphael make the one of the only options we have part.
But given everyone’s thoughts on the matter, maybe it’s less of a deal than I think it is. Maybe two is enough and I should be happy with what’s given, Alessa was already very nicely done and decisions have to be made to fit the book better. So thank you everyone for giving your point of views on it. This whole thing was more to finally finish the thoughts I had over the month and I can finally get it out of my system.
I am curious on what people think about the other things mentioned like the length of Golden Rose and the vast quantity of things given to us. That is a topic that’s possibly hasn’t been overdone like the romance thing and I think it’s more important as a whole
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Alessa best RO
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I liked the length in general, but I was a bit disappointed in what was included. Like what was said with the exploring in that one chapter. It was fun, but kinda drawn out.
And I felt like the time with the ROs was a bit uneven for my liking. We spend a lot of time with our teammates, but the others aren’t around as much. Hadrian is my favorite, but I feel like I don’t know the others enough to really have an opinion. I feel like if the ball was included in this book, we’d be able explore a romance with one of the twins (are they twins, or just siblings?). And we’d have some time before that to explore one of the other romances as well.
I still love the book, I just feel like the pacing is a bit off
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Just wanted to say thank you for this amazing experience…
Dropping my two cents, because why not. As a guy interested in girls, I wasn’t particularly interested (in a romantic way) either in Alessa or Ysabella. Alessa is too cold and serious all the time. And I cant put my finger on why I wasn’t interested in Ysabella, just that I wasn’t. In any case I agree that fewer well written characters are better than many for the sake of numbers. And I don’t really play these gamebooks for the romance.
On another note I have to agree that sometimes the little interactions and descriptions are great and sometimes they feel like dragging and never-ending. In other words, the book suffered with pacing. That is a hard problem to solve and I wish anathema the best.
Locking down the number of areas or actions is not a bad advice at all. Nor is the option to skip dialogue.
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