Shall We Date? Blood in Roses+ Humphrey Review

So basically…. imgur hosts my game image files, because otherwise with my horrible home internet (I live outside city limits and the average cell phone has faster internet than my home line) it would take forever to load the emoji I load my posts with, especially since some games have 40+ images associated with them. And for some reason, I have no clue why, it has deleted all of my images associated with Humphrey. So, F U C K, basically. I deleted a lot to save space on my phone. I have some saved to my HD, but it’s not all of them. And since Blood in Roses is a free game, it’s not like I can replay it and take new ones easily.

So on that note, I am sorry this post isn’t what it used to be. I can play Humphrey again, but it will take time to take caps of all the images again.

But even if my images aren’t there, my review is, and you can still get an idea of what playing through his story will be.

Marvelle

I installed Blood in Roses when it came out and I absolutely hated Rupert and Alfred. So then I shelved it for many days until now, when I was bored and decided to install it again and see the new men added.

I started Daniel’s story and only got about two days or so into it. Then the wizard Humphrey was released. I admit, there was one thing drawing me to him:

THAT

FABULOUS

HAIR

 

I also really adored his nonchalant expression. I dunno, there’s something about the way he expresses himself that I adore.

So I started over with him as the lead.

IDK how the other stories in Blood in Roses go, but the premise of Humphreys side is thus: Because Alfred and Rupert bit Mina (I named her Noelle in my game so that’s why it’s different on screenshots) she’s going to turn into a vampire in 10 days. If she can drink the dew of the Rosapast rose then she can remain human.

But the doors to Rosapast are bound by some heavy-duty magic. And worse, no one knows how the rose is doing inside, and the magic of the Rosapast flower is what’s keeping the hotel you’re living in around.

So basically it’s up to you to save the rose and by doing so, save your humanity.

What’s nice about this is that Humphrey acts as support for much of the route. Mina is the one coming up with solutions to the problem and Humphrey is there whenever she falls to help her, but not carry her entirely. There’s a level of respect between them that I love to see in my romance stories.

She realizes her feelings early on and doesn’t spend much dwelling on what these “odd” feelings are. She realizes she was acting  jealous, realizes she was jealous because she liked him, realizes her feelings may not be heard, but decides to carry on anyway. She’s not as great as the Princess from Niflheim+, but she’s just as respectable to be an avatar to, and one of my favorites.

I liked that she’s not romantically clueless. We get a lot of those types of heroines in otome games and it’s refreshing to have a girl know what she wants and how to get it. For instance, there’s a cute scene in the second half where she thinks Humphrey may be jealous of Dominik and teases him by speaking good things about Dominik, enjoying how he seems to get more and more jealous as she does. She’s not entirely sure of his feelings for her at this point (though to the reader it’s pretty obvious) and she uses it to both confirm that he likes her and flirt.

They are mutually respectful of each others’ skills. He respects her abilities as a witch and doesn’t try to “save the day” or take over for her. She knows he’s much more powerful than she is and respects him as such, but he also thinks she’s no slouch in the magic department either. What comes of this is they both work together to solve the problem of Rosapast and find the solution together. It’s rare I’ve read a game where they truly worked together with mutual respect to their abilities (most of the time it’s the man who is better and ends up ‘teaching’ MC) so this was a refreshing change of pace.

     

Like the rant by Strawbarely There, I also hated the fact it was free. For one, I spent hours grinding for coins to get all the good scenes. I honestly didn’t get the first one, but I did get the next two premium scenes. That was a lot of installing/uninstalling and filling out surveys (78 coins per survey) to get the 1600 coins needed for the special stories. And you know what? They weren’t even that great. If I paid for them, I would have been PISSED. Yeah, I lost some hours, but I lost them while in the middle of doing other stuff, so no biggie. I rewrote one of them, and I may rewrite the other sometime in the future, perhaps.

I don’t normally like the playboy archetype. I don’t think I’ve read one I’ve truly enjoyed. I just don’t like how in playboy routes it ends up the guy doing his thing, having his women, while the MC ends up chasing him around like a puppy. I hate that. I hate reading that. But in Humphrey’s route you don’t ever see that side. The other characters talk about it, for certain, and they mention it quite a bit.

But he never flirts with other women, he never goes on about his past exploits. It’s a little jarring to read them say that about him when he acts completely different around Mina. So much so, I feared a “twist” would be that he’s really a jerk or something.

I should have known better than to think that!

He comes across more as an eternal bachelor a la vintage George Clooney rather than a playboy. The narrative never expands on his past much, so we’ll never know. The characters are surprised when he settles down, but Mina’s like the reader and is like “??? He’s never acted like that around me…???”

So that was nice.

The worst thing ever is this is the type of story I would like to read over and over again, but it’s impossible to do so outside the endings and premium stories. Please release a paid version of it so I can buy the stories and read at my whims and desires! 

The only thing this has against it is that there’s no real twist or any “oomph” to the plot. It’s missing that final element that makes a truly great story. But this was a nice story and worth the days it takes to read it.

 

My heart scale is defined as follows – 5 hearts = a story everyone will fall in love with, regardless of preferences; 4 hearts = a well-done story that people who love the concept will adore, and people who don’t may end up liking it; 3 hearts = if you like this type of story or this type of hero, then you will enjoy this, but those who do not like either of those things will probably not; 2 hearts = it had potential, it squandered it; 1 heart = just a waste of time from the get-go; 0 hearts = why was this made?

Favorite Moments:

Oooh my, this is a doozy. The hallmark of a great route is that I end up screencapping a LOT. And by a lot, I mean A LOT.

So I’m going to try and group these together and talk about the scenes a bit, I suppose!

which means, of course S P O I L E R S

Step one to winning my heart: Treating me to tea

Mina is determined to save herself. She doesn’t mope around and wallow in her situation, she gets up and is like, “Okay, I want to stay human, I gotta figure this out.” I loved that.

 

This is an example of how the game puts them on equal footing. Mina trusts in her own abilities as a witch and never once thinks she’s useless compared to Humphrey.

Oh ho ho the blushing sprite appears! It’s always a treat when I see it.

 

Dominik is Mina’s childhood friend. Basically, while Dominik was being trained by Humphrey, he always mentioned a witch that was his childhood friend. Humphrey knew it was Mina, but he didn’t anticipate falling in love with her, so by time he meets up with his student again, there’s a lot of tension. I do feel bad for Dominik because he carried a torch for Mina his entire life but… well, he also didn’t tell her.

Because Mina is not content to sit around and let fate do whatever she wants, she ends up in danger a lot. She defends herself, but sometimes she’s not powerful enough to stop the attacker…

 

I don’t have the screenshots, but I would like to note one last thing — She said she loved him first~ and his reaction is absolutely adorable. In this scene she basically starts going on and on about Dominik, making him jealous, then she says that Rosapast is really only her problem because she’s turning into a vampire. Ah, I really love it when the main couple gets together before the story ends. I know the “first kiss” is a good finale to a romance story, but I also really like seeing them interact as a couple too.