I really enjoyed the dynamic blend of turn base and real time based combat, this side of the game is strong enough to warrant further exploration in other projects (in my opinion) the large amount of cards only further expand the game-play possibilities, it's a shame that in a single run a player only gets to see a handful before finishing, where the game is lacking a bit is dialogue, it seems overly dramatic at times, while it does set a very well defined oppressive and dark tone, at some places it reaches a level of parody as for example describing an ordinary rat as a grotesque beast is so over the board that it got a chuckle out of me, if everything is described as the most vile, dark, depressing, bloodied and gutted thing in history it starts to loose a bit of it's meaning, if the instances of vivid descriptions were relegated mostly to the final part of the game it would really underline the terrifying power of the rose pedals, another a bit strange part of the experience is is the lack of graphic detail in art direction, while the written descriptions sound like we are exploring the dungeons of fear and hunger on benadryl our actual protagonist looks fine most of the time, if a little shaken, I was disappointed to see that in despite picking a body part to be essentially mauled into uselessness at the beginning of the game, this has no effect on the in game sprite, another part of this was that despite being brought to a near death state during the game, the protagonist does not bleed, not on their clothes, armor and not on the floor, only a flash of red as we take damage, this softer way of showing damage bring to mind less serious games like Block Tales or Bloody Hell, the desings of the monsters seem to be more goofy than scary at times, especially with the case of the previously mentioned, frankly cute, rat, with all that in mind there is one more area of the game that needs to be mentioned, the story is engaging, cool, unique and doesn't overstay it's welcome with long descriptions or cutscenes, frankly almost all of it can be skipped if the player decides not to read the in game notes, a shame really but it's good that the player has a choice.
If anything that I might have mentioned as a flaw is intended game design, please disregard it as my personal lack of comprehension, I personally had a grand old time with the game and managed to beat it first try :D