Shall We Date?: Blood In Roses is an installation in the Shall We Date? series. It's a visual novel-styled Romance Game with multiple routes available. The translated game was released on April 19th, 2015.
The game revolves a young witch named Mina Hambleton (although her name can be changed by the player) who stumbles across a supposedly abandoned castle where she's ambushed by a couple of vampires. She awakens in a prison cell and is greeted by her assailants: the charming Rupert and his irritable younger brother Alfred. They refuse to let her go unless she gives them her blood, which they take by force. After a while, she wakes up in a strange room where she meets a talking cat named Spade. He informs her that since she has special blood, she hasn't fully transformed into a vampire. However, she has ten days before she turns into one. In order to save herself, she must drink the dew from the roses in the garden.
Shall We Date?: Blood in Roses includes:
- All There in the Manual: The visual novel has a glossary, which provides more information on certain creatures, characters and other concepts.
- Alternate Timeline: Confirmed twice, in Spade's route, when he details the many timelines where Mina died, and in Ioannis' route, which seems to imply that Season One and Season Two routes happen on two different timelines, explaining why Mina is a fledgling witch in Season 1 and a hunter in Season 2.
- Battle in the Rain: This happens towards the end of Rupert's route. Just as he and Mina open the door to the Rose Garden, they find Jack and Daniel, both revealed as werewolves, and they engage in a fight to keep Rosapast out of the werewolves' hands. Made even more epic when Alfred and Raymond join in.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: With only two female characters available.
- Downer Ending: Jack's Farewell Ending is loathed by the fanbase.
- Entitled to Have You: Since both Rupert and Alfred took Mina's blood at the same time, they will develop a "she belongs to me" attitude.
- Forceful Kiss: This will happen to Mina at least once a route. That is until she returns her lover's feelings.
- Gay Option: Bridget and Matilda are the two female romance options.
- Interspecies Romance: Mina (a human witch turned into a vampire) with a vampire or werewolf lover. She can also romance a time traveling cat.
- Harold, the father of vampires, and Tatiana, Mina's ancestor, also had this. Unfortunately, Tatiana eventually chose to die to maintain peace between the humans and monsters, which sent Harold into a great depression.
- Multiple Endings: There are two endings available for each route: Serenade and Toccata. Each are earned by how much Moonbeam or Sunlight you gain from your choices. There is also a Farewell Ending, which happens if the player doesn't get either of the aforementioned endings. This is the closet thing to a Bad Ending the player can get.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Mina's lover will typically be a personal space invader, whether it be him trying to kiss her, act intimate towards her, or try biting her.
- Other male characters not a part of her route will also be this way.
- Our Vampires Are Different: In this game, vampires who take a human's blood can either turn them into a "belonging," which is a person who has a free will, but they have to obey their master, or into a puppet, which reduces that person to a real puppet.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: These werewolves don't seem to transform during a full moon, though it does seem to enhance their bestial instincts. They can instead manifest wolf ears and a tail on demand.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: If a vampire's eyes turn red, they're about to take someone's blood or order their belonging to do something, which is absolute.
- Sibling Triangle: Mina will be a part of this in Rupert and/or Alfred's route. The choices the player makes will determine if she will belong to one or both of them.
- Slipping a Mickey: Mina ends up putting a sleeping potion into Spade's chamomile tea so that she can save him in his route.
- Stockholm Syndrome: The heroine inevitably falls for the man she chooses, especially since she has to love and be loved by her selected guy in order to get into the Rose Garden. Depending on which ending you get, she may not care about the garden in the end.
- Lima Syndrome: In return, the man will also develop feelings for her.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: It seems to have a small parallel to Diabolik Lovers only Mina isn't constantly being drained of her blood and she only has two vampire brothers (and the hotel owner) to worry about.
- Let's not forget The Twilight Saga with the vampire and werewolf rivalry and love triangle.
- The Tragic Rose: Rosapast, the guardian of the Rose Guardian, fits the bill perfectly. For Alfred and Rupert's routes, she's slowly dying and needs the love of Harold and Tatiana's ancestors to revive her.
- Two Girls to a Team: Mina and Bridget are the only female characters to show up in the game.
- Vampire Hunter: In Rupert's route, Jack and Daniel turn out to be this. They even had bullets that could kill vampires if the aim was right.
- Walking Spoiler: Spade. Not only about who and what he is, but he also spoils every route when he is Mina's partner as part of his Time Travel plot and to get the vampire's trust.
