BODY: Few games let you settle a dispute with a perfectly timed, white-gloved slap — and soon you'll be able to deliver one to an opponent across the country. PLAYISM announced on June 15 that The Rose and Camellia ~Lavish Edition~ (Bara to Tsubaki ~Ogōka Kenran-ban~) will receive an online versus update on June 22, bringing networked play to the Nintendo Switch's most genteel brawler.
For the uninitiated, The Rose and Camellia is a cult slapping-battle game in which refined young ladies of high society resolve their grievances the only proper way: by trading open-palmed strikes. Players read their opponent's wind-up, dodge with a graceful tilt of the head, then counter with a swing of their own — all while maintaining the poise befitting a lady of the manor.
The headline feature of the update is the ability to challenge distant rivals to a Joy-Con slapping duel. Using the controllers' motion sensors, players physically swing to attack and lean to evade, then face off against human opponents online rather than the CPU. It transforms a single-player curiosity into a living-room party piece with global reach.
The Lavish Edition is the spruced-up Switch incarnation of a title that began life as Nigoro's freeware oddity back in the late 2000s, later winning a devoted following for its absurd premise and surprisingly tense mind games. Adding online play extends the appeal well past the novelty stage.
The insider take
From Tokyo, The Rose and Camellia occupies a beloved niche in Japan's indie scene — the kind of gloriously silly concept that only thrives in a culture comfortable building an entire fighting game around the etiquette of aristocratic women slapping each other. Nigoro, better known overseas for La-Mulana, has long treated this series as a passion project, and PLAYISM's continued support reflects how Japanese publishers nurture cult oddities that would never survive a Western pitch meeting. Motion-controlled online slapping is exactly the sort of low-stakes, high-laughter experience that goes viral on Japanese streams.
Originally reported by AUTOMATON (Japanese).