How do I use rope?

[Squidnow]

I mashed past the tutorial for them and they don't appear to be an item I can select like bombs or lamp oil

[DomanDragon]

You need to hit the Select button.

[Dekoma]

its not exactly the same rope in wand of gamelon and faces of evil. as the previous user said, you hit select to bring up an option that lets you teleport to the beginning of the stage near the map. which uses up a rope.

in a sense, they're escape ropes. not climb up a platform ropes.

[Daraku Tenshi]

It will depend on the controller that you are using. My first playthrough I had no way of using the rope as I didn't have a select button. But the Spacebar will do it. Instead of using ropes which cost money, you are better off just pressing Start, Press L, and go down to Save and Exit to Map. Not sure why they even included this option as it makes the rope useless.