Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

"Music, Chibis, Humor, Romance... Is this game missing anything?"

At first, I was hesitant to buy this game out of the used game rack at my local video game retailer, but it has been well worth it. Even my nephew bombarded me with comments like “this is a girl game,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Allow me to explain…

Story: 10/10

So, you're this teenage, sometimes air-headed, girl named Cornet. You're on a quest to find true love, happiness, and establish world peace… yeah right! You're just looking for true love, a prince to carry you away on his white horse and have a happily ever after ending. You can also talk to puppets and make them join you by playing your trusty “magical” trumpet. You also have a magical fairy puppet friend, Kururu, who you beat around occasionally to work out your own stress ^_^. And reminiscent of a Disney movie, you can expect the characters to break out in song, about once an hour, on the hour (not kidding), with some pretty hilarious lyrics about love and believing in yourself (even when it makes no sense in the current situation), and the dialogue between characters will keep you in stitches. The storyline spares no expense.

Graphics: 10/10

Who needs photo-realistic when you have chibis? All you need now is a little squeaking noise when they walk and the cuteness would be complete. So it's not super great Xbox 360 or PS3 graphics, but so what? I never once cursed this game for lack of visuals. The characters are very nicely designed, as are the backgrounds (very colorful and bright). It's a joy to look at and you won't want to gouge your eyes out, EVER!

Music/Sound/Songs: 80/10

Yeah, silly rating but I am serious about it. The songs are great in Japanese, but I want to add just a little on the English dub. This game COULD have been originally done in English and no one could have guessed it was originaly Japanese. The songs will make you laugh and cry (more commonly laugh). But, if you're a purist, the Japanese songs also leave you feeling very satisfied (but the soundtrack that comes with the game only has the English version, sorry). Oh, and the background music will also put you in the game while people aren't singing, so all around great music for “A Musical Adventure.”

Gameplay: 10/10

Try to combine Lunar Legend and FF Tactics and you have the basic gameplay of Rhapsody. The battles are waged on a grid and you have to move and attack the enemies like Tactics, but the map movements and healing at a goddess statue are just like Lunar. All and all, you can get the hang of basic controls within minutes, but it's still fun to play after 80 hours (it probably won't take half that long though to get through). A very solid gameplay.

Challenge: 1/10

Okay, I had to get all the good stuff out of the way before I got to another drawback of the game. If you hate cuteness and music, you're probably not reading anymore, but if an easy game bores you as well, this game might not be for you. 10 to15 hours is an average time for beating this game. There is an Easy, Medium, and Hard setting on the game, but even Hard is really not even as challenging as a normal RPG. An easy RPG CAN be fun, take it from me, Rhapsody proves it.

Overall: 10/10

Yup, the challenge shortcoming wasn't enough to drop this game's overall rating. A cute, musical RPG, for all ages (boys and girls). Funny and enjoyable, you'll enjoy this game's quirks again and again. 10/10 <-----And I wouldn't give a rating like this to very many games.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/05/06