Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

"A very cute and fun RPG"

Ok. I can tell you off the bat that I hate Playstation. I don't like it for concentrating so much on 3D. I don't like how it pushed the Saturn off the US market. And I just don't like its games. (With the exception of the Lunar remakes) But there are some gems out there for gamers who despise 3D as much as I do. One of these games is Rhapsody. It is one of the funniest, cutest, and most fun RPGs out there. The story is this: you play as Cornet, a common ordinary girl who has the ability to talk with puppets. Your best friend is a special puppet Kurruru who has the ability to talk to other humans. After saved by the prince, you fall in love with him and join a beauty contest where the winner becomes elligable to marry Ferdinand, the prince. After a hilarious contest, a group of sorceresses burst in. The leader (who is constantly being made fun of by the other sorceresses as well as the rest of the world) falls in love with Ferdinand. The rest I won't spoil. But the object is to rescue the prince.

Story- This story is basically a reverse of every RPG story made. And this is what makes it so special. For instance, instead of the prince rescuing the princess, its the princess rescuing the prince. Another funny thing is the parody of the obediant evil servants. Instead of the main badguy having underlings that suck up to him/her, the underlings make fun of the main baddy and give her some of the funniest responses. For example, when Marjoly commands her minions to attack Cornet, they straight up tell her, ''I don't feel like it.'' And who can forget when Cornet calls Marjoly an ''old maid''. After Marjoly asks her what she called her, Cornet starts chanting old maid with the entire room, including the minions, joining in.
I guess the refreshing story and humour comes due to the fact that it is a game for girls, so it doesn't rely on violence or crude jokes like men's rpgs, but rather has a feminine story line like love and rivalry between Cornet and Etoile because of Etoile's catty nature. Not something covered in regular rpgs where the girls are stereotypical dream girls.

Graphics- Absolutely beautiful. The characters are hand drawn with vibrant colors. The backgrounds are beautifully colored with watercolors. And in short, very few RPGs look this good. Everyone is drawn cute. The expressions on each character's face are classic. Especially Cornet. The angles of each room are very cool. It's plainly one of the most beautiful games for Playstation.

Sound- This is also great. Sound effects are pretty standard. Background music is slightly above average. But the actual vocal tracks are wonderful. Unfortunately, the English lyrics sound like they are from Disney movies. Fortunately, there is an option where you can listen to the songs in the original Japanese track. And these songs kick ass!

Gameplay- This is also well done. Exploration is done in standard RPG fare. The battles, on the other hand, are done in strategy rpg style. Don't worry, they aren't long and overdrawn like traditional strategy RPGs. They are usually pretty quick. But battle is very cool though. Especially Cornet's attacks. You see, she has a horn that powers up other characters. And everytime you use it, your Rewards meter builds up. You can build them up to perform super attacks. These attacks... Hilarious. One attack drops giant flans on the enemy. Another actually drops a gigantic pancake on an enemy. Another cool feature is that your allies are puppets. And you basically mix and match who you want in your party. And don't worry about leveling them up. Leveling up occurs very frequently. The game isn't like in tradition console rpgs where it takes forever to gain a level. Instead, it takes only about 2 battles to gain a level. The game isn't necessarily an rpg but more like a story with rpg elements.

Replay- Semi-replayable. The game is pretty easy and short, no matter what difficulty you play it on. There are some things to go back for like hidden puppets. Also, there is a gallery feature where you can look at illustrations that you unlock as you play the game. Here, you can also relisten to vocal songs that you encounter in the game.

Overall- This game is a treasure. If you can stomach a girly environment and story, you will find a superb RPG in this game.

Availablity- Not too common. Bordering on rare. It was discontinued by Atlus, so you probably will have to scour ebay or the used Playstation games sections in stores. Some places charge $40 or $50 for a copy. I got mine at Babbages for about $25.

Other things- The game also comes with a soundtrack cd, which I hear is pretty good. (Haven't listened to it yet.)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/03