Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

"Get rid of the music and this game's fine"

In Japan there's a genre of anime called ''magical girls'' about young girls who have magical powers over a certain area of magic and usually hang around with one or more comic relief talking pets or sidekicks. That's exactly what this game is, with our heroine, Cornet, being able to bring puppet to life and knock out monsters with her music, and aided by her wisecracking marionette friend, Kururu.

The plot is pretty standard for a magical girl story. Cornet falls in love with the local prince charming, and so does the local evil witch, who kidnaps him to make him her own, and Cornet and her puppet brigade have to race her stuck-up but ultimately good-hearted rival to rescue the prince from the witch and live happily ever after.

The game was probably aimed a young demographic, as the turn based battles are simple and very easy to win, even against bosses. There are about thirty odd puppets with different powers Cornet can find and recruit in her fight against the witch and her sisters, but after your initial group is formed chances are you'll stick with them for most of the game. The only hard part of the game is the mazes (come on, it's an RPG. It has to have mazes), since each room looks exactly like every other so it's easy to get lost if you don't make a map of each one.

As the game is called ''A Musical Adventure,'' there is indeed a fair amount of fully-vocalized songs throughout the game. Cornet has a favorite song she semi-regularly plays about how great life is, the witch at one point breaks into a big number with all her underlings about how evil she is, etc. They're the kind of stuff you'd hear in a Disney movie. A really bad one. Ironically, the titular aspect of the game is easily the weakest. The songs are just not good. Be grateful for volume control.

Where the game stands out is in the anime-style graphics. That's the kind of thing that's always grabbed my attention, as far back as when the Lunar games came out. This can be appreciated from the dialogue windows to the anime-style sight gags (watch Kururu whack Cornet or the prince's lecherous assistant over the head with one of those big paper fans) to the bromides of the various characters you can find in treasure chests. Unfortunately, there are no animated cut scenes or any such thing in Rhapsody (it is just a one-disc game), so if you want those, go play Lunar.

Like another reviewer, this is my opinion of the game. I like it, but I've always been a sucker for anime graphics and cutesy characters and storylines (one of your most devastating attacks in battle is lob huge cakes and candy at your enemies). People who are not anime or magical girl fans probably will hate this game, as well as people looking for a challenging RPG. But like I said before, if you want that kind of game, go play Lunar. And find the mute button before you decide to play Rhapsody.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/30/03, Updated 03/02/04