Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

"Rhapsody is honest, pleasant and an overall nice RPG best suited for kids"

God love Rhapsody. After playing this I actually admired Atlus to have the scruples to release this game with an English transcript - some of it would be best left unsaid. There were the initial worries as I recap back to the monstrous atrocity of Eternal Eyes. As the title suggests, the game is the first ever musical RPG which immediately sparks off waves of other great ideas. A rock opera RPG perhaps?. Well, Rhapsody doesn't quite go down that route. No, it rather settles for being bizarre, funny and offline with other RPG's. Some of the strangest ideas have turned out to be masterpieces such as Sonic (a blue superfast hedgehog - irony) and squeaky talking bazooka wielding insects (Worms) but here, Rhapsody instead becomes something of a suprise and cringe worthy experience. Nevertheless, the game has it's moments where everyone will connect with the adventure but when it comes to the nature of the musicality of the game then....I'm sure kids near the age of three will be able to bear it. It did suffice as a nice little hand me down present to my younger sister anyway, who now even boasts at the age of seven that the game is even too easy for her.

In my opinion, there is no way that Atlus could have based the adventure of Rhapsody in the character of a boy. The game is way to squeaky clean and inoffensive (that it might sway to being offensive, ironically) and if a male character was the main protaginist, then the game would have flared on the lines of being very camp and feminine. So Rhapsody sticks to being just feminine with a female character. And her name is Cornet, a very extroverted, slightly kooky young girl who can communicate with puppets. Yes, puppets. No seriously, pup-pets. She brings them to life when she plays her magical horn left by her late Mother. Now she resides in Orange Village with her Grandfather, spending most of her days with her fairy puppet best friend, Kururu. Prozac I hear you cry?. Well no, because Kururu isn't inanimate when Cornet's talking to her because of her ability and the magic horn. And aside from this, she fantasises (in the most innocent of ways) about the Prince of the nearby castle, Ferdinand.

Now, things take an anecdote of Romeo and Juliet and The Wizard Of Oz and then masterstrokes a gender swap (no, Cornet doesn't have a sex change). Cornet and Kururu explode the intro when they are on an errand for Cornet's grandfather when in the midst of the woods they are ambushed by an evil witch and her, um, well, cats. Yes, mogs. Soon the witch summons a dragon that overwhelms Cornet and Kururu but fate intervenes when a dashing young man descends and slays the dragon and chases the evil witch. A bit of your romantic cliche isn't it?. Cornet realises that the man is the Prince Ferdinand she has been dreaming of. Speechless, she cannot think of anything to say before the Prince has to leave. And Cornet then pines and whines over the fact that she never introduced herself. Naturally, she is ecstatic to learn that there is a Cinderella esque competition at the castle to compete for the hand in marriage of Ferdinand. She immediately joins but at the expense of withstanding the catty remarks and irritation of her snobby, retentive and anal rival, Etoile Rosenqueen. As you can see, it's a very old formula that Disney have whipped up from fairy tales.

The competition is fierce, with beauty stakes and a singing competition with inane and fake, sympathy vote lyrics from Etoile such as "No one knows how lonely I am". Cornet doesn't yield without a fight yet in the end, the competition ends in a tie between herself and Etoile. So there's snarls, growls and saucers of milk all around. But there is the sense of the favour being in Cornet's side as Franz remembers her and grows to like her. However, the bliss is interrupted by Marjoly and her cats swooning into the castle masted on top of the dragon that the Prince slayed. Okay, he didn't slay it then. However, the evil witch has her higher authority, Marjoly with her to reclaim revenge. Now, I don't know what this Franz has got going for him but Marjoly now falls in love with him to add more problems for Cornet. Marjoly attempts to cast a love spell on Franz to make him requaint her love but she makes a massive booboo and turns him into stone. Unable to reverse the spell, instead to kidnaps Franz to find a way to turn him back. Cornet now has two missions ahead of her, she must save the Prince and find the way to cure him before Marjoly does.

Come on, it sounds appealing doesn't it?. Well, if the story is a little too much of a chick flick then prepare yourself from some original and genuinely witty dialogue. Cornet and Kururu have different personalities, and this results in some very hilarious chemistry. Kururu always finds a more inconvenient alternative to capturing Franz's heart, like when she tells Cornet "If all else fails, just show him a bit of leg, guys like a bit of leg.". Also, the rivalry between Cornet and Etoile has some disasterous but amusing sequences such as the weigh in "And weighing at a slightly chubby 100 pounds...". As a main nemesis, Marjoly may not be the most evil person you've come across, but the hopelessness of her and her minions is charming in the sense that you feel a bit sorry for her, whilst laughing. While the jokes aren't killer ones that will send you to the floor rolling about stupidly, they are sufficient to the pleasant and playful nature of the game that never steps out of it's shell.

Luckily, Rhapsody teaches a very earned lesson to all those strategy RPG's that banish the banal exploration and preferrable usual elements of traditional RPG's. The rest of the gameplay is part time strategy but also very similiar in ambience to Eternal Eyes except very better. You basically travel to collect five stones needed to lift the curse of Franz and recruiting....puppets. They join your party, and in the battle party you can have four members during the random battles. The battles are in the formula of Vandal Hearts and Koudelka. Either you or the enemy will advance towards each other to engage in full on battles. The characters and enemies have movement fields, indicated in blue tiles that have been used in other games so people should be able to familiarise with it. For attacks, you need to be up close and standing next to the enemies whereas for spells, you are able to distance yourself and effect the enemy in the magic damage tiles. Cornet proves to be invaluable for the battles as the heroine but also because her horn is also used for powering up puppets nearby (which has endless appraise for beating this game). In a way, the horn also serves as a "limit break" sort of concept.

And that would be that every time Cornet uses her horn, there is a gauge, the appreciation gauge that slowly builds up by musical bars. Like Final Fantasy VII, the gauge can level up to progress to other stronger spells. Most of them serve better comical value that effects but they also can damage a particuliar enemy or a melee or enemies as well as healing your characters. This does make the game even easier but what can you do?. Length is another downfall as the game never steps off the mainstream track of rescuing Franz, making the game either linear if you don't choose to explore the dungeons you don't actually need to. For a game that doesn't do anything else but the main storyline, the difficulty of the game could have been so much harder to provide a good challenge, which sadly, this game doesn't have. Then again, if the game is aimed at kids, they might find a challenge out of it. I doubt it though, gaining higher levels is fairy easily done in a matter of a few hours. Plus, you practically never need to heal or worry about items. It's a tad sad. Oh look, I pinched the rhyming scheme from Rhapsody...

Ultimately, people looking to this game for something good in gameplay terms will sorely miss out and may feel bitter. So Rhapsody doesn't score much points for engaging gameplay although it does show up Koudelka and Unlimited SaGa in the strategy battle stakes.

Judging the game's graphics is precarious. From this point on, I'd like to believe that the game was designed for kids because the graphics reflect that even more so. They are nice Japanese cutsey borderish Pokemon and Digemon, an overall cartoon anime feel to them. There are a lot of fans out there who prefer 2D graphics in RPG's and it certainly works here with the characters looking very distinctive with their sprites. As usual, the mini facial expressions are more than cute with nice artwork in the character portraits. For this part of the graphics, it is fulfilling with energy and a feel good connotation.

The towns and locations are quite picturesque, if repetitive. Did they think we wouldn't notice the same basic design for towers, caves and rooms except in different colours?. Silly crumpets. Ironically, that isn't the main criticism of Atlus's budget but the fact that because rooms look the same, getting lost and getting frustration sleep next to each other. So it then brings down the exploration rate - well done Atlus. Whereas in normal RPG's, only certain areas are supposed to be a mission exploring, yet here exploring every dungeon is an exam of it's own. And not by purpose. By tightness.

Was Rhapsody trying to be sarcastic or over appealling to the kids with the music here?. Irony strikes it's deadly hand on the game again as the music is really cheesy, lame and for the unusual reasons, tongue in cheek. Music in a RPG has always been a treat and something that has gone on to be good character development such as Final Fantasy VIII for instance but here, you really wonder if Cornet is addicted to valium with inane lyrics such as "I take a bubble bath, and wash behind my ears". Is this a love story RPG or the Rugrats dealing with independence?. Were the writers of the songs the actual children of the developers?. Have they been arrested yet and will those children go back to living under the stairs?.

To make this worse, this is supposed to be the highlight of the game meaning Rhapsody believes the music is good so the pyschological warfare is occasional. They even included a soundtrack where you're allowed to go down the route of self harming by listening to these songs. Maybe it's a better idea if pot wasn't smoked in the green room?. If the lyrics aren't enough to grab the sickbag - sometimes they have the character rock their heads forward and back while you're reading the lyrics with nothing happening. God, why?. Tis enough to make you sick I say. However, the generic music is quite decent, nothing to complain about although it compares nothing to the likes of Final Fantasy.

Not much can prevent Rhapsody being a failure in the eyes of teenagers. You go through this game like you go through puberty. The length, easy challenge and terrible sound make it an adventure that is best left forgotten. But again, Rhapsody suprises you not to. The dialogue, characters and plot is all applaudable and empathetic that it could have been better handled. But for kids beginning to break into this genre, the game doesn't fault with much. The little snipes it takes at other games amused me as much as the characters. Rhapsody answered the right questions, but implemented more that it didn't. It's a bit of shame really, as I couldn't bring myself to hate this game in the end.

So I decided that Rhapsody was a balanced thing for me. It contested both good and bad points. It wasn't serious, it was silly and lighthearted - a good break away from the serious stuff that keeps us struggling. But the faults the game has are really despicable and annoying enough to prevent it seeing the break of daylight again, banishing it to fog of a dusty shelf. Ultimately, I do think the game will provide more of an appeal to girls, maybe to even younger boys but considering it's a love story in the eyes of a girl then it will challenge a more confusing pose to the males. But personally, I liked the effort and think it just missed out from being a good game. For kids, I certainly recommend this game - you'll have fun before you're ready to take on the ranks of Final Fantasy. Use Rhapsody as your stepping stone.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/04