“Let’s go on...”

Well this was something I kind of just felt like doing. I remember playing this game emulated last year but ended up not finishing it, for some reason I don’t like emulating PS1 RPGs, but it won’t stop me from one day playing Wild Arms, I swear one day that’ll come. Now I’m playing the release on Switch which is basically the same version. I feel like I have a lot of things to say about this game so I’m gonna jump into this.

This RPG stars a girl named Cornet with her fairy puppet friend Kururu. You’ll be traveling throughout Marl’s Kingdom to do whatever the game asks you. There is no overworld here as leaving an area takes you to a map. The game starts out with a cute little song opening if you don’t press anything on the title screen and gives a good first impression. The game is pretty chill and relaxing and it nicely eases you in for the gameplay you’re gonna be doing. While the first two sessions were all fun and games with a well made story that’ll get into. There’s just something about the game I have to let out.

I don’t like the gameplay

Let’s start with the battles. They kind of feel like a mix between standard turn based and strategy gameplay. It’s isometric as you have to hit any enemy with your range available. Cornet controls puppets and even enemies to fight for her though she can fight as well with her horn. Just be careful as her dying means the game is over though that never happened because this battle system is a joke. I should note the playthrough was played on normal difficulty. Good god the combat is so easy. Just use your specials that have range and be powerful and almost nothing can hurt you. It ends up making the battles incredibly boring as I can barely come up with fun strategies when the optimal strategy is just way better and safer. You think with the MP cost for it being expensive would fix that but not only is MP refilled via level ups which you get very fast btw but you’re forced to get an item that halves MP cost for moves. It’s like the devs want you to break it. I can’t say how much hard difficulty fixes it but you better choose that just to be safe.

This also just hurts stuff like getting other puppets because you’re not going to experiment when you have an easy solution for any battle. I’m not even sure why the game has so many elements when it feels like it never matters. Where’s the strategy? Where’s the planning? Nothing is here. I also almost never used items so shops feel rather pointless. It’s not even worth getting gear as ones you’ll find in dungeons help way more. That’s another thing, there’s no gear that isn’t just small buffs, so no buying weapons or armor. Give me a reason to buy stuff! The only item I felt worth buying was the teleporter so I can leave dungeons early. Also why does the game very early on let you recruit enemies then never happened ever again after like the second one. Did I screw up?

Oh yeah, what about those dungeons? Some of the worst I’ve played in the genre. I mean are we being serious here? What happened with this aspect of the game? Do you like caves and temples? That’s all you’re getting. Most of them have the same color and the same 5-6 types of rooms made for both categories. It not only looks so dull and uninteresting but you’ll tire of these immediately once you’re on the quest for the stones. But it’s ok guys because on the very rare occasion, they’ll change the color! IT BROKE NEW GROUND!!! Seriously they all feel the same and are never enjoyable and they all play the same music too and the random encounter system is so inconsistent and half of the time it just feels like you’re walking into the same room over and over and over and OVER! The only reasons I can think of why the game is like this is because of budget or time or maybe just wanting to appeal to a younger audience. What’s even worse is usually the first screen for these areas is actually pretty nice and fitting so why can’t the actual inside be like this? I’m not gonna call the devs lazy or anything but this is easily the game’s low point and that’s saying a lot.

Does Rhapsody have anything that makes me smile? Well yeah, it’s gotta be the story. It’s surprisingly the best part of the game with a lot of great moments and even has some surprising moments too considering the writing made me think it was just silly and simple. I should address that the localization is rather odd. I’m not sure how accurate it is to the original JP version but it feels a lot like a Working Designs script except it’s only the very rare moment of ??? if you get what I mean. While it is the best part of the game, it has some issues too. I felt the pacing was too fast at times but that’s probably due to the game’s short length. The whole romance thing with Cornet and the Prince feels so cliche and lazy that it’s hard to really appreciate it when it has so little development. I’m also not a fan of many NPCs not replacing their dialogue at times. While it goes away once the quest to get the five stones, it’s a notable problem I noticed for the beginning quarter of the adventure. It’s probably not as bad as I’m making it sound, it just personally hurt some immersion for me.

At least the presentation is quite nice. While the game can have some copy and paste with dungeons and stuff, the graphics and music are still very good. I love the style for the backgrounds and the sprite art is really good too. The portraits for dialogue are also really good but sadly there’s not too many. The music is also a bop from beginning to end. I especially love the vocal songs that play throughout the game, they’re even dubbed if you enjoy dubs. (The JP singers are available as an option if you want that). While I should say again it’s not perfect, it’s nice this aspect of the game is good as it makes traveling not feel as miserable as it could.

Sigh, I feel kind of sad the more I think of this game, the more I wish I could have loved it and not feel so negative. Rhapsody to me in many ways is a bad game but yet, is it weird the good bits kind of keep it out of it for me? It made the experience memorable and I appreciate the game for that. I just wish the gameplay itself was fun because it just gets extremely dull by the 2nd half and the presentation and story have to carry the rest of the game on the hike. When I view all of the art in this game, it makes me appreciate just how much work went into it. I could imagine this was a fun project to work on. For the record, if you like this game, I’m not going to judge so please don’t take this review the wrong way like I’m trying to be the only correct take. Rhapsody would get two more mainline sequels and this game is also available on the DS remade with a new battle system if you wanna play it there. I’ll probably play Rhapsody II in a couple of months and I’m hoping it’ll fix issues I have. Rhapsody on Switch also contains the PSP game La Pucelle Ragnarok so maybe expect me to play that too sometime this year. For now, guess I’ll just go chill and sing those catchy vocal tunes.