Nippon Ichi Software’s Rhapsody: A Musical Adventuremay be one of the comfiest video games ever crafted in the classic JRPG mold. It wraps with patient, gentle hands a glimmering gift of cozy sights, soothing sounds, light puzzle-adventuring, breezy battles, enchanting scenarios that know just how much and when to bend (never break) the heart before healing it fivefold — a perfect present papered endearingly with undeniable charm. The bow on top? It’s a musical. There’s not much else like it aside from its sequels. Though Atlus published the inaugural entry in the series in North America way back, these sequels went woefully unreleased anywhere outside their home country in their late-90s/early-00s day. But now, players outside the Japonophone world will finally be able to experience both mainline sequels when Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chroniclesarrives in late summer. Ahead of release, I got to play both games in the collection — Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess and Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom — courtesy of NIS America. Here’s what fans of the first, and anyone who sees a charming and funny RPG or two in their future, can look forward to.
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess, originally released on the PlayStation in 1999,opens many years after the end of the first game. Spirited Princess Kururu, the daughter of original heroine Cornet, aims to follow in her mother’s footsteps, setting out into the world on an adventure whose path, she hopes, will lead to true love. Of course, with the aloof Cello positioned by the narrative to be Kururu’s potential prince, she just might be in a little over her head. All part of growing up, right? Like the first game, Ballad skews young, and with its fun atmosphere and low level of difficulty, it may prove to be a good way to introduce this particular style of RPG to a kid. Accompanying Kururu on her quest is the coolheaded Crea Rosenqueen, faithful companion to Kururu and daughter of Cornet’s old frenemy Etoile.
The three stars of Rhapsody II: Kururu, Crea, and the beautiful backgrounds with a storybook feel.
As it turns out, Kururu is the people’s princess, and no problem is too proletarian to stay her helping hand. The portion of the game I played opened with her and Crea investigating the disappearance of the confectioners at an ice cream joint in Mothergreen, the capital of Marl’s Kingdom. Players of the first game will remember this castle town, but Ballad remixes the layout, expanding the location. The same goes for the forest their quest soon plants them in: it’s the one outside the village of Orange, where Cornet grew up, but a bit different this time. I got the impression that Ballad’s world will prove a familiar one, welcoming and warm like a childhood blanket. The game’s look and feel don’t stray from the path beaten by its predecessor either, so if the original title registers as a knock out of the park in your memory, this sequel will bring you home.
Battle is where this game begins to be its own unique beast. The remake of the first Rhapsody on the Nintendo DS ditched the original’s grid-based combat, but really, Rhapsody II did it first. The grid is gone and encounters are simplified to a trading of blows between sides. Sadly, puppets are no longer their own unique units, but special attacks to be called upon via the menu, like magic spells. Thankfully, the trusty music bar is back at the top of the screen. This time, it fills up with notes as you pitch your puppets into the fray. Once the bar is filled, Kururu can use it to unleash devastatingly strong baked-goods-based attacks sweeter than a call from grandma on your birthday. Like Cornet’s in the first game, these “Rewards” attacks are powerful enough to one-shot most any enemy, at least at the stage of the game I experienced. Following in the footsteps of the original, Ballad doesn’t seem very difficult, another reason why it may make a decent introductory RPG for kids (or grandma, as thanks for all those birthday calls). And when it comes to the resource-management angle, Ballad once again proves its kid-proof design in a rather unique and amusing way: special attacks cost not mana but money, awarded, per genre standard, at the end of battle. It makes for a tidy combat economy: use money to mop up enemies → get money for doing so. Speaking of mopping up enemies, you still have a chance to recruit defeated monsters into your party and, in the process, diversify your arsenal of attacks. And doing so, mixing it up with different strategies, makes sense in this series. I really liked how the first Rhapsody made status elements a viable strategy, effective even against bosses. Though I opted for a more straightforward DPS approach here in the interest of time, I was assured that status ailments are still useful in Ballad too.
After navigating Kururu and Crea deep into the forest, I found what I was looking for: a restaurant staffed by cats and stuffed with people enjoying some cold ice cream on a hot day. Signs of kidnappings that the customers seemed more than willing to ignore in favor of enjoying their frozen treats told me all I needed to know, and the mazelike corridors that led deeper into the building and seemed designed to disorient anyone trying to get to the bottom of this shady business spelled everything out just as plainly.
Once I arrived in the kitchen, Kururu and Crea met the cleaver-wielding cat keeping the confectioners captive, and he instantly tried to put them on ice now that they had discovered the sordid secret ingredient making the soft serve such a hit. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s appetite, so I won’t spoil what it was. All I’ll say is that it was revealed to me in song. Ballad, too, is a musical after all. The song sequence I was privy to was as delightful as those I remember from the first game, but the elephantine asterisk on this collection is that the musical numbers are only in Japanese. They will not be remade in English, NISA staff confirmed. While this decision is perfectly understandable, it is also unfortunate. The North American release of the first Rhapsody featured the vocal songs in both Japanese and English, a rare dual-audio title on PS1, and this new collection does not live up to that high standard. The decision probably won’t prove a dealbreaker for most, but for anyone choosing the game’s English voice option, it does introduce some presentational dissonance. Unlike the first game, this one does have some voiced dialogue outside of songs, and this dialogue is dubbed. I personally wish NISA had gone the extra mile.
Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom
Anyway, “the extra mile” is a fairly apt descriptor of the next game in the collection and the third main Rhapsody title overall: Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom, originally released on PS2 in 2000. Unlike the first two games, Memories does not follow a singular narrative but instead includes six separate chapters, each a vignette focused on a particular character. Think of it as a victory lap for the series; “a celebration” of Rhapsody is how the on-site NISA staff described it to me.
Character-based episodes feature familiar faces in Rhapsody III.
In my playtime, I tasted a slice of the game starring Cornet and her entourage of familiar puppets and monster allies. Etoile tagged along too, touting her signature arsenal of anachronistic firearms. I caught up with them in a cave where they were on the lookout for a friendly monster’s lost mother. In Memories, the characters are once again presented as 2D sprites, but this time around, the environments are rendered in full 3D. And while about one second of this cave boasted more character and charm than roughly all of the first Rhapsody’s bland dungeon environments combined and quadrupled, I worry that elsewhere the switch to 3D may demagnetize this game of the fairytale charge of the first two, and wash away that picturebook-ish wonder in its tide.
One thing’s for sure, though: Memories steps up its dungeoning game, at least if the portion I played is any indication. As I ventured deeper into the cavern accompanied by a bright and bouncy backing track that helped set this adventure’s buoyant tone, I had to forge my way ahead by interacting with some extremely basic environmental objects, like springy mushrooms that allowed me to Mario-hop onto otherwise unreachable ledges. These played the role of your standard RPG dungeon interactable that, in any other situation, I wouldn’t even bother mentioning. But considering that Rhapsody number one’s copypaste dungeon areas came utterly devoid of any such interactables, and that my time with the sequel seemed to indicate that it follows suit, they almost feel like a game changer for Rhapsody III. Simple as they are, I welcomed their inclusion.
Rhapsody III is like a victory lap for the series, featuring many familiar characters and monsters.
Rhapsody III‘s combat is a little more complex as well. True to that celebratory vibe, your party can now contain up to 16 characters at once, separated into four rows of four. There are all sorts of attacks you can unleash, many of them as comedic as they are effective, like materializing pots and kettles out of thin air to drop them on your foes’ unsuspecting heads. Puppets and monsters are once again distinct characters and come with their own abilities; a quick detour led to me recruiting the unmistakable and powerful L-Kun. These battles also reinstate an element of positioning, allowing you to move your characters laterally, closer to or further away from the enemies’ side of the screen. Move closer, I was informed, to dish out greater damage, I assume at the expense of defense. So yeah, there’s a lot you can do in these battles, but I worry that the heightened complexity will prove superfluous since, true to form, the game appears to be so easy that many of the details seem not to matter. To be fair, however, I played a segment from early in the game.
I didn’t find the monster I was looking for before my time was up, nor did I get to experience any of the musical numbers, but Rhapsody III certainly seems to be the more involved adventure in this collection, at least from a gameplay standpoint. All in all, though, the charm factor — not to mention the “I can’t believe this collection even exists” factor — reigns and, like the first one way back when, both titles in the collection look like they’ll be worth your time if your sensibilities square with their sincere storybook style.
Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles is out on PS5, Switch, and Windows via Steam in North America on August 29th, in Europe on September 1st, and in Australia and New Zealand on September 8th. The two titles will be sold separately on Steam. The game’s official website has pre-order links for all platforms. We want to thank NIS America once again for the chance to preview the game ahead of launch.
Finally, if you haven’t listened yet, this week’s episode of Rhythm Encounter featured a song from the original Rhapsody, along with other musical-centric game tracks. Give it a listen!
RPGFan uses cookies to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
