Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess
released on Aug 29, 2023
Join Kururu on her journey to find true love and experience the charm of Rhapsody II's storybook adventure!
Reviews View More
Much like the first game, it's very light hearted and a breeze to play through. It's a bit tougher this time around, but still not hard. I think the first one's a bit better, but this one's definitely worth checking out.
someone i love bought me this game.
someone i love played this game with me.
i want to play this game with more people i love.
this game is love.
someone i love played this game with me.
i want to play this game with more people i love.
this game is love.
Legendary
i wish i could divide myself into 3 people so i could kill my self 3 times once each for etoile marjoly and cherie
After over 20 years, the sequel to Rhapsody finally gets released for the west. About time too since it's a fun game.
Rhapsody II picks up around 12 years after the first game and follows Cornet's daughter, Kururu as the main character. The game takes place in pretty much the same setting as before so there's a lot of familiar scenery and returning characters. Like her mother, Kururu wants to find her dashing prince to marry.
The structure of Rhapsody II is now more split into many different acts serving like chapters. The first half of the game feels very episodic which are fun, but lack a compelling narrative. The second half does start to resemble more like a typical JRPG which makes the story more interesting at that point.
Compared to Rhapsody I, the second story is a lot more developed with characters being the highlight. Kururu herself exhibits decent growth while her relationships with the characters around her playing a big role in her development. The side characters are also developed pretty well too including her best friend Crea. Romance is a lot better developed as well even if it's fairly cliche and typical here.
The antagonists including the Marjoly Family get even more development and screentime compared to the first game. Their rival family, the Akurjo also gets a lot of focus. Much like how the Marjoly family was in the first game, the two families act more as comic relief than true threats. This reflects well with the tone of the game so I'm not complaining.
The gameplay has been changed quite a bit compared to the original Rhapsody. Battles no longer use grids for movement. It has become a more simplified system where allies and enemies take turns attacking. Human characters are now party members instead of Puppets. Puppets still exist, but they are like gear that can be equipped. If equipped, the character can use their spells and skills in battle which consumes money when used. Puppet skills are useful early on, but I eventually found character specials being more effective as the game progresses despite their HP cost to use. Battles aren't that difficult, but it is noticeably more challenging when played on Hard at least. Enemies can deal surprising amount of damage, but it's still quite manageable.
Rhapsody's signature musical songs return and are better than ever. They sound good and appear more relevant to the scenes they play in.
There are sidequests in the game, but the ones related to the puppets are limited. Just finding and recruiting them is the extent of their sidequests.
One of my biggest issue with Rhapsody I were the lack of dungeon variety. Well, Rhapsody II doesn't improve a lot there, but the dungeons here are a lot better to navigate. There are less forks and split roads so that I don't really get lost in the game. I still wished that it had a minimap of sorts though.
Overall, Rhapsody II is an improvement over the first game nearly across the board. A lot of the charm and humor are still in so fans of the first will likely enjoy the second.
Rhapsody II picks up around 12 years after the first game and follows Cornet's daughter, Kururu as the main character. The game takes place in pretty much the same setting as before so there's a lot of familiar scenery and returning characters. Like her mother, Kururu wants to find her dashing prince to marry.
The structure of Rhapsody II is now more split into many different acts serving like chapters. The first half of the game feels very episodic which are fun, but lack a compelling narrative. The second half does start to resemble more like a typical JRPG which makes the story more interesting at that point.
Compared to Rhapsody I, the second story is a lot more developed with characters being the highlight. Kururu herself exhibits decent growth while her relationships with the characters around her playing a big role in her development. The side characters are also developed pretty well too including her best friend Crea. Romance is a lot better developed as well even if it's fairly cliche and typical here.
The antagonists including the Marjoly Family get even more development and screentime compared to the first game. Their rival family, the Akurjo also gets a lot of focus. Much like how the Marjoly family was in the first game, the two families act more as comic relief than true threats. This reflects well with the tone of the game so I'm not complaining.
The gameplay has been changed quite a bit compared to the original Rhapsody. Battles no longer use grids for movement. It has become a more simplified system where allies and enemies take turns attacking. Human characters are now party members instead of Puppets. Puppets still exist, but they are like gear that can be equipped. If equipped, the character can use their spells and skills in battle which consumes money when used. Puppet skills are useful early on, but I eventually found character specials being more effective as the game progresses despite their HP cost to use. Battles aren't that difficult, but it is noticeably more challenging when played on Hard at least. Enemies can deal surprising amount of damage, but it's still quite manageable.
Rhapsody's signature musical songs return and are better than ever. They sound good and appear more relevant to the scenes they play in.
There are sidequests in the game, but the ones related to the puppets are limited. Just finding and recruiting them is the extent of their sidequests.
One of my biggest issue with Rhapsody I were the lack of dungeon variety. Well, Rhapsody II doesn't improve a lot there, but the dungeons here are a lot better to navigate. There are less forks and split roads so that I don't really get lost in the game. I still wished that it had a minimap of sorts though.
Overall, Rhapsody II is an improvement over the first game nearly across the board. A lot of the charm and humor are still in so fans of the first will likely enjoy the second.
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess is a sequel to Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure released a few months prior in Japan, Rhapsody II follows Kururu, the daughter of the main character from the previous game.
Unlike the first game, this one uses a linear setting with chapters and most importantly a new type of gameplay that entirely ditches the Tactical JRPG format and goes for a more traditional turn-based combat in the likes of the classic Final Fantasy titles. These new gameplay changes are a welcomed addition as the original gameplay wasn't really good, not terrible either, just not very good at being a TRPG. But is this game good as a basic turn-based JRPG? I'd say so, just like the original this game is overly easy where you barely need to focus on anything to win, the only difficult roadblock I had was the final boss since I actually had to think for a second but other than that it's a cake walk, just a tiny bit harder than the original, my main issue from the combat comes from the battle animations taking ages and during a boss fight that has a bunch of health it gets old quick.
Other than the combat gameplay this game still has the classic JRPG world where you walk around and interact with people annnnd, it's not as good as the original, Let me explain why. This game takes a more linear approach where you don't have the "open world" to explore, you mostly just follow a script via chapters, and on paper it's not a bad idea when done right but this game has a really poorly paced story that really makes you feel like it was unfinished or just undercooked.
I'd say half of the game you spend your time doing some quirky small stories in the castle and that can quickly get boring. Then you somewhat start an adventure but it's still linear and that lack of freedom is small but it really hits, you do get the exploration element from the first game but at the very last chapter of the game and it's just really frustrating because it has some cool new places to show like the Rosenqueen theme park and more story about the ancient but they barely elaborate those things, it really just feels like a last minute thing where they were like "Crap we need the exploration part but we already made a linear story" so they rushed it and added this fake exploration moment which felt more useless than anything.
Other than all of these small issues that keep the game from truly being a great JRPG, it still has that old NIS charm but unfortunately, it somewhat gets unused. What I mean is that the new charming characters introduced in the game are barely shown! They added a new family in this game that would act as the new antagonist with that loveable trope of the previous bad guys working with the MCs to get rid of the new bad guys, It never gets old and unfortunately, they only decided to show the new family at the very end of the game otherwise you barely see them or know who they are and what they want.
Overall this is a fine JRPG that you absolutely do not play for the gameplay and even if I'm a bit harsh on the game it's still a good time, I like the new princess and the new characters, I just wish they did more with them, this game was made in less than a year so it was most likely rushed, this game shares many assets to the first game, even the music, half of the tracks comes from the first game.
I sincerely hope Rhapsody 3 will focus more on it's new and already existing characters to give us what we love in a classic NIS game, charm over gameplay.
Unlike the first game, this one uses a linear setting with chapters and most importantly a new type of gameplay that entirely ditches the Tactical JRPG format and goes for a more traditional turn-based combat in the likes of the classic Final Fantasy titles. These new gameplay changes are a welcomed addition as the original gameplay wasn't really good, not terrible either, just not very good at being a TRPG. But is this game good as a basic turn-based JRPG? I'd say so, just like the original this game is overly easy where you barely need to focus on anything to win, the only difficult roadblock I had was the final boss since I actually had to think for a second but other than that it's a cake walk, just a tiny bit harder than the original, my main issue from the combat comes from the battle animations taking ages and during a boss fight that has a bunch of health it gets old quick.
Other than the combat gameplay this game still has the classic JRPG world where you walk around and interact with people annnnd, it's not as good as the original, Let me explain why. This game takes a more linear approach where you don't have the "open world" to explore, you mostly just follow a script via chapters, and on paper it's not a bad idea when done right but this game has a really poorly paced story that really makes you feel like it was unfinished or just undercooked.
I'd say half of the game you spend your time doing some quirky small stories in the castle and that can quickly get boring. Then you somewhat start an adventure but it's still linear and that lack of freedom is small but it really hits, you do get the exploration element from the first game but at the very last chapter of the game and it's just really frustrating because it has some cool new places to show like the Rosenqueen theme park and more story about the ancient but they barely elaborate those things, it really just feels like a last minute thing where they were like "Crap we need the exploration part but we already made a linear story" so they rushed it and added this fake exploration moment which felt more useless than anything.
Other than all of these small issues that keep the game from truly being a great JRPG, it still has that old NIS charm but unfortunately, it somewhat gets unused. What I mean is that the new charming characters introduced in the game are barely shown! They added a new family in this game that would act as the new antagonist with that loveable trope of the previous bad guys working with the MCs to get rid of the new bad guys, It never gets old and unfortunately, they only decided to show the new family at the very end of the game otherwise you barely see them or know who they are and what they want.
Overall this is a fine JRPG that you absolutely do not play for the gameplay and even if I'm a bit harsh on the game it's still a good time, I like the new princess and the new characters, I just wish they did more with them, this game was made in less than a year so it was most likely rushed, this game shares many assets to the first game, even the music, half of the tracks comes from the first game.
I sincerely hope Rhapsody 3 will focus more on it's new and already existing characters to give us what we love in a classic NIS game, charm over gameplay.