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.