Rhapsody is a pretty unique game due to its "musical" aspect. There are moments throughout the game where a character or characters would start singing. Some of them have build up so you can expect it while others are very random. This game does have options for English or the Japanese vocals for the songs.
The tone of the song varies from very upbeat to a more melancholy one. These songs aren't particularly amazing in isolation, but in the context of a JRPG or game, it's pretty amusing and something I'd like to see done more often. In other words, more Musical JRPGs please!
I played the Switch remastered version. Other than the bump in resolution and some different graphic options, I'm not aware of any gameplay or QoL updates. At least this version doesn't feel particularly dated. The colors are vibrant and the sprites are quite animated and charming. It looks pretty good overall despite being over a game over 20 years now.
The game is definitely on the short side. In a mostly blind playthrough, I completed the game in 10 hours while completing nearly all of the sidequests. Despite that, I didn't feel the game was lacking because of it and thought it was a solid length for the game.
I enjoyed the characters and Cornet was a great lead. Although her romantic aspirations are questionable, she is quite entertaining and worth rooting for in her quest. Her fairy-like puppet partner Kururu is another solid companion and they have great chemistry. Other than them however, there aren't many other story characters that get a lot of focus.
The story is quite simple and lighthearted. There's a lot of comedic moments that brings a smile to my face. Even then, it's not all sunshines and rainbows as there are some darker aspects here, but not enough to change the overall tone of the game. A lot of story development are predictable however.
Party members consists solely of Cornet and her puppets. Some puppets are gotten through the story, but a good deal of them are optional so it was neat looking out for them in the world. Each puppet has a sidequest storyline as well with some of them being pretty memorable and emotional.
Combat is easy on the Normal difficulty. The combat itself isn't all that amazing regardless of the difficulty. I do have some annoyance with it though since battles are fought in a grid field (similar to Trails) and since battlefields are often small, your own party members can block others from moving forward at times.
My biggest annoyance with the game is the dungeons. They lack visual variety and fall within two types, the tower and underground cave types. They are visually boring to look at and a pain to navigate since you see many multiple paths that lead to other multiple paths that look identical. Without a map or minimap in the game, this is just a pain. Fortunately, dungeons are generally short.
Overall, Rhapsody is a pretty fun game to play through with charming tone, aesthetics, and characters. It even has some decent emotional moments to get me invested in some characters.
The tone of the song varies from very upbeat to a more melancholy one. These songs aren't particularly amazing in isolation, but in the context of a JRPG or game, it's pretty amusing and something I'd like to see done more often. In other words, more Musical JRPGs please!
I played the Switch remastered version. Other than the bump in resolution and some different graphic options, I'm not aware of any gameplay or QoL updates. At least this version doesn't feel particularly dated. The colors are vibrant and the sprites are quite animated and charming. It looks pretty good overall despite being over a game over 20 years now.
The game is definitely on the short side. In a mostly blind playthrough, I completed the game in 10 hours while completing nearly all of the sidequests. Despite that, I didn't feel the game was lacking because of it and thought it was a solid length for the game.
I enjoyed the characters and Cornet was a great lead. Although her romantic aspirations are questionable, she is quite entertaining and worth rooting for in her quest. Her fairy-like puppet partner Kururu is another solid companion and they have great chemistry. Other than them however, there aren't many other story characters that get a lot of focus.
The story is quite simple and lighthearted. There's a lot of comedic moments that brings a smile to my face. Even then, it's not all sunshines and rainbows as there are some darker aspects here, but not enough to change the overall tone of the game. A lot of story development are predictable however.
Party members consists solely of Cornet and her puppets. Some puppets are gotten through the story, but a good deal of them are optional so it was neat looking out for them in the world. Each puppet has a sidequest storyline as well with some of them being pretty memorable and emotional.
Combat is easy on the Normal difficulty. The combat itself isn't all that amazing regardless of the difficulty. I do have some annoyance with it though since battles are fought in a grid field (similar to Trails) and since battlefields are often small, your own party members can block others from moving forward at times.
My biggest annoyance with the game is the dungeons. They lack visual variety and fall within two types, the tower and underground cave types. They are visually boring to look at and a pain to navigate since you see many multiple paths that lead to other multiple paths that look identical. Without a map or minimap in the game, this is just a pain. Fortunately, dungeons are generally short.
Overall, Rhapsody is a pretty fun game to play through with charming tone, aesthetics, and characters. It even has some decent emotional moments to get me invested in some characters.