RF Generation Message Board

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is a musical comedy RPG developed by Nippon Ichi and first published by Atlus on the PS1 in 2000 in North America. Eight years later a modified version of the game was released on the Nintendo DS.

Rhapsody is one of my favorite games of all time and I am honored to have it agreed upon for the game which will be featured in our 50th episode of the PlayCast!


Rhapsody is a relaxing, cute, laugh-out-loud little adventure with actual musical numbers. That's right, Rhapsody is a musical! The characters in this heartwarming adventure will frequently break out in song, complete with beautiful singing.

Our main character Cornet plays the trumpet and has the ability to talk to puppets, who will join her as party members with individual skills. In a reversal of the "damsel in distress" cliche, Cornet must save the prince of the Kingdom of Marl!




***

Version differences:
[img width=300 height=300]https://i.imgur.com/R8Y4psp.jpg[/img]

-Strategy RPG battle style
-Adjustable difficulty
-English or Japanese voices (singing)
-No mini-map

[img width=300 height=300]https://i.imgur.com/mQOLkYz.jpg[/img]

-Turn-based battle style
-EXTREMELY useful mini-map
-Japanese voices (singing) only
-Game-breaking bugs*

*Your mileage may vary as far these bugs/crashes go. I have read of players who had no problems whatsoever, but I myself hit a crash about two hours into the game which I cannot progress past, and for that I will be playing the PS1 version and have to recommend you do the same.

Checkpoints:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2-3
Chapter 4-5
Chapter 6 & Epilogue

Participants:
grayghost81
singlebanana
pam
Disposed Hero
douglie007

Well that's a nice coincidence. I just picked this game up last month and was considering making it the first review of an RPG on my channel (since I heard it's not too long). I guess I'll play it this month :)

AWESOME! Indeed it is only about ten hours long. I can't wait to hear what you think!

Of course I'm in

I'm getting started tonight. Mondays and Wednesdays are always good gaming nights due to no soccer practice. I plan on playing this one with my older kids, since it seems appropriate and they are still mad at me for not letting them watch Conkers......

This is so much better then last month, lol anyone doing Karaoke with the songs.

I'm so happy to see this message, and I'm playing the game on my phone, so I really should break out singing when I'm in the lounge at work playing it!

Does the game say what chapter you are on? I just found the Waterstone but it has never had a chapter scene.

Let me get back to you on that. It definitely shows a title card for each chapter in the DS version. If they aren't on the PS1 version, that's an error on my part and I'll have to update the checkpoints.

I started Rhapsody today. I’m playing on PS1 and I also haven’t seen any chapters. I’m about 2 hours in so far and I just got my ‘dress’ for the competition.

It’s very cute so far. I especially enjoy Kururu’s character and can’t wait for Etoile to fall in a mud pit or something. There have been less musical numbers than I expected (or hoped).

The addition of the movement squares is a neat addition to combat though playing on normal so far the difficulty is extremely low.

I agree I find myself hitting the auto battle button for most of the random battles.  I also powered Corset up way too much trying to get all my monsters and puppets to the same level.  She is at level 35 and the enemies are around 10 to 20, where my puppets are.

I didn’t even notice there was an auto battle button!

Oh yeah! It isn't made obvious but if playing on easy or medium, you might as well pound the circle button for every battle.

I also agree with you that I wish there were even more musical numbers in the game!

As for the checkpoints, I definitely goofed as there are no chapter stops in the PS1 game. I'll try to get more specific checkpoints up, but in reality there is only one major spoiler, and you'll know it when you see it.

One thing that I love about this game is the humor, and it really has me laughing out loud constantly. It is a refreshing contrast to Conker's over the top, try-hard approach. What do y'all think about the comedy element of the writing and localization?

I like the humor, the way the henchman make fun of the witch for being old.  Good times

Got this one done, I'm sad I didn't get all the puppets to heaven, but I enjoyed it. [img width=700 height=393]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180517/8d9faa8f45bf3c1530da4e7e6aa488e1.jpg[/img]

Nice job Doug!

I am so behind on this game it's killing me! I'm going to have to marathon it this weekend.

I printed out a walkthrough just to get through the dungeons quicker. They're kind of infamous for being too similar from screen to screen, making it very easy to get lost. How is everyone doing with that aspect of the game?

I've only seen one dungeon so far, the one in the starting forest. I do agree that the screens are very similar, though at least that dungeon was small.

I'm finding the game's pacing a bit odd. I've played for 3.5 hours and the inciting incident just happened. This wouldn't be odd in most JRPGs but since this game is only supposed to be about 10 hours long, it seems like it took a long time to really kick off the adventure. Though I have been enjoying it.

I've done some more dungeons now. The Tower of Wisdom was particularly bad for getting turned around. Often I'd go to look at a sign and get in combat, then completely forget which way I had come from and which way I was headed.

Is there a way to bring back puppets who are at 0 health? I don't see an item for this and I've tried using the statues to restore HP/MP but nothing's working.

Go back to your house and talk to your grand-dad. He'll repair them, I believe at the cost of some inotium.

I know it's nearing the end of the month, but I finally got around to starting Rhapsody last weekend.  I'm only 2-3 hours into it (I'm currently in the middle of the competition), but I am really enjoying the game so far.  It has a ton of charm, and the humor is great as well.  I enjoy the mechanics of the game well enough, although I think I would have liked the combat to have a bit more depth.  I even set the difficulty to hard since others were saying that the game was incredibly easy on the normal setting, and it's still been a cakewalk.

Really enjoying it so far!  Hopefully I'll still be able to finish before the end of the month since the game is so short.

I also just got around to starting Rhapsody this Sunday and I'm already around 9 hours in (at the hearts battle). I wasn't sure how I would take to this game's "cutesy" tone and look, but I find myself continually intrigued with the game and pushing to get to the end. I've been rather tied up with personal stuff for the last few months, but as I mentioned to Shawn, this game was kind of the loose, breezy game that I needed to get away and leave some frustrations behind.  There are a few things that I am critical of in the game, but overall, this is a great experience.

I agree with Stephen in that the mechanics of the game are pretty good, but the combat is quite lackluster due to it's ease (I'm playing on normal).  Even at this level, I can still just press "O" to autoattack and have no worries. The lack of difficulty makes the fights rather boring at times and I just want to get through them quicker and quicker to progress. And yes, I'm one of those players who never "Escapes" from battles no matter how simple. I found that in a few of the towers, I have run into hoards of these metal slimes, and that has caused my levels to skyrocket on many toons.  I rarely take a hit in any battle due to all the "misses" and I haven't done any grinding. The battle spaces are tiny, so there's not a ton of strategy involved other than the occasional rock or two in the way. Like Pam mentioned above, you can get rather turned around in the dungeons and if I were playing this out as intended, I'd definitely be looking to use some graft paper (instead, I'm using an online map). So far, I feel like there is little variation in the dungeons; there seem to be only two types (caves & towers) and the only differentiation seem to be the color palates used.

With all that said, what is really keeping me going with this game is its charm and the story.  I love how everything flows really well and I've had no issues in determining where to go and what to do next.  The character sprites and backgrounds are colorful and lively, and those short cut-scenes........whew, they are simply stunning on my Trinitron! I love the idea of the puppets and adding enemies to your party, but I almost feel like it's a bit of an overload because there are so many party members that you can acquire. I never really know who to level up and what my best party is. Also, weapons are so expensive that I can't afford to buy enough for everyone; continually swapping them out to put on new members is a pain. The humor is lively and fun as mentioned by others. And well grandpa.............Damn, grandpa is harsh charging his own grandchild coin to fix her broke ass puppets! 

I really enjoyed this game, I think I got too over powered by the end boss.  Most of my puppets where over 35 and i was in the 60s .  I got lost in some of the caves for a while to help with the leveling up. 

Did anyone find the 3rd egg brother?

Yes, third egg brother was in the "snow town." You just talk to the snowman. Another puppet shows up later in the game in your home mailbox.

I talked to the snow man, forgot to check the mail box

Had a little re-arranging of the game consoles so my PS1 was inaccessible for a while, but I started back up on this today.

One of my biggest pet peeves in games is having to go back and forth between areas a lot, while not actually doing much in any of them. I found this happened a lot while getting ready for the competition while looking for a cooking a meal meant for the Prince. Today it happened in a particularly annoying way when I had to make my way through the volcano dungeon, get to the end, make my way back, go to town for literally 10 seconds and then go back through the dungeon again to watch another scene. Not fun. Thank goodness for the teleport items though, being able to use those to get back to the map are great.

Right now I'm lost in the Tower of Ninetail. The guide I have been using has been decent for the more dungeon-type maps, but sucks for the tower maps. I think I need to find a new one.

The tower of ninetal


After you go in the tower, you need to go back to town where the boy you saved lives and they will come with you.

Yeah, I went back to the town. Now I'm back at the tower again.

Just finished this last night, the first JRPG I've finished in ages.

I thought it was alright. I liked how the story was constantly subverting expectations around things like Cornet rescuing the Prince or even small things like Etoile dual-wielding machine guns during one of the fights she joined me for. I really liked the story of Cornet and Kururu, I thought that was well developed. The Prince and Marjoly plots though? Ehh. I think the short run time, while a boon for me actually getting through the game, gave them limited time to develop the other characters. None of the villains ever served as more than comic relief (in a game that's already 90% comic relief) and I can't help but roll my eyes at stories about true love that involve two characters who have known each other for 5 minutes.

When I got to the final boss Cornet was just under level 40 and my puppet party was around 27-37. My first couple times I had Marjoly one-shotting my puppets before I could even get a turn in, which was jarring since combat had been such a breeze until then. I spent a few minutes running around in circles hoping for random battles and got everyone another level or two and then got through the final fights without issue.

Meant to post that I beat this on 5/23...........if you follow me on Twitter and Instagram, you probably already knew. If you're not following me, well then what the hell's wrong with you?? 

Anyway, this may be my #1 weirdest moment ever in my almost 40 year video gaming history...

Is that even a question, yes is always the answer.

Huh, I don't think I found those undies. I did keep finding toads in random places, I kept expecting that to lead to something, or for Cornet to have more of a reaction when we went to the toad castle.

Hey everyone, Rich and I recorded the segment for this game on Friday night and it went very well. We're going to try to use more of the content provided in the forums in the show, and we think it will make the show a lot better. Thanks so much for recording your thoughts here!

I was very grateful to share this game with y'all. I'm sorry I never put up a good set of checkpoints. Not to make excuses but that dreaded duo of work and personal life stress have really been riding me for the past month or so.