Rhapsody Retrospective Review - A Musical JRPG Adventure With Heart

Rhapsody is a musical themed JRPG that originally released on the PS1 but has found its way to the Switch. It's an accessible adventure that's very wholesome and surprisingly emotional. Find out why in this long retrospective review.

#Rhapsody #Retrospective

[joseignaciofarias]

Great! Another hour + video, been waiting for more of these.

Thanks Jordan!

[jenscee]

I have the Prinny presents game and bought the nice Collector’s Edition of the 2nd and 3rd games. Utterly charming, simple JRPGs with nice characters. Agree with the negative points but doesn’t detract too much from the experience.

[zockeromi]

Thanks for showing this game, maybe i might pick it up

[zemiq]

I had to say her name as "Shar-tay" (like Shantae) just to make it through because I am not sure if I would have been able to continue on in a game with a companion named Shart. 😂

[jucksalbe]

This is mostly how I felt playing the game, too. I've actually played the DS version first, but I don't really remember much of it. But I recently played it on the Switch in preparation for the other games coming out (that I, of course, haven't started yet...). It's a short game, I'm glad it's not a full-blown 40 hour RPG, but maybe stretching it a bit to, say, 15 hours would have helped for each area to have a bit more of an impact. The dungeons really feel like an afterthought, like something they added at the end when most of the budget had run out. Maybe it wasn't planned as an RPG at first? I don't know anything about its development history. It really is a shame that the incredibly low difficulty lets you ignore just about everything about the battle system. There's that bar with the notes in the top right. I finished the game and still have no idea what that does. Every battle is just using one or two area attacks and they're over. You don't even have to worry about MP, because you level up so fast they get replenished all the time.
Two needless things I wanted to add: The restaurant scene is actually a parody of (or rather a nod to) a Japanese short story by Kenji Miyazawa called "The Restaurant of Many Orders" in English, which I only recognized, because I read that shortly before playing the game, by pure coincidence. Doesn't excuse the multiple revisits, though.
And also, my favorite dumb joke in the game: No one might really know what "philanthropy" does in the game, but I laughed when I saw that it was cured by an item called "reality". Most definitely something added by the translator.

[lukep.]

Thanks for sharing - seems like a fun game worth checking out! And thank you for letting us know to “watch” at the ending 🎵

[a_vivi]

Love all the rhapsody games so charming ❤ thank you for the video! 🎶

[trevormcguire]

Thank you for all the great content!!!

[boguspocus]

nice one. played this back in the day but i cant remember if i ever finished it. 🎶🎵

[mariusz-]

Thanks Jordan for another cool retrospective. Cannot stand the singing parts in the game but had to buy it on switch:) Still a nice RPG game. 🎵 🎶

[zg-it]

These games remind me of like when you're watching a TV show you like and then all the sudden unexpectedly they burst out in the song.

[Figdudeton]

A charming game, bought a used copy for like a few bucks back in around 2002, definitely had some problems with the game but the experience stuck with me all these years later. 🎵

[Khalith]

I never even played the game but that scene at the end got me in the feels. 🎵

[nrn]

green day is Disney musical with spiky hair. 100% agree! ;)

[megaman]

🎶📣 Loved this video! Definitely hope for ones on the sequels!

[thesaltyweeb]

Back then, I thought this game was super girly and regretted buying it...(Younger me was not into waifu yet!)

But then Digimon Tamers was showing then and Duke reminded me so much of Gallantmon and Spawn here was pretty cool too.

So I ended up playing it like a Digimon game lol.

Great review too! Time to download the ROM for DS!

[Kaimax]

Just fyi, the white snow part, was done bad on purpose.

Go check Legends of localization Is This Snowy Translation Really Literal?

[MrLonios]

I played the DS version once, but not much, since I'm not a fan of strategy games. 🎵

[pikaboom]

If only I could just let
Help me let my feelings

[shadowmaksim]

0:05 ("Endless stream of C-tier RPGs")
Wow, between this and some latter statements, I take it you don't like NIS all that much. Makes sense, most people apparently don't. Only really learned that relatively recently. Kind of sad but I guess it's not surprising. Most niche'er developers tend to not have decent reputations unfortunately.

30:20 (Premium Edition Games)
Huh, really now? Funny that. There was actually a physical edition order I made from you guys nearly a year ago and there's been nothing but complete silence since. Even checking the listing page, there's been no update information or anything. Kind of growing skeptical to be honest.

Oh well, whatever, just gotta keep being patient I guess.

1:23:26
...no.