Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

This here is some JRPG jank. None of the gameplay elements work. The game is super easy. There are basically two dungeon tilesets and they weren't good the first time you went through them, let alone the sixth. You can actually recruit a bunch of monsters by having Cornet beat them to death with her horn but they all start at level 1, meanwhile you already have a dozen or so puppet companions that for some reason also start at level 1 no matter how deep into the game you are when they join the team. Why do we have so many different potential allies when you spend so little time fighting and the fights are so easy? This is compounded by the game being about 10-12 hours long. Why are we fighting on a grid? Items and equipment feel nearly pointless. There are multiple annoying flag triggers. None of this make sense.
All that said, the game is super charming. Character interactions, npc dialogue and inspection points are consistently fun. The game will probably make you smile. There are even a number of musical bits throughout the game, though even here they goofed up a bit, as one of the few songs where there's actual some level of choreography only plays if you idle on the tile screen a bit when it should've played when starting a new game. The game is also surprisingly open-ended in the second half which would be cool if the gameplay worked at all.
Rhapsody is a good example where the enjoyment level is greater than the sum of the parts. Also, just looked at the store page trailer for the first time and that's probably a pretty good barometer for whether you'll like the game or not. Do you want some cheesy musical bits interspersed into your b-movie tier jrpg? If so, you're at the right place.

This is one of my favorite games from childhood, and I'm deeply touched to be able to play it again after so many years. The characters, their personalities, the various scenarios, and especially the music in this game fully filled my childhood. My sister and I both loved playing this game. Back then, our family was quite poor and we didn't even have the internet. We loved the songs from the game so much that we had to use our phones' built-in 15-second recording feature to capture them and listen to them repeatedly. I am very grateful to Rhapsody, and thanks to Cornet and Kururu—you added so much color and wonderful memories to my childhood. You were a source of strength and entertainment for me.

There was a meme on Twitter a while back among indie game people that the best games are 7/10. Games like Rhapsody are why. It's a low budget RPG that sometimes feels like it's struggling against its limitations (like dungeons are all just a handful of one screen backgrounds that get reused over and over, sometimes giving you the novelty of tinting them a new color), they didn't get combat balance right (it's too easy except for a few bosses who might almost immediately take someone out if you're unlucky), and I feel like some people are going to be unhappy that you can easily finish it in under 10 hours. But this is filled to the brim with charm. The character writing is mostly great, and the writers knew how to mix up silliness with an exploration of grief as well as a good Dragon Quest game. I think this game is going to stick with me much longer than "better" games. Highly recommended if you can stand some jank.

peak childhood game. gameplay may be mid but the story & characters make up for it trust me

the game itself kinda sucks (in a funny way) but it's a pretty good port overall. no good pixel scaling options but a decent crt filter.

This is a very simple and easy tactics JRPG that has a very basic 'save the prince from evil' story. The reason this game is interesting is because it's a musical. I only recommend this if you like musicals, as the 9 or so tracks are paced fairly well throughout the relatively short playtime and feel like they are straight out of a Disney princess movie. It's a concept I'm surprised I haven't seen more often.

Sometimes, gaming comfort food comes in the form of simple, small-scale JRPGs from the 90s.
Rhapsody has an incredibly sweet, positive energy to it. It's also ridiculously easy, even on Hard Mode, and the gameplay gets sort of repetitive, since the dungeons are all basically mazes made up of identical rooms and tunnels. But the game gets by with its oodles of personality and cutesy charm.
The plot seems hackneyed on the surface, but includes a few interesting little twists and turns along the way (literally, when visiting the memorable town of "Wiggle"); self-aware, goofy humour is sprinkled throughout, and the heroine Cornet is a likeable lead, whom we can't fail to root for. The variety of musical interludes provide something unique, and despite the ballads being incredibly syrupy, I was won over by their sincerity. There's just something endearing about the whole experience.
Slap on the CRT filter and the game looks gorgeous. With the old-school graphics and serene BGM, the Marl Kingdom is a nice place to just chill. As a game, it is true that the lack (or outright absence) of difficulty is a bit of a drawback, since it limits replayability. Ironically, the range of puppet companions, and variety of recruitable monsters, means that there's almost limitless choice in terms of team composition, but it's just not necessary in a game so easy, and relatively short at that. Nevertheless, Rhapsody is basically a fun, memorable experience, and I did enjoy it a lot.