"I know my dreams are waiting to come true!" - Let's Play Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure - ON HIATUS

"Cornet is my name and I’m a puppeteer too! With my puppet friends there’s nothing that we can’t do. They are there to help me make my dreams come true. And once you get to know them they just might help you too!"

Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure was released in 1998 by Altus USA and Nippon Ichi Software. Originally titled Māru-ōkoku no Ningyō-hime or ‘The Puppet Princess of Marl Kingdom’, Rhapsody stars Cornet, a love-sick girl who has the strange ability to talk to puppets and Kururu, her puppet companion!

Rhapsody has been released multiple times across various different consoles and devices, mostly recently having been released for the Nintendo DS in 2008. We are playing the Playstation version, which was originally released in North America in the year 2000.

Rhapsody is a game that’s near and dear to @GenghisKait’s heart, whereas I hadn’t even heard of it until she mentioned it! I’ll be completely blind for this one, and Genghis will be in the driver’s seat!

Episodes
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19

Bonus Episodes
Uncut Song Commentary - Part 1
Uncut Song Commentary - Part 2
Uncut Song Commentary - Part 3
Uncut Song Commentary - Part 4

4 Likes

Kind of a tone change from Mad Father, hey?! Thanks for getting this rolling, Shaw. Any feedback on this is appreciated, because despite having done LPs for 2 years or so, I feel like I am still a definite novice!

Oh wow, I remember seeing this get released for the DS. I’m kinda sad I didn’t pick it up, now.

Also holy shit sharte does the game ever address how completely horrifying the idea of puppets that are conscious but completely immobile and unable to communicate with anyone is.

Oh, one last note: the text speed is a lot better this time around. I don’t feel like I have to rush to read through the text boxes. Thanks!

It’s only mildly unfortunate that this is a topic of relevance to this adorable charmer of a game, but…

The word “shart” was apparently popularized by the 2004 Ben Stiller movie Along Came Polly, so Rhapsody was in the clear at the time of release but miiiiiiight have wanted to change it for some of the re-releases. There’s also a town in Pennsylvania called Shartlesville that I drove past once and almost crashed my car making sure I read it right.

1 Like

This is why movies like Toy Story are secretly terrifying to me, like what if all my toys are alive and they spend the entire day screaming in silence while I’m dicking around on my computer, completely oblivious. They probably hate me for never dusting them!

I think this just usurped Dildo, Newfoundland as my favourite town name ever.

So a surprise update of sorts! Genghis and I decided to release our uncut song commentary as a bonus video! We’re gonna be doing this for all future songs as well, so if there’s a song expect to see a follow up video shortly thereafter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uJ9cZ6L41U

This video is also known as “Shaw can’t shut up, while Genghis silently frowns over how she’s gonna have to edit all this out”.

Here’s part 2 for everyone! Watch as I lose my mind over cute things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI_dVNx6tMg

2 Likes

I’m not even five minutes in and already this is a wonderful update.

Thanks! I was super excited for us to release this part, I had a lot of fun recording it.

Genghis and I recorded the next three parts yesterday and this game is a bit on the slow side, but so far we haven’t really felt it because zany/memorable stuff keeps happening! I’m really enjoying getting to experience this game that a month ago I had literally never heard of!

Ok, so here’s my theory:
This game takes place in the same universe as Mad Father, a couple decades later, after Aya has rediscovered her dad’s doll science and turned it into a thriving puppet-making business. So all the “living” puppets actually contain human souls because they’re actually humans that have been turned into puppets.
Cornet can speak to and animate them with her dread necromancy magics, and the secret final boss at the end of the game is Aya: the malevolent CEO of Dollkraftwerks LLC.
How close am I

That all sounds pretty plausible to me! But does that mean that the adorable kitties are actually living puppets with human souls in them? Let’s hope that they’re just giant kitties and no necromancy was involved.

Speaking of which, for this LP’s titlecard I asked Genghis to send me a picture of the official art for the kitties so I knew how to draw them. This is what she sent:

As you can see, I immediately disregarded that and drew something that (To me at least) are way cuter:

4 Likes

Here’s part 3 for everyone! Let’s go hunting for Bobos!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljxjwLMZrT8

1 Like

I played the DS port most of the way through - It has a lot different.

  1. The songs only had the Japanese vocals.

  2. They removed the monsters taming.

  3. They removed the tactics layer so it was a straight RPG.

Miss Myao and the Kitties are my favourite part of the game.

Hellos! I discovered you guys with Mad Father but never posted; I have a weakness for horror RPG maker games and you guys were great on top of that.

More relevant; I forgot you guys existed after hectic times and now I see you’re doing basically my favourite RPG ever made that inspired me as a child. Cornet was kind of a role model… I look forward to watching this! =D

Also, I’m glad you guys are doing the original. The DS remake had the above qualities which i feel take a lot away from the game; the english vocals are great, monster taming is a fun side thing, and the tactics layer is part of the charm and it’s just too… bland without it. Also the DS localization just didn’t bother adding the extra content the japanese DS remake got for absolutely no known reason. All of the data for it is even on the cart just locked away! I vaguely recall a Q&A where they said they didn’t localize that part because they “felt nobody wanted it” or something.

But yes this game is precious to me (I mean this has been my user name and avatar for basically everything since I started using the internet). Hurray for this LP!

Decide to rebuy DS ver of this game and play though it again. Never know it was a tactical game or that the songs were in English. Hopefully I remember how to get all the puppets

Weirdly enough they change their overworld sprite in the DS ver to match the official art. They even gave them a picture for dialogue

But they keep the black, brown, and tan sprite for the battles.

Why on earth would the official art leave the noses off. The nose is, like, one of top 5 cutest parts of a cat.

I forgot how dumb it is to fill the Observation in the DS ver since some of the monsters are missable after some story events. Also I don’t know if it is the same in the PS1 ver but you could have got another puppet instantly after getting Kid

They’re becoming my favourite as well, I love that they’re a re-occuring thing, I can’t wait to see where the game goes with them.

Thanks for checking in! Hopefully the LP does the game enough service. I’ve joked to Genghis that I’m going to start unfairly crapping on the game to see how she reacts since it’s very near and dear to her. She responded with “I WAS SO NICE DURING LABYRINTH”.

Fun fact but we actually did take a look at possibly doing the DS version, after hearing what people have said of it I’m really glad we didn’t! If anything I think I would enjoy myself far less without the dumb songs, I doubt they’d be half as amusing if we were listening to the Japanese versions.

I really don’t get how they could turn the kitties into such unappealing characters! For a lark I took five minutes to dick around with that image to see what I could get.

Now whether or not it’s cuter is up for debate, but I think that my version looks closer to an actual cat. The lack of nose and perfectly circular eyes in the original are sorta creepy to look at.

2 Likes

Here’s Part 4! Genghis and I start this one off with a musical number of our own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGbVgUBaUSU&feature=youtu.be&a

3 Likes

Thanks for all your kind comments, everyone!!

I nearly died when Shaw told me Dildo was a town, Shartlesville just might do me in entirely.

I’ve been so excited to find so many other people who treasure this game like I do!! I was worried that nobody would even remember the game, hahaa.

1 Like