When it comes to RPGs these days, it seems that Atlus is king. They are constantly releasing new games for almost all the current generation consoles and handhelds, and most of them are surprisingly good, despite being relatively obscure titles. One of their latest releases is a remake of an old PlayStation game from over a decade ago - Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure for the Nintendo DS. This RPG strays from the cliché of an unknown boy growing into a powerful warrior and then saving the world; first of all, it stars a girl, and secondly she's not looking to save the world - she's looking for what I can only assume is what all young teenage girls are looking for: a prince in shining armor to come and whisk her away and live happily ever after. I suppose that is what one would expect from a game such as Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure and to tell you the truth, if the title alone turns you away from giving it a try then there's nothing that I am about to tell you that will change your view; if you miss this Atlus title then you're not missing much.

Cornet is a regular, everyday girl who is searching for her knight in shining armor - and she can talk to dolls; I guess that's important. Her best friend, in fact, is a flying puppet by the name of Kururu, who accompanies Cornet wherever she goes. Cornet is known for her trumpeting skills, which she uses to recruit other puppets to her party and to attack her enemies (which I find slightly ironic; if she attacks using her trumpet then wouldn't that mean her trumpet playing skills are poor?). Cornet embarks upon a journey to find her prince and inevitably saves him, discovering new places and meeting new puppets, friends, and puppet friends on the way. The story is nothing to write home about and it's unlikely that you'll find yourself immersed in Cornet's world. This average story, coupled with a fairly short lifespan (about ten hours) and very minimal side quests, means that this is one adventure that will be quickly forgotten.

The art design of Rhapsody is very cutesy and anime in style, fitting the lighthearted tone of the game very well, with bright colors and as much as I really don't want to say it, out of fear of losing my man card, a cute cast of characters. Once again, this is something you should completely expect from a title such as Rhapsody, although the character animations are fairly weak and the graphics are outdated; it would have been nice if the game had received the 'Square-Enix treatment', with completely redone graphics, especially considering that the rest of the game has been redeveloped.

I haven't played the original but from what I understand, this version of Rhapsody is significantly different, most notably in terms of the combat, which has changed from a tactical system to a classic, turn-based one. This major overhaul makes little sense when the end result is generic and uninteresting; it's your typical, run of the mill, turn-based battle system, double dipped in extra boring. Through most of the game - other than the boss fights - I went into battles simply mashing the A button as fast as I could; the combat lacks challenge and is very plodding as a result, and mashing the A button is the quickest way to get through it.

Another aspect of the game that's likely to be a real turn off is the number of caves, dungeons, and forests to explore. Usually a large environment is a good thing in an RPG but in every single maze in Rhapsody, every branch from the correct path twists and turns into a dead end, with absolutely nothing to justify your exploration - not even a lowly treasure chest - and so you have to waste more time back-tracking, only to find another path that inevitably leads to the same fate. This annoyance is so frequent that it almost killed the experience for me completely; occasionally you do find a treasure chest with a useless item or, if you're extremely lucky, a puppet to add to the collection of puppets that you'll never use in battle, but most of the time there are no rewards for thorough exploration of your surroundings.

For a game subtitled 'A Musical Adventure', there's something strangely absent from the adventure: enjoyable music. There are very minimal sound effects present as you play, but most, if not all, of the music playing in the background is completely forgettable. The musical aspect of the title probably comes from the song segments that unfortunately occur quite frequently during gameplay; Cornet feels the urge to sing every once in a while and when she does an actual song is played, vocals and all - and it's absolutely horrific. The vocals are in Japanese with English subtitles, which is an absolutely bizarre choice considering that the original game has English singing; regardless though, the singing is dreadful and the best feature in the entire game is the ability to skip these segments.

The main problem with Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is that it doesn't add anything new to a well-worn genre. If anything, it takes a smattering of ideas from other RPGs and tones them down quite a bit. There is definitely a reason behind this, though; everything about Rhapsody, from the story to the characters to the art style to the musical segments, demonstrates that the target audience is likely younger gamers and newcomers to the genre. If you haven't played an RPG before then you might enjoy some of what is on offer here, simply because it's very accessible and you won't know any better - but considering the large number of stellar quality RPGs available for the DS, there is little point in playing one that is largely frustrating, dull and lacking both challenge and an engaging storyline.

Reviewed by Ryan Brenner for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).