Game: Rhythm Thief & The Emperor's Treasure

Bayli

Weeaboo Queen
Senior Member
Oct 15, 2006
3,373
euuuuuuuuugh I just need to rant about this game. I'm not finished, and I don't think I'm even close to finishing it; I want to like it, but it's so flawed.

It reminds me of Space Channel 5, since it's a rhythm game that's story based, but it showed off several mini games. To put it simply, I was really excited and basically sold when I saw the trailer. I also saw that it was generally getting good reviews, so that put my mind at ease on whether or not to bite the bullet and buy it right when it came out. Hooooo boy.

Basically you're a kid named Raphael who's a thief looking for treasure/his father and sneaks around to RHYTHM. Silly story, but that's not its strong point so I won't criticize it for that. Actually I think its only strong point is the variety of mini-games. But it doesn't matter because they're usually mapped terribly and the grading system is so harsh! You can be at an "A", miss one long note, and be automatically dropped down a "D" grade. I appreciate that they try to use a variety of techniques, like some are just pressing the A button, some are using the bottom screen for pointing and sliding, and they're generally responsive (again, it's just that they aren't mapped properly). And THEN there are mini-games where you have to tilt the system and it doesn't work too well and it's a pain in my ass.

When you're not doing rhythm mini-games, it's a blatant Professor Layton clone. But?? It doesn't even do that well! I figured it would be like Prof. Layton that when you talked to a majority of the people, you would do a rhythm game to help them with their problems. NO, I've come across maybe like 3 people where that's the case and I've put in about 10 hours. There are even coins similar to the hint coins, and all those do is to buy items to help you through the song. And when you're trying to find clues or something similar, there's a red line guiding you exactly where to go. It fails to have Professor Layton's charm not only because it's an unoriginal idea, but it's just not challenging and feels like a waste of time.

The whole game is just not rewarding. Even if you get a full combo of "perfects", it's just an A rank. Your score doesn't affect the game in any way, so what's the point of shooting for an A? Especially since it's nearly impossible to do on some songs!

Sigh. I mean I thought it was a great idea, but it's just poorly executed. I guess my biggest pet peeve is that your score is for nothing. I'm still waiting for an adventure rhythm game where your story is affected by how well you do on the songs, like Elite Beat Agents.

Good idea. The animated cutscenes look beautiful in 3D. But I wouldn't recommend this until the price drops (even though $30 isn't really too terrible).
 

Bayli

Weeaboo Queen
Senior Member
Oct 15, 2006
3,373
yeah if you want a rhythm game for your 3DS i'd definitely recommend Theatrhythm
 
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