‘Say no to violence’, the 12 year old declares as she whips out a gun and fires at the woodland critter before her. You don’t expect someone so regal to be packing, especially in a classic pixelated turn-based RPG with a traditional fantasy setting, but that’s all part of the humour of theRhapsodyseries. The more I played, the wilder things became. Crea, the gun-toting girl, is accompanying her best friend, Princess Kururu, in her quest to find true love, but you’re in for just as much comedy as you are emotional twists in this port from the past.
During the preview, the two friends follow the trail of kidnapped ice cream chefs to a parlour run by cats. As you discover and save each chef, a dramatic thumping sound plays as if it’s Law & Order, and eventually, you come across the head cat chef, which leads into one of Rhapsody’s signature musical numbers. The pixelated cats dance around as the chef sings and mixes all the required ingredients for ice cream. It’s something you have to witness for yourself to appreciate fully, but it’s easy to see why fans are enamoured with the musical aspect of the series.
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Everything seems pretty cute until the chef feeds the mixture to kittens, who then poop out the ice cream. It turns out cats don’t know how to make ice cream properly. Princess Kururu — who unwittingly ate some ice cream earlier — is outraged, and while venting her disgust, the word ‘poop’ is censored as she speaks for comedic effect. Naturally, the girls battle the cats afterward. It’s such a hilariously unexpected moment that many of us at the event lingered over others as they approached this part to witness their reaction.
I’d never heard of the Rhapsody series, but that’s not surprising given that the upcoming launch ofRhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicleswill be the first time Rhapsody 2 and 3 are localised in the West, despite both being over twenty years old. The very first game, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, launched in Japan in 1998 and the US in 2000, but Europe didn’t get a look in until 2009.
Adam Johnson, NIS America’s senior business development director, tells me that Rhapsody and La Pucelle are precursors to Disgaea. Though they’re not direct sequels, you can see the evolution of what NIS was doing and what would eventually become Disgaea. Rhapsody plays so differently from Disgaea, offering turn-based battles with summonable creatures and puppets that can be collected and used in battle. La Pucelle was based in the same setting as Rhapsody, but mechanically it’s closer to Disgaea as it’s a tactical RPG. Each new game was a step closer to its final form — Disgaea.
Known as Marl Kingdom in Japan, the series was a hit that had two sequels and several spin-offs, including a mahjong and mobile game. “This was [Nippon Ichi Software’s] first really big franchise,” Johnson says. “The next big game was called La Pucelle, which had many gameplay features you would find later in Disgaea. It’s a grid-based strategy RPG, it has the geo elements that would later appear in Disgaea, and it had a lot of things returning from Rhapsody that were also used in Disgaea.”
Elements of Rhapsody are still prevalent in Disgaea. Both games share a similar sense of humour as well as more direct references, such as the Eringer mushroom monster type and the Rosen Queen Company store paying tribute to Etoile Rosenqueen from Rhapsody. It’s a layered level of fan service in many ways, but to fully appreciate it, you must have played both Rhapsody and La Pucelle.
“A lot of Disgaea sound cues come from that series,” Johnson says, humming a tune. “It’s really cute that they kept it going. you’re able to find little things where you’re like, ‘oh I didn’t know they did that’. It’s like if you’re playing Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, and you hear those motifs from Ocarina of Time or something.”
It’s interesting to think how Disgaea was NIS’s biggest series worldwide, though It’s not the first time a spin-off or spiritual successor has overtaken the original. Nier is far more well-known than Drakengard, people know and love Persona more than Shin Megami Tensei, and even Super Mario began as a character in Donkey Kong.
“NIS likes to do that a lot,” Johnson says. “You’ll see Prinnies appear in a lot of different things, but for a long time, they were connecting all their universes loosely. Phantom Brave has a character who shows up in another game called Soul Nomad, and the implication is that one of the endings of Phantom Brave leads into Soul Nomad. “It’s the same character because of what happened in this previous game, but you wouldn’t know it unless you played Phantom Brave. It’s just there for fans.”
Even as a non-Disgaea player, I found Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles easy to enjoy. Its quirky humour, charming retro style and graphics, intriguing puppet battle mechanics, and hilarious musical numbers give it a real charm. Of the two, I preferred Rhapsody 2, but Rhapsody 3 adds a whole new layer to battles — quite literally — for those who want to dig into tactics a lot more.
Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles will launch on August 29, while Disgaea 7 will launch later this year. It’s the perfect opportunity for fans to embrace the newest addition to the series while also discovering Disgaea’s roots.
This preview was based on a development build of Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles.
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