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So I'm mostly on Paintberri
1 min read
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Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure
8 min read
So I just finished the main storyline of the 3DS game Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure, and it has been... quite an adventure. I downloaded the demo first and got hooked on the three rhythm minigames included in it, so I bought the full version without looking up any kind of review or playthrough. The game's page in the download shop compares it to Professor Layton, and I think that's pretty accurate; they share similar playstyles, with rhythm games replacing puzzles in Rhythm Thief. I had fun with it overall, but here's my score broken down:
Gameplay: 7/10
Like I said, the rhythm minigames had me hooked from the start. They're snappy and fast-paced, and I felt like the controls responded very well for the most part. In the later chapters, it seems like the margin for error shrinks by quite a bit, and that took a while to get used to. There are also one or two minigames that don't let you learn the controls properly before throwing you into a barrage of commands. Even the walkthrough I looked at to get past a particularly hard one acknowledged that it was kind of bullshit. There were also some minigames I otherwise liked that could have used some adjustments. For one, the "samba series" of minigames could have used different colors of gems to show which I needed to catch at the same time. There were also several instances where a single screw-up near the end of the minigame brought my score from an A to a C or a D. Despite my desired improvements, though, I enjoyed the minigames quite a bit.
Like Professor Layton, a great deal of gameplay is spent exploring a town to collect items, talk to people, and advance the story. In order to unlock bonus content, you need to find phantom notes and record sounds around the map. The sounds are connected to items onscreen that usually stand out from the background, so they're not difficult to find. The phantom notes, on the other hand, are more bullshit. You have to poke five hidden spots on the screen within a time limit that starts when you poke the first one. You can always restart the timer if it runs out, but there's often no indication as to where all five notes are, so I've wound up blindly mashing the whole screen to try to find them. Yeah, that's another thing from Professor Layton: poking everything. There's no way to tell if phantom notes are even on the screen at all, so you have to poke every square inch to be sure. If you miss a set of notes in a place you can't go back to, you can always buy them in the shop later, so at least there's that. But the coins you need to buy the notes are hidden in the background as well, so you'll get to poke stuff anyway.
I like story-driven games, so I didn't mind the amount of time I spent on the map rather than playing the minigames, but if you're not like me, you might get frustrated with how long it takes to get from one minigame to the next.
Story: 5.5/10
Wow, this... the story is the real gem of this game. I personally gave it a 5.5, but someone who enjoys camp and absurdity more than I do will adore the story. For one, the main villain is Napoleon Bonaparte. And the game is set in the modern day. Napoleon Goddamn Risen-From-The-Dead Bonaparte is your antagonist, running around the streets of Paris in order to unlock an ancient Babylonian treasure so he can take over the world. At first, I just rolled with it. It was a fun concept. Then I got to the third act and there was a massive tonal shift and somebody pulled out a gun and creepily reached into somebody else's pocket and it was weird. The final chapter is by far the best and most ridiculous, though. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to play the game, so I've put my thoughts in this Stash document if you want to take a look: Rhythm Thief Final Chapter
Putting aside the main arc, I have mixed feelings about the characters, specifically Raphael/Phantom R and Marie. Raphael is the protagonist of the game, who becomes Phantom R, Rhythm Thief, by night. In the beginning of the game, he starts out as a thoroughly enjoyable and amusing character. As Phantom R, he's a suave trickster-type who has a lot of fun breaking into the Louvre to steal art. As Raphael, he's an unassuming schoolboy who is liked by his neighbors. Once we get into the second act, though, things start to fall apart. Phantom R seems to lose some of his personality, becoming less like a trickster and more like a typical bishie protagonist. And then the comments about Inspector Vergier's wife. Inspector Vergier is the constable in charge of capturing Phantom R. Fairly early on in the game, we learn that Vergier's wife has recently died, and in his grief, the inspector is throwing himself into his work and consequently neglecting his daughter, Charlie. Then there's this whole thing with Charlie, whose real name is Charlotte, disguising herself as a guy to chase after Phantom R because Vergier is destroying himself with stress over his work. Right after, Phantom R makes some pretty callous remarks about the situation directly to Charlie's face, who has recently lost her mother and is currently losing her father because of how he's dealing with his grief. Never before have I lost so much respect for a character so quickly. From the beginning, though, I never had much respect for Marie, the love interest/McGuffin. There's really not much to say about her. She's a constant damsel in distress who really only serves to make Phantom R look cool for saving her. She's important to the plot, though, so it's not like her role could be excised altogether, but if she were a music box instead of a person, the story wouldn't suffer much. On a positive note, I thought Phantom R's motivation for stealing art was unique and interesting. I won't spoil it, but I thought it was a well-needed bit of roundness to his character.
Visuals: 7.5/10
I really enjoyed the cutscenes and the visuals in the minigames, and 3D looks great in both. The character designs, while also reminiscent of Layton, had their own style and plenty of variety. There is also an astounding number of detailed, well-painted backgrounds.
Music: 8/10
This probably comes from personal taste, but I love the music. Here's a link to the OST for you to decide for yourself: [link] (YT: Rhythm Thief Original Soundtrack - Theme of Phantom R)
![]( "Click to play video inline.")
I'm not sure what genre to place some of these tracks into, but the upbeat, brassy stuff is great.
Voice Acting: 6/10
The accents range from American or British with some French words to full-on hon hon hon. I thought every voiced character, except for Marie, did pretty well. They all got some good coaching in pronunciation for the bits of French sprinkled through their dialogue, at least to my untrained ear.
Length: 6/10
I paid 20 bucks for the game, and it only took me 7 hours to get through the main storyline. I know that I could squeeze some more gameplay out of it-- I could A-rank all the minigames, find all the hidden things, and play the bonus chapters, but I still can't help but feel disappointed, especially after being spoiled by cheap Steam games.
Overall, I'd put Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure at a solid 6.5/10. The ending clearly hinted at a sequel, and I don't think I'll be buying it unless it's cheaper or longer than the first one. I'd also like to see improvements in the clarity of instructions for minigames. Also, I hope that Phantom R turns into a more well-rounded character. Despite my complaints, I would definitely recommend this game to someone who enjoys camp, absurdity, and the power of rhythm.
Gameplay: 7/10
Like I said, the rhythm minigames had me hooked from the start. They're snappy and fast-paced, and I felt like the controls responded very well for the most part. In the later chapters, it seems like the margin for error shrinks by quite a bit, and that took a while to get used to. There are also one or two minigames that don't let you learn the controls properly before throwing you into a barrage of commands. Even the walkthrough I looked at to get past a particularly hard one acknowledged that it was kind of bullshit. There were also some minigames I otherwise liked that could have used some adjustments. For one, the "samba series" of minigames could have used different colors of gems to show which I needed to catch at the same time. There were also several instances where a single screw-up near the end of the minigame brought my score from an A to a C or a D. Despite my desired improvements, though, I enjoyed the minigames quite a bit.
Like Professor Layton, a great deal of gameplay is spent exploring a town to collect items, talk to people, and advance the story. In order to unlock bonus content, you need to find phantom notes and record sounds around the map. The sounds are connected to items onscreen that usually stand out from the background, so they're not difficult to find. The phantom notes, on the other hand, are more bullshit. You have to poke five hidden spots on the screen within a time limit that starts when you poke the first one. You can always restart the timer if it runs out, but there's often no indication as to where all five notes are, so I've wound up blindly mashing the whole screen to try to find them. Yeah, that's another thing from Professor Layton: poking everything. There's no way to tell if phantom notes are even on the screen at all, so you have to poke every square inch to be sure. If you miss a set of notes in a place you can't go back to, you can always buy them in the shop later, so at least there's that. But the coins you need to buy the notes are hidden in the background as well, so you'll get to poke stuff anyway.
I like story-driven games, so I didn't mind the amount of time I spent on the map rather than playing the minigames, but if you're not like me, you might get frustrated with how long it takes to get from one minigame to the next.
Story: 5.5/10
Wow, this... the story is the real gem of this game. I personally gave it a 5.5, but someone who enjoys camp and absurdity more than I do will adore the story. For one, the main villain is Napoleon Bonaparte. And the game is set in the modern day. Napoleon Goddamn Risen-From-The-Dead Bonaparte is your antagonist, running around the streets of Paris in order to unlock an ancient Babylonian treasure so he can take over the world. At first, I just rolled with it. It was a fun concept. Then I got to the third act and there was a massive tonal shift and somebody pulled out a gun and creepily reached into somebody else's pocket and it was weird. The final chapter is by far the best and most ridiculous, though. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to play the game, so I've put my thoughts in this Stash document if you want to take a look: Rhythm Thief Final Chapter
Putting aside the main arc, I have mixed feelings about the characters, specifically Raphael/Phantom R and Marie. Raphael is the protagonist of the game, who becomes Phantom R, Rhythm Thief, by night. In the beginning of the game, he starts out as a thoroughly enjoyable and amusing character. As Phantom R, he's a suave trickster-type who has a lot of fun breaking into the Louvre to steal art. As Raphael, he's an unassuming schoolboy who is liked by his neighbors. Once we get into the second act, though, things start to fall apart. Phantom R seems to lose some of his personality, becoming less like a trickster and more like a typical bishie protagonist. And then the comments about Inspector Vergier's wife. Inspector Vergier is the constable in charge of capturing Phantom R. Fairly early on in the game, we learn that Vergier's wife has recently died, and in his grief, the inspector is throwing himself into his work and consequently neglecting his daughter, Charlie. Then there's this whole thing with Charlie, whose real name is Charlotte, disguising herself as a guy to chase after Phantom R because Vergier is destroying himself with stress over his work. Right after, Phantom R makes some pretty callous remarks about the situation directly to Charlie's face, who has recently lost her mother and is currently losing her father because of how he's dealing with his grief. Never before have I lost so much respect for a character so quickly. From the beginning, though, I never had much respect for Marie, the love interest/McGuffin. There's really not much to say about her. She's a constant damsel in distress who really only serves to make Phantom R look cool for saving her. She's important to the plot, though, so it's not like her role could be excised altogether, but if she were a music box instead of a person, the story wouldn't suffer much. On a positive note, I thought Phantom R's motivation for stealing art was unique and interesting. I won't spoil it, but I thought it was a well-needed bit of roundness to his character.
Visuals: 7.5/10
I really enjoyed the cutscenes and the visuals in the minigames, and 3D looks great in both. The character designs, while also reminiscent of Layton, had their own style and plenty of variety. There is also an astounding number of detailed, well-painted backgrounds.
Music: 8/10
This probably comes from personal taste, but I love the music. Here's a link to the OST for you to decide for yourself: [link] (YT: Rhythm Thief Original Soundtrack - Theme of Phantom R)
Rhythm Thief Original Soundtrack - Theme of Phantom R(03:34)
Voice Acting: 6/10
The accents range from American or British with some French words to full-on hon hon hon. I thought every voiced character, except for Marie, did pretty well. They all got some good coaching in pronunciation for the bits of French sprinkled through their dialogue, at least to my untrained ear.
Length: 6/10
I paid 20 bucks for the game, and it only took me 7 hours to get through the main storyline. I know that I could squeeze some more gameplay out of it-- I could A-rank all the minigames, find all the hidden things, and play the bonus chapters, but I still can't help but feel disappointed, especially after being spoiled by cheap Steam games.
Overall, I'd put Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure at a solid 6.5/10. The ending clearly hinted at a sequel, and I don't think I'll be buying it unless it's cheaper or longer than the first one. I'd also like to see improvements in the clarity of instructions for minigames. Also, I hope that Phantom R turns into a more well-rounded character. Despite my complaints, I would definitely recommend this game to someone who enjoys camp, absurdity, and the power of rhythm.
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New group: Codespells Hype
1 min read
codespells-hype.deviantart.com… Check it out. It's a fanart/RP group for the game-in-development CodeSpells. All I have right now is an "about" journal, so I welcome any and all who are interested to check out the developers' plans and contribute some art or ideas to the group. Thanks for checking it out.
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A resource for artists
1 min read
Palate: the roof of your mouth, as in "cleft palate."
Pallet: a platform for loading goods. A favorite raw material on Pinterest.
Palette: a flat board for mixing paints; a swatch of colors. What you're probably looking for.
Pallet: a platform for loading goods. A favorite raw material on Pinterest.
Palette: a flat board for mixing paints; a swatch of colors. What you're probably looking for.
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Animated auction
1 min read
Guys, come on. How often do you see someone offering an animation as a commission? Check it out: maara-g.deviantart.com/art/Cap… Don't have a horse character? Tell someone who does. For serious.
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