2006.07.10 
RHAPSODIA
Playstation 2 - Japan
(The following was originally a journal entry)
Beat Fire Emblem Rhapsodia yesterday.
When I beat it yesterday I gave it a 8.0. But after replaying it and realizing how short this game is now that I'm given the option to press start through those long ass scenes I'd probably give it a 7.0. Well I wouldn't say that's too bad of a score since this is just a sidestory.
Story? Ugh. We all know I'm not fond of it. How cute, this game had a everyone loves Mary-Sue in it, Corselia. She even got the cute "older" hero caring about her, Kyril. I've pretty much put my foot in my mouth with a main character like Corselia around when praising the Suikoden series. She's the typical "everyone loves me heroine." Not even Coop thought he and Heinz should kidnap her! Good god, her family members were dying left and right it was pathetic. I think even her mom died in the end. Now I can't remember if there was a reason, but was there a damn good reason why Miranda kept choosing to suck Iskas' balls? I know a lot of writers like to use the "wow let's kill this shit for the dramatic factor!" but killing off people we didn't give a fuck about is far from being dramatic. For example we know who Odessa, Annabelle, Solon Jhee, and Yun are before they die. (No S5 references for you people that haven't played that game yet >:o) Hell we even know who Pohl and Lulu are before they die.
They had enough personality for me to cheer when they got nuked. As for ST? The deaths are even less dramatic than the time we're forced to watch peasants get their asses killed by Luca Blight in Suikoden 2. BTW who was that Ralph kid? I'm amused that some random kid that got killed in the streets of Merseto got a character portrait but Corselia's grandfather didn't.
I spoiled the Yohn thing beforehand and yeah it was surprising. But that's the problem with the bullshit way Kawano writes. She chooses to leave a mystery and not reveal it till the end of the game when no one gives a fuck anymore. Either that she tells a random tidbit about someone we didn't give a damn about or introduces us to someone who wasn't even in the game. (ZOMG Colton is Helmut's dad! Kika had a lover named Edgar that we never even saw or heard of before prior to that moment!) If she wrote S5 she most likely would've revealed that tidbit about Gizel and Sialeeds being lovers at one point at a time at the end somewhere while in S5 they tell you right off the bat. Well they at least did fix up that Kika tidbit in ST. But that was the only plothole that they fixed. For the rest of the game they told us about crap no one gave a damn about. While we could have a sidestory explaining more shit about Harmonia we get to learn about evil eyes, fishmen, and other pointless bullshit.
Like S4, ST felt like it was only half a game. (But ST is only a bit more fulfilling since the gameplay isn't bad) While finding out Yohn is Kyril's mom is surprising it just felt like some random plot twist Kawano added at the end. Plus, wasn't Kyril bitching about wondering who his mother was earlier in the game? He seemed to be the least surprised that Yohn is his mom. And when he was deciding whether if he should go with his dad and mom he sure decided quickly that he belongs to the other world. Sadly the only thing that DID surprise me is that Andarc is the one that wrote the book that the narrator is reading through in the game. That didn't come off as a random plot twist because I was like "Ohhh! So he wasn't drawing pornographic pictures all that time, he was writing that book!"
Gameplay wise it's pretty fun. It's a bit hard the first time around but incredibly easy the second time around if you leveled up everyone's skills all the way. Personally I think this game would've been better if there was a difficulty option. I didn't have any problem with the deaths. For the most part the majority of my killable characters seemed to retreat instead.
Other random stuff? I really like Rhapsodia's soundtrack, but when I played it, it didn't really feel like the soundtrack was anything much compared to when I listened to the soundtrack as a standalone. Well I'm currently re-listening to the soundtrack. I remembered hearing that S1 & S2 dungeon theme during my first playthrough but I sure as hell didn't hear it during my second. And crap, I'm already at the halfway mark and I just started replaying this game today. After playing Rhapsodia I can see why they finally took out the "last dungeon blows up/crumbles" thing in S5. It was getting way too damn repetitive there.
In short: Kawano, don't ever, EVER, EVER pollute the Suikoden series with your bullshit writing again! Iz okay ip u draw pik-churez tho. The sad thing about S4 is that it easily could've been one of my favorites, but they just did everything wrong with that game VIRTUALLY possible. As for Tactics? Well when you're rambling on about "evil eyes" and guys that turn into fish, you've gotta do a damn hard job of trying to make that sound cool.
Finding that on the corner of the cover you can only expect Rhapsodia to be a doomed game. At least this time it was just the story.
But Rhapsodia was a good Suiko spin-off. Much better than card stories and the gaidens. The gaidens were interesting but it was pretty much just pressing through text and making a choice every now and then. I thought it'd be like Snatcher.
Oh and I forgot to say that Kyril is SEXXORZ. I guess I kind of forgot because Mary Sue Corselia made me forget about how much of a hottie he is. I loved that face he made at the end. I didn't like Mary Sue Corselia running at him though.