In today's world rhythm games are all about key fitness and perfect timing and that been what Konami's Dancing Stage games were all about. Sega has had their great taste in rhythm games too and now Sega brings along Xeen to bring to bring the funk with Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure for the 3DS in which you can now play a short demo from Eshop.
This groovy demo has about 20 uses before it expires.
Set in Paris the main protagonist Raphael is searching for the whereabouts of his father who has gone missing. His clue to finding him is a coin that was left in his possession bears a symbol along with a necklace bearing the symbol that his father is searching for. He'll also meet a violinist girl named Marie who carries a violin with the same symbol that his coin as well. I watched a short sneak peek trailer of this on the internet and the script and English translation are well done.
In the Demo there are about 3 different minigames to play with no look at the Adventure Mode. The 3 minigames are the Dancing stage, the Hiding stage and finally the Showdown stage. Each of these stages can either be played with either the Buttons or on the Touch Screen. Before you start to play the event you got the option to have the onscreen Guide on or off. At the end of each your rank is depended on how well your timings are and you're given a letter depending on your overall performance.
On the Dancing game you use the Touch Screen to follow the current movements shown on the top screen. These movements include sliding Up, Down, Left, Right and in a Circle to perform different dancing moves. You have to ensure the timings are correct to the other characters on screen but sometimes you'll might accidentally rush and given a Harsh for that timing. The downside of this game is the way the game can penalize you critically for one Harsh Timing.
The next minigame is the Hiding one where you use the Touch Screen to click on the 4 different coloured actions that matches the statue's colour to hide from the guards on patrol. It's pretty easy to time it correctly but with at least 2 or more that appears on the screen at once it can be difficult to time each Touch on the Icons so it requires you to react fast in order to get your timings. Still this is a fun minigame to play on.
The third and last minigame on this demo is the showdown with the knights and you battle them with your funky moves. You play this using the D-Pad and the A Button. You press the buttons as soon as the knights come in close contact to punch them. It starts to get a little bit faster and both sides so you'll need to react quickly on your buttons to get the timings correct. This is a really additive minigame to play as it's fun to knock these Knights out. You do earn coins for completing each minigame but I'm going to assume that are used in the Adventuring portions in the full game. Overall each minigame is quite additive and fun but however the way the game penalizes you can hamper your overall performance.
The games cell-shaded visuals are quite good for how stands out on the 3DS. With the 3D on the characters shine really well alongside the nice displays of the city of Paris. The visual effects are quite good alongside the portrait artwork. The music track is outstanding for bringing out the funk and the English voice acting is very solid.
Although I'm not into rhythm games in general but however Rhythm Thief is quite an enjoyable experience to have on the Handheld. There plenty more to see in the full game but however I've wouldn't be too interested into playing the full game if my dancing moves wouldn't be able to keep up with the game.
Game Title: Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: Rhythm, Puzzle, Adventure
Developer: Sega, Xeen
Publisher: Sega
Demo Released: March 15th 2012
Date of Full Game Release: January 19th 2012 (Japan), April 5th 2012 (Europe), April 12th 2012 (Australia), July 10th 2012 (North America)
Age Rating: ACB: G, CERO: B, ESRB: E10+, PEGI: 12
Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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