Preview: Project Rhapsody

By: Derek Yu

On: March 13th, 2008

Jesus, the things you can do with Multimedia Fusion now! Why, back in my day we had to walk five miles in the snow just to make an active object… grumble grumble!

The above video is a preview of the engine behind Project Rhapsody, an RPG that’s been in development for a few years now. While “ambitious RPG” + “unpaid development” + “years” can = “vaporware,” the team still seems active and updates are coming fairly regularly now. And it looks pretty fantastic!

Another reason why I’m so jonesed about the game is that they’ve got Snake (aka Imson) on board. You may remember him as the pixel artist behind Katamari Colossus, but he’s also a fantastic painter.

“Hit the jump,” as they say, for some awesome concept art he did for PR. Good luck, guys! Become legendary! We’re rooting for you!

(Source: Our man Jimbob, via Total Klik)

Posted in Previews, RPG, Videos

konjak

I miss the days of three Alterable Values.
http://www.rey-o.com rey-o

this looks pretty darn great
Zeno

I have to wonder… Is that second party member supposed to be all glitched-out looking?

Also, Anthrax Letter? Master Sword?
Rory

Hmmm reminds me of . . . damm what was that SNES RPG again!
ChevyRay

:O

WANT TO PLAY.

That looks gorgeous.
Lorn

Looks like they just filled in animations they hadn’t made yet with animations of the first character, Zeno.
Lim-Dul

I just hope the game doesn’t have too many random encounters. :-P

Other than that it does look quite amazing!
Quetzocotol

Reminds me of Grandia!
Lim-Dul

I guess you shouldn’t complain about the animations since they will be more likely changed in the final version – I mean, I don’t believe the characters will run in place when facing obstacles. ;-)
Lim-Dul

Or skate up and down the screen. :-P
Space Ranger

This looks so much more fun that any silly spirit engine.
moi

looks as boring and painstaking as any other japanese rpg.

But I’m sure there is an audience for that.
Well realized, except maybe for the big ass blocks of parallax scrolling on the beach, but hey.
Darkmoon

Even though it’s different, and I only watched the first minute or two, it gives me a ‘Chrono Trigger’ sort of vibe. *shrug*

I don’t really care for the SFX for backing out of the menus though. =P
Biggerfish

It looks awesome, but like moi said, it will probably play like another boring jrpg. :(
Advenith

Seems like it’s going to be very Chrono Trigger-esque. Not enough games have borrowed from that, really, so I can’t wait.
xerus

Back in my day you had to copy objects from Romeo!

This looks awesome, just look out for random graphical glitches and bad objects! :D
Zaphos

This looks really sweet :)
muku

Certainly looks pretty, but I never really “got” the appeal of all those console-ish RPGs. Seem all the same to me.
Julius

What’s this Katamari Colossus you speak of?
GirlFlash

it doesent look too original in terms of gameplay, but its been so long since I’ve played a robust jrpg that I’m looking forward to this.

I know I’ll hate it, but i’ll enjoy playing it, so what else matters? (dont answer that, I like my deluded world)
Jimbob

If only I was your man, Derek…

:S
renkin

I like the CTesque battles. No transition to break the flow.
http://yaen.deviantart.com/ Yaen

Thanks for the nice comments about our game.

Because of time restrictions (mostly school) we can’t always make major progress. The sprites and backgrounds take time. We are aiming for chapter releases, something short but engaging. Nothing episodic, just splitting a larger story up. Also it allows us to actually release something instead of being bogged down by a large source that might be corrupted if MMF goes nutter. Backgrounds also take up a lot of space even if compressed.

Theres a ton of placeholder material for now unfortunately. The long development exposes my changing backgrounds, they vary in quality and style as I get better. I would like to go back redo some but if I did that then I’d get nothing new done xD.

The core battle system may please people, but what we would like to do is reduce random fights and make boss battles/ wandering around a little more special with fun events and puzzles. We don’t like grinding we like stories and high-adventure! The CT-Grandia engine is just the easiest way to contain fights without making it another Zelda/ Lost Oasis game. Battles might change from time bars. We have blueprints for another system but I don’t think Blake has plans to redo anything.

One of the most annoying things is that when MMF updates it has a chance of breaking the engine, Yves does some strange things to patch the bulky French binary madness. Things are pretty stable now but I think Blake said this is the last MMF game he’d work on, we 3 are kinda dabbling with XNA but nothing serious yet but Blake seems to like it.

When Blake is back from vacation the first boss fight should be about ready, Hurrah!
Rocket Slug

While the general game appears to draw from Chrono Trigger, the art (especially the town at the very beginning) reminds me of the old GBA game Golden Sun. I loved that game when it came out, so I’ll be looking into this, as well.
Xion

Nice, dudes. I’ve been peeping this game on and off for quite a while, hoping for some word of progress. I’m real glad to know it’s still in development.
xerus

protip: dont patch MMF while working on a project.
Trotim

Err… the art isn’t half bad, but the whole… feel is off. I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to play it even if it were free.
Alonso Martin

It’s depressing to see how many negative comments have been posted against this game. You have no idea how much effort these guys have put into their dream. Apart from some comments about my game rescembling Eternal Daughter, it was received much better, even though the graphical, coding, story and musical (basically all) aspects are far less advanced than Project Rhapsody.

With all the deserved respect, most people don’t understand (or have) the balls to undertake a project like this, so if you don’t have anything positive to say about this, don’t say anything at all. “Boring Japanese RPG’s” are done by dozens of people. These guys are like 5 max. Don’t be cruel.
qnp

Simon’s art is really nice!
This type of game is not my kettle of proverbial fish, but I am looking forward to it because of the art and because I’m interested in MMF design.
http://projectrhapsody.com Blake

Hey thanks for all the nice comments so far! I’m the programmer for the project and it’s really nice to see some interest. I completely understand the comments about disliking the JRPG genre, and finding it boring. If that style of game isn’t your bag, then you would probably not enjoy our game. However, I grew up playing some of the *now* older console RPGs and I had a blast playing them- I hope that we can deliver the same sort of experience those games provided.
Jasper Byrne

I think it’s amazing and please, please finish it…

You might consider porting it to some variant of C to so that one day it might reach my DS!
Gio/Wiidark

Finally an rpg that doesn’t remind me of many of the final fastasy inspired rpg’s out there. keep it up.
BeamSplashX

I can handle a JRPG battle system, especially if there’s not much in the ways of grinding (something I appreciated a LOT with Grandia II). And if your event and puzzle-based approach extends to sidequests as well, then you’ve pretty much got me sold.