Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom | |
Developer: | Nippon Ichi Software |
Publisher: | Nippon Ichi Software |
Composer: | Tenpei Sato |
Series: | Rhapsody |
Genre: | Role-playing video game |
Modes: | Single-player |
Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom is a role-playing video game developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software for the PlayStation 2.[1] It is the third installment in the Rhapsody series. Unlike the previous games in the series, this game was only released once, although a special limited edition version of the game was released concurrently.[2]
Instead of the 2D graphics of the other Marl games, Memories of Marl Kingdom uses 3D backgrounds, but the character sprites themselves are kept 2D, much like many other Nippon Ichi games released afterwards.
Memories of Marl Kingdom, unlike the earlier games in the series, consists of six separate chapters, each of which features different characters from the Rhapsody series. The chapters take place in various times before or after the stories of A Musical Adventure and Ballad of the Little Princess. These chapters often address unanswered questions from the earlier games, or provide additional insight into the characters.
Memories of Marl Kingdom is a typical RPG, complete with experience points, parties of characters, and spell casting. In each chapter, the player guides different characters through their adventure, engaging in several battles along the way.
The battle system is completely different from earlier Marl games. The player's party consists of up to 12 characters divided into rows of 4.[3] The player can only have direct control of the row leaders. The other characters in each row, called "partners", cannot normally be controlled and attack randomly. The only characters that can be controlled even when they are not in the front row are puppets, and they can only be controlled by Cornet, Cello, Kururu or Cherie.
The party consists of humans, puppet users, puppets and monsters. Each character, when acting as a partner, will raise or lower the statistics of the row leader. Depending on party organization, special attacks can be unlocked for the row leader.
Instead of paying for spells like in Ballad of the Little Princess, the characters use SP for spell casting.
Along with and , this game is part of the Marl Kingdom series created by Nippon Ichi. It also acts as a prelude to the later Nippon Ichi game . Although released on a different system with a new battle system, Memories of Marl Kingdom maintains many of the themes of the previous games. The graphics remain bright and colorful, but backgrounds are now in 3D.
The game was released in North America and Europe as a part of Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles in 2023.[4]
A soundtrack of the game's song was released on February 21, 2001.[5] Like other Marl games, the music was composed by Tenpei Sato.