Sega may be best-known just now for disappointing their somewhat scary hedgehog fandom go through a continuous cycle of being hyped up and then disappointed, and possibly for putting their escapist fantasies about a new console into the somewhat unsettling Hyperdimension Neptunia, but there’s also the legacy of their quietly brilliant Space Channel 5 and Samba de Amigo – damn fine rhythm games that sadly go under the radar for most gamers, including the addictive Vocaloid games in the Project Diva series, and this excellent but sadly rather overlooked title.
The game isn’t the world’s most original. Basically, it takes the Professor Layton series, substitutes France for England and then instead of the puzzles puts in rhythm games – many of them conspicuously similar to those of Rhythm Tengoku. And much as I love the Layton
Sega are also sure to sneak in references to their previous successes – so expect ‘Up Down Up Down Chu Chu Chu!’ from Space Channel 5 and random Mexicans in Paris persuading you to do some samba. That said, the Samba de Amigo section suffers from one of the game’s huge problems – wanting to use the accelerometer inside the 3DS to add to the gameplay by making you tilt the system. Not only does this make you look extremely stupid if you do it in public (and I mostly play my 3DS on the train), it doesn’t work very well. For someone like me who wants to at the very least get a full combo on every song, that got quite irritating. The games where you had to tilt a particular way to prepare for a note were okay, but ones where the motion itself was the note, the detection was far too unreliable and was a major negative point for gameplay.
That said, I did manage. I played every rhythm game and got a full-combo on them all. There are actually items you can get that mean you either get a full combo or you fail, and I bought a few, but it soon struck me as pointless as you gain nothing but a little crown and I was just re-doing what I’d already done. I did the three extra mini stories and basically did everything the game had to offer except find some hidden ‘sound discs’, because they really didn’t add anything to my experience and just required tapping on every single nook and cranny at the very end of the game.
And though it’s a little derivative and makes such a point of leaving itself hugely open for a sequel that I expected a whole lot more game to be unlocked after the credits, I liked the story of Rhythm Thief a lot. Though Phantom R is the kind of character I normally really dislike – brash, cocky, wise-cracking and smug – the fact that his true self is an unassuming little pretty-boy helped quite a bit, and the minor characters I really grew to love. In particular, I adored reverse-trap Charlie, a silly little tomboy who runs about Paris trying to solve the crimes her inspector father hasn’t managed to wrap up with the help of her glider and football. The rivalry she sets up with Phantom R was already irresistible before the gender-bending reveal endeared her to me forever – and with her voice actress’s deadpan delivery, often wonderfully understated but with some brilliant little yelps, she was leagues ahead of, say, the dull and generic American actor for Raphael or cute love interest Marie, who had a pleasant English voice but was utterly incapable of expressing any emotion at all.
Nicely-presented, fun to play and with a stupid but enjoyable story and cute characters, I certainly feel the title could have been more of a hit than it was, and do hope it managed to get a sequel, even if all has fallen quiet on that front now. It would also have benefited from an advanced mode, because I have to say, fun though things were – especially when they became medleys – I definitely needed more of a challenge. Without the need to do any tilting.
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