Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure | Our World

Amazing VGM: Prince Ferdinand Themes (Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure)

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Today, as in the day this is being posted, is a very special day where we commemorate the execution and martyrdom of Saint Valentine by taking each other on expensive dates and giving each other cards with candy if we are still kids… or by wallowing in our own misery if we are single. Don’t give up hope though, I’m sure you’ll find love someday as long as you don’t make anti-SJW videos on Youtube!

As for myself, as silly and ironic as it would be to post my Slave Witch April review on Valentines Day, I’d like to take this chance to talk about a game near and dear to my heart. I really want to get around to replaying Rhapsody and giving it a full review, but I figure today is the perfect chance to talk about its beautiful music, and you better be damn sure the soundtrack is amazing with a title like that. It did not disappoint.

Rhapsody is a game heavily inspired by musicals and theatrical productions, and the music very much emphasizes this. The track you are currently listening to (unless you haven’t clicked on the music player for some reason) is the theme of Prince Ferdinand, the primary love interest of the protagonist Cornet. This song perfectly fits Prince Ferdinand’s character, elegant, graceful, and captivating from the first note onward.

Taking inspiration from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, beautiful arrangement of this track puts the player in Cornet’s shoes by creating the “butterflies in your stomach” feeling of young love in music form. You only have a few scenes where Cornet directly interacts with the Prince, but the every scene is made impactful through the use of this track, and you are given just enough emotion that the love between them feels real despite the lack of screen time the Prince gets.

I’ve had this song on repeat for at least half an hour while writing this, and the goosebumps have still not faded. The melody is strong, the instrumentation is perfect, and it all harmonizes beautifully. There’s just so much heart to this track that it could bring a tear to my eye.

But one may have noticed the plurality in the title of this piece. After all, it would be remiss to not talks about one of the game’s musical numbers in its first Amazing VGM entry. I normally directly embed music links, but it’s always preferable to see a musical number alongside the performance.

Just for the sake of clarity, I’m typing this after watching the above video, which I haven’t seen in about a year. It never fails to give me goosebumps. I’m actually having some trouble putting it into words right now because… well, you just heard it didn’t you? And granted, some of the lyrics are a bit cheesy, but it doesn’t lessen the impact at all.

I think you can see why I choose this for Valentines Day now. Also a fun fact, I used Prince Ferdinand as my online avatar before I came out as trans… yes, I used the most bishonen character from a game intended for young girls as my icon because they were one of the few male characters I could relate to on any sort of level, how the fuck did anyone think I’d work as a straight man?

Anyway here’s to covid-19 receding soon that we don’t need to spend Valentines Day alone, and to hoping that Rhapsody 2 & 3 get fan translated.

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