Dropped: Rhythm Thief (3DS)

A while back my friend sent me a review of a fairly unheard of rhythm game called Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure.

they mentioned how it was a lot like Prof. Layton in it's design just instead of puzzles it was little rhythm games.

being that i like Prof. Layton games  and i really like Rhythm games i figured if i saw i'd try it out.

So i picked it up, a used copy which i know doesn't help the developer at all but it's the only one they had, put it in my 3ds and thought ah the style is kinda cute and the 3d for the 2d animated scenes is fairly nice.
i went to save and i saw how far the person who owned this previously got.
one song
one song in and he returned it.

that..... should have been my first clue.



however i continued to play cause i really do try not to let other things sway my opinion till i have finished the thing in question myself.

yes it's like Prof. Layton.... but it honestly feels more like it's ripping off that series without realizing what makes that series fun.
so you have a big map, with a red path that will bring you to your next goal, and you talk to characters to get rhythm games (more on that later), you collect sounds of things to progress further in the story and you tap around the screen to get medals.... which from what i can see do nothing... maybe you get unlocked stuff based on how many you collected by end game... i will never know.
so, you may or may not be wondering, what i just described it almost layton word for word minus the glowy red path (though layton does give you the 'here markers) so how can it be bad.
it's just not fun
not at all
the story is terrible, predictable and EXTREMELY convenient "oh now we need tickets to get into the party, oh and the orchestra doesn't have a violinist! oh no how can we help them... wait the girl your with is a violinist! she could do it...and then we would get tickets.... yay"
it's just lazy.

but... honestly who plays rhythm games for the story... right? you don't play DDR to figure out why you dance with so many random characters (yeah thats a story mode for ddr.... i dunno why they didn't just set it up as challenges) you don't play Project Diva to find out why Miku is singing with all these different costumes, you don't play Theatrhythm to fight back some dark god after getting a certain amoutn of crystal shards. you play it cause
a) they are fun and probably challenging
b) they have songs you want to listen to
c) just easy pick up and play titles when you want to kill 5 minutes (ok ddr not so much but you get my point)

so what kinda of games do we have here?
barely working ones.... fantastic.

each game is different
most of the games rely on gimmick
the tempo ramps up and down without warning so unless you are psychic you wont pass some of the songs on your first try.
the song, if you want to call them that, are terrible.
why are they so bad? cause you have the character saying the button/stylus motion/colour/way to tilt the 3ds (way more on this later) over the song so you can't hear the music cause the character wont shut up... and if you did have the chance to hear the songs it's still boring and lackluster cause most of the music is in the beat of the character saying what button to push.
Sega, i know you've done good rhythm games before.... what is your excuse for this crap?


so the different kind of games i came across were

hit A when it tells you to
hit a or control pad right when it tells you to
use the stylus to tap the correct colour on the touch screen when it tells you to
to the stylus to swipe/spin/tap when it tells you to (i hated this cause the timing for when it registers the swipe or spin seems... off)
tilt the 3ds the way it tells you to when it tell you.... dear game developers, unless you are remaking kirby tilt and tumble.... DO NOT try to implement the gyroscopic movements into your game cause it doesn't work AND again it's hard to time when you do the action to when it actually registers in the game, ALSO when you need to tilt away from yourself how are you supposed to see your next instruction? ok so he said it and thats great but the tempo isn't constant so the time between him saying it and me doing it isn't always the same and if i do it to soon i'll get a huge hit and probably fail the song.

ugh.

the song that made me give up was known as R30
instructions are Tap A
most of the just hit one button ones are easy enough
but if you fail the character kind flinches so even though you the player may have fixed your tempo he will not respond to you button push and it will be considered as another failed note.... which will again make him flinch and possibly miss ANOTHER note and in this game you miss a few in a row you fail
the only way i can show you is via someones lets play so click on the link and you will see a seemingly easy song that made me want to throw the game out the window simply because of terrible controls
http://youtu.be/zIroXlxk72M?t=21m14s
and yeah he did it on his first shot but you see that he goesfrom a to c in the span of a few seconds at the end....
and yeah i got really close to the end every time butthat bit where 6 of them jump you is just punishing.

and i figured hey.... you know what
i have so many other games.
so many other fun games
games that i want to be playing.
Games that i'm not playing cause of Rhythm Thief.
so no...
i'm done
i will not be wasting my time on this crap anymore. 

sad thing is even though i'm only 7 of 10 chapters in.... i know if i could get past this song i could beat the rest of the game in an hour... cause after 7 chapters i've only plugged in a bit over 3 hours...

so bad gameplay
bad music (ok the songs that are used for the intros are fine but the gameplay music is pretty bland)
bad story
and insanely short.
love wasting my money...
hm.... maybe i should try to beat devil survivor.... i'm at the last boss but i was an idiot and played on hard mode and now i can't win.... maybe if i try for a different ending.... hm...

oh and i guess the lesson actually is do not always listen to reviews, people have different likes and dislikes so always be sure to make your own opinion on things.