Games based around music

Recently, I rented Eternal Sonata, an RPG for 360. I was surprised at the game's way of working music into the plot. The game itself is partially based on the person and musical works of Frédéric Chopin. It made me wonder, are there any other games that so heavily incorporate music into the game experience?

I don't mean games where the main point is actually playing music, like Guitar Hero or Wii Music, or moving along with it, like Dance Dance Revolution. I'm aiming more toward games where music is normally not such a vital focus point of the genre, but some specific game makes it flow into the plot like it belongs.

I would say Earthbound and Mother 1 both do this (Mother 3 not so much.) The whole object in both games is to gather 8 fragments of a single melody, and then the entire melody does something for you. In Mother 1, the song is one that your grandmother had sung while raising the alien Giegue, who is actually the main villain in the game. You sing this melody to him during the final battle to get him to stop his invasion of earth. In Earthbound, you have to record the entire Earth's Melody on Ness' sound stone at 8 sanctuary locations. Once you have the whole melody, Ness goes to Magicant, or the realm of his own mind. There, he destroys all the evil in his heart. As a result, gets an ABSURD boost to all his stats (15-20 each, plus 350-400 to his max psychic points, 150-200 to his max HP). This is because the whole point was for the Earth to 'channel his power and multiply it', as Buzz-buzz puts it at the very start of the game, so Ness can defeat Giygas (who is Giegue).

It's funny you posted this. I just started playing Rhapsody for DS a few days ago. It's an excellent game so far, nothing too complicated, but it has a major "music theme" in the game. The main character (Cornet) uses a horn for combat, and can use it to control puppets and summon some bizarre foods for special attacks. There are also some nice, and fully voiced musical interludes in the game that are voiced in the original Japanese lanuguage. It's quite an unorthodoxed game, but it's interesting and entertaining none the less. I highly recommend it.

Another game with a music theme is The Legend of Heroes 3 for PSP. It follows a band of traveling adventurers/troubadours. Despite me liking the first 2 Legend of Heroes games, I had trouble getting into the third game in the series. Try this one at your own risk.

I have yet to play Eternal Sonata, even though I have it for 360 and I plan on getting it for PS3 as well once it comes down in price. I hear it has enough extras to warrant a purchase on the PS3 as well.

The Earthbound stuff sounds a bit like one of the sidequests in Eternal Sonata. ES has you collect hidden pieces of music and play them alongside pieces that various NPCs hold. Matching the right piece to the right NPC gets you an item. It's not as important in ES as it sounds in Earthbound, but yeah, that's a good similarity. Another good reason to check out the game sometime.

Rhapsody sounds interesting too. It's rare to find a main character that isn't a sword user, so it gets bonus points for that. I'll definitely look into that one.

I ordered ES for the 360 over the weekend, but I'm thinking about getting it for the PS3 later on as well. I've read that the PS3 version actually changes the story somewhat. There's more playable characters and cutscenes, but supposedly the plot got rearranged some. I'm quite curious to see how it played out.

I've also heard that the difficulty has been slitghly increased in the PS3 version of Eternal Sonata. I think it's worth getting the PS3 version, but I probably wouldn't pay more than 20-30 bucks for it.

As for Rhapsody, it's pretty great so far. I may be able to finish it up tonight if I get enough time. I'll link to my review for it when I'm done so you can see some impressions of it.

Thoul, here's my Rhapsody review. Give it a read if you're contemplating getting the game.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/review/R133032.html

Let me know what you think.

Very good review. It really makes me eager to go find the game and give a try!