Rhythm Thief and the Emperors Treasure review

What do you get when you cross Elite Beat Agents with Professor Layton? Well, you get a kid called Raphael who resembles Michael Jackson in his Smooth Criminal video crossed with one of the dudes from the cartoon band Gorillaz.

Raphael isn’t just your normal man about Paris - he’s also a thief with the alter-ego of Phantom R. Strangely he also has a dog called Fondue who also barks in French - an oddity indeed! You begin the game stealing paintings and artefacts from the Louvre and other iconic locations but soon take on a far greater deed as you try to put a stop to a recently resurrected Napoleon!

The clue to how this game is played is in the title - you play through the story and enjoy a myriad of games and puzzles that involve you tapping, swiping and matching notes in order to progress. What’s nice about the game is that there is some variety in there. One minute you might be tapping on coloured squares in time in order to hide behind statues to avoid guards, the next you’ll be pressing the A button and the d-pad in time to fight off enemies trying to stop you. There are also chase scenes where you must tap the screen or buttons to the beat or risk falling. More conventional puzzles find their way into the game too as well that, although won’t tax your brain too much, may challenge your twitch reflexes and toe-tapping sense of rhythm and make you try again. If you’ve played a Layton game you’ll also recognise a similar gameplay where you wander the streets, talk to characters and tap furiously around locations in order to find medals instead of the usual hint coins. You must also record sounds as you go about the town as well which you can then use to help others.

There is some replayability in there too. As well as all the items to find and collect, you’re also graded on how well you perform during each game. You can then go back into these sections in the rhythm list in the menu and try to get a higher score. My only real gripes with the game are that the meter that rates you goes up and down in increments that are too large so you can easily fail a task with just one little wobble as it crashes down to zero. You’ll also spend a lot of time backtracking around Paris on the top screen to get where you want to go as you’re sent on fetch quests.

It would also have been great to have some contemporary licensed music trakcs in there but the tracks that do play out are still fun during the very nicely animated action sequences. It’s also nice the developers have seen sense and switched off the 3D during games where you have to use motion controls.

Rhythm Thief is a fun adventure but do make sure you wear headphones if taking it on the move - others won’t want to hear what you’re up to. It gets an excellent 8 out of 10.

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Related: Elite Beat Agents, Professor Layton