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Sega’s upcoming Nintendo 3DS rhythm game, Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure, puts you in the shoes of Raphael, a thief searching for his father. In order to find leads pertaining to his father, Rapahel steals treasures but has a habit of returning them later. He also has a sense of rhythm, which he acquired from his mother, which is where the game’s musical elements comes in.
Dancing is Raphael’s solution to most problems. Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure is controlled using the stylus and the 3DS’ tilt functions. During one of Raphael’s dances, the top screen shows your dance routine, while the bottom screen displays what motions you need to perform to pull your moves off. Controls for different parts of the game are detailed below:
Here’s a part from the game where Raphael sneaks into a museum. The prompts on the bottom screen this time around are different and colour-coded:
While you’re on the run from the police, running across rooftops, the controls are different once again:
At some point, Rapahel also fights a robot enemy. This battle makes use of the d-pad:
And…here’s a butler battle, which shows how you use the 3DS tilt controls:
Curious to see one of Raphael’s dance routines? Here’s a video that shows one:
Sega say that Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure will feature music from popular artists, but they haven’t said who or whether we’ll see differences in music between the Japanese and overseas versions of the game. While Japan gets Rhythm Thief this winter, North America and Europe will see it sometime in early 2012.
