The problem with releasing a rhythm-action game on 3DS is that despite the handheld arguably still yet to hit its peak, it already has two very fine examples of the genre – Final Fantasy Theatrhythm and Sega’s Rhythm Thief. There’s no shame in settling for third place though, where is exactly where Natsume’s ghostly groove’em up finds itself.
The titular Gabrielle faces an out-of-body experience after a colossal sneeze sends her spirit rocketing through the air. One benefit of this is that she’s now able to communicate with her cat Lola, who has some rather unlikely connections with the undead.
To become her former self once again Gabrielle must collect ‘screams’ by performing the Ghostly Groove across the ghoul-filled town of Monsterville.
When not dancing to the beat – via some well timed taps and strokes to the touch-screen – Gabrielle finds herself helping out members of the underworld by partaking in some simple yet pleasing mini-games. The first of these is a memory matching game that becomes a whole lot easier if you have a camera phone at hand. A little tip, there.
Screams are also used as currency that can be used to purchase extra outfits and such, allowing you to customise Gabrielle as you see fit.
It’s not a bad little game at all, and as an added bonus the recent eShop release is the full game and not the same cut-down version which Natsume chose to release elsewhere in the world.
We would have enjoyed it a lot more though if it wasn’t so alarmingly text heavy and had the music been a little bit jauntier – the majority of the musical score is formed of simple ghostly revamps of national anthems and such. Still, we’d much rather play this than one of those frightfully bizarre looking Monster High games. Shudder.