Angel's Present: A Marl Kingdom Story

About

Angel's Present: A Marl Kingdom Story is a 2D sprite-based RPG with 3D environments that splits its narrative into six standalone chapters. Each segment follows different characters from the Rhapsody series across separate timelines, weaving together loose ends and expanding on earlier entries. Battle and exploration mechanics stick to traditional turn-based RPGs, with story progression tied to completing discrete quests. The game emphasizes character-driven drama over complex systems, letting players piece together the series’ broader history through vignettes. The standout is its episodic structure, offering varied perspectives like a stone-statue subplot in a mushroom village or a prequel tracing the origins of a key character. Chapter five, spanning thousands of years, acts as both lore deep cut and prequel bonus for series veterans. Nippon Ichi Software released it in 2000 as a limited PS2 edition, with its segmented design and nostalgic visuals appealing to longtime fans. Shorter chapters contrast with the game’s longest segment, balancing quick play sessions with deeper dives.

Storyline

Memories of Marl Kingdom, unlike the earlier games in the series, consists of six separate chapters, each of which features different characters from the Rhapsody series. The chapters take place in various times before or after the stories of A Musical Adventure and Ballad of the Little Princess. These chapters often address unanswered questions from the earlier games, or provide additional insight into the characters. Chapter 1: The first chapter is set early in Cornet's adventure in A Musical Adventure and takes place after Ferdinand has been turned to stone. Cornet, Kururu, and Etoile get lost in a forest and end up in a town full of anthropomorphic mushrooms. There, they decide to find a young girl's missing mother. Chapter 2: The second chapter takes place four years after Ballad of the Little Princess. Kururu, now sixteen, has decided to marry Cello. In order to get her father to accept Cello as a suitable husband, Kururu has to win the upcoming Miss Marl Kingdom competition. This serves as an epilogue to Little Princess. In this chapter, it is heavily implied that Kururu and Cello will eventually be the parents of Homard from La Pucelle: Tactics. Chapter 3: The third adventure is not firmly established anywhere on the series timeline. The Nyankos of the Marjoly Family have gone missing, and the four women set out to find why they have disappeared. Chapter 4: The fourth chapter takes place immediately before the events in Ballad of the Little Princess. Pekonyan, a servant of the Akurjo Family, is in love with Pokonyan, a Nyanko for the Marjoly Family. Pekonyan is distraught when she realizes that the Akurjo Family is going to war with the Marjoly Family, and decides to assassinate Akurjo before this happens. Chapter 5: The fifth and longest chapter in the game takes place thousands of years before A Musical Adventure and, due to its length, is the only chapter in the game to be broken into multiple sub-chapters. This chapter follows Cherie's life from start to finish, from the last days of the Ancient civilization, to the birth of Cornet, to Cherie's death. This is the second bonus chapter to be included in the DS remake of A Musical Adventure. Chapter 6: The sixth chapter is a bonus boss rush event. In this chapter, every single playable character from every chapter is brought together, regardless of when or where their stories take place, to defeat the Dark Lord.