Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure

Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure is an original action game from Sega that combines rhythm minigames with an adventure-style hunt for treasure hidden beneath Paris. The player takes on the role of the gentleman thief Raphael, who between rhythm sequences – dancing, boxing, fencing or chases set to the beat of the music – moves through a stylized version of the French capital, gathers clues and solves simple puzzles tied to the main story about searching for a lost father and an ancient treasure. Between the rhythm passages, the player also explores smaller, freely accessible environments where they look for clues and talk to side characters, giving the game's pace a pleasant, relaxed contrast.

The visual style combines comic-book cutscenes with a three-dimensional environment whose atmosphere is enhanced by stereoscopic 3D on the top screen, while the bottom touch screen handles the actual control of the rhythm passages through tapping, dragging and tilting the console according to the on-screen prompts. The soundtrack is varied, ranging from jazz through electronica to orchestral motifs, and directly shapes the pace, difficulty and mood of the individual chapters, which take place at well-known Parisian locations, from the underground catacombs to the rooftops above the boulevards.

Although the game didn't attract mass attention at release and got lost in stores among bigger names, critics praised its inventive genre mashup, the charm of its storytelling, its distinctive and slightly odd characters, and the technical precision of its rhythm minigames, which demand precise timing of button presses. Today, Rhythm Thief is considered one of the overlooked gems of the 3DS catalog and proof that Sega was able to create an original, standalone brand on a Nintendo handheld outside of its traditional series, even though it unfortunately never received a sequel.