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Theatrhythm Final Bar Line


AndyKurosaki
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Ok. So this is bloody glorious. 
 

I love a good music/rhythm game. From Guitar Hero, to Beat Mania, from Osu Tatake Ouendan, to that Namco one with the blue/red drums that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of. It’s a brilliant genre. 
 

I’ve never heard of this series before. Apparently it was on the DS? It passed me by somehow. Anyway, this is the series’s grand finale. And the team has basically gone “Let’s use pretty much all the classic Final Fantasy music we can, and a ton of other stuff for good measure. 
 

I’m no FF expert, 10 was the last game in the series I completed. But the music of 6, 7, 8, 9 and Tactics, has been stuck in my mind, for decades. Some of the best music in gaming. My girlfriend Sarah listened to some of their soundtracks, and absolutely loves them, despite never playing any of the games. 
 

So, the demo for this came up last month. I played one level, and then preordered the full game. Fair to say a good impression was made. 
 

Each game in the series has a selection of tracks (typically at least 10+). In typical rhythm game style, you press buttons to the beat, sometimes multiple buttons at once, sometimes using the directional sticks. 
 

Sounds simple enough. But there’s a nice bit of depth going on. Each song has “Quests” to complete, from not failing a beat, to using certain characters. With rewards unlocked for completing them. As you unlock each game, you gain characters specifically to that game to use in your party. You play as 4 characters, and as they level up, you gain new abilities that you can use to boost your score, and attack strength. 
 

During the song, your characters react to your performance, and you can also unlock summons, to dish out additional damage. 
 

There’s a TON of stuff to unlock, and I’m still getting my head around how it all works. But as far as the song selections go, there’s a good couple of hundred songs here. From every FF, to Crisis Core. FF7 Remake gets its own selection. FF Tactics is included. As is pretty much every FF spin off you can think of, to some extent. 
 

And there’s planned additional DLC content, from Secret Of Mana, to Xenogears, Nier, pretty much every RPG Square have ever done, by the looks of it. 
 

Give the demo a go. Personally, I’m loving this.

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The first two were on 3DS, my impressions back then were similar to yours now. Final Bar Line feels like a slight (emphasis very much on that word) step back for me because some elements felt more at home with a stylus than they do with an analogue stick. The flicking notes for example can be a tad cumbersome on higher difficulties and the long, curved notes during exploration stages feel a bit pointless as it only applies digital values anyway (i.e. no need to just slightly tilt the stick for slight curves). Oddly enough I also had to configure the delay in handheld mode – maybe between standard, Lite and OLED there are different types of delays present?

 

Anyway, with the handheld stylus era being over this is the next best thing and I've started to adapt during the demo already. Fundamentally it's just such a good concept that I wish other publishers would copy it left and right (imagine this with Castlevania's OST). It's also really packed with little extras on top that the previous games didn't have, plus of course the bonus of going all the way up to the most recent FF games like XV and VII Remake.

 

In addition to those you mentioned there'll also be DLC for music from Octopath Traveler, which is the unsung hero of the lineup here IMO. That game had an absolutely incredible soundtrack.

 

(If you like this, you might also want to check out Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. Made by the same team and encompassing the entire KH saga released so far, it's not quite as good but still very fun.)

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Yeah ive played the 2 ds ff games and liked them, the second one has ~200 songs, cant remember if there are more ff ones on ds. Got the dragon quest version recently and didnt enjoy it though, maybe wasnt in the mood for it, thats why i didnt order this one anyway. Will still probably try and get it if it goes cheaper.

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I must admit some of the “guide the icon down a long snaking green path” definitely feel they’d be better suited with a stylus. Sometimes I manage to do them absolutely fine. Other times I fail them and I’m not too sure why.

 

Ah well. I’ve played it for 5 hours already. “Just one more song” pretty much never ends. 
 

Haven’t really played any Kingdom Hearts. But if Memory is anything like this, I’ll definitely give it a go. 

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13 hours ago, AndyKurosaki said:

I must admit some of the “guide the icon down a long snaking green path” definitely feel they’d be better suited with a stylus. Sometimes I manage to do them absolutely fine. Other times I fail them and I’m not too sure why.

 

Either go full up or full down on the stick, don't worry about trying to follow the path exactly.

 

I'm having such an enjoyable time with this. So much love has gone into its production. I'll be grabbing some DLC packs for sure - The World Ends With You, NieR and Octopath Traveler should be a dream to play through.

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I’ve “finished” the story mode, which basically involves clearing a number of Games to unlock the final battle. But I’ve still got absolutely loads to do. I’ve every song to finish, and considering there’s 200+, I’m only about halfway through. And that’s just on the standard difficulty setting. There’s quests to complete for every song (don’t miss, do so much damage). And then there’s Endless Mode, where you get 3 lives to play as many songs as possible. The catch is, each song has a quest. Fail that quest, and you lose a life, even if you complete the song.

 

And I’m regularly swapping out my 4th character, to unlock more skills that may help me tackle higher difficulties.

 

Honestly, there’s so much content to this game, and it’s bloody brilliant. Will definitely end up being one of my favourite games of the year.

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One nitpick I have, triggered by the anniversary logo popping up on booting the game, is that the collectable cards feel a bit half-arsed. I remember on the 3DS you could flip them for some info on the characters and zoom around and such. It's unnecessary of course, but it would have added a bit to the whole "compendium" idea this game has as its baseline theme.

 

But it's true, the amount of songs is absolutely nuts. I've only completed 11 games so far, but not even fully (some quests are devilish) and am nearing twenty hours of playtime.

 

I'd also like to add that the multiplayer as really fun, despite its barebones functionalities. You have these Mario Kart style lobbies with four people and pre-made text snippets, and the next song gets randomly chosen between the four player's picks. The word is overused, but it's a surprisingly wholesome experience because while it technically is competitive, there's really nothing to lose. Even last place receives some Rhytmia, XP for their characters and one card. Plus if you happen to play a song you haven't unlocked yet, you get it for Free Play as well. The only downside is that you can't mix-match difficulty levels, so everyone in a lobby has to play on the same one.

 

But if someone is on Switch and wants to play a bit, let me know, I'll try to check back here a bit more regularly for the time being. I play on "Expert" (normal), which is a bit easy on some songs, but I find Master a tad too brutal from rank 9/10 onwards.

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Definitely agree about the collectible cards. Even a little bit of info would have been nice. But nope, nothing. So I’ve long since stopped looking at those. 
 

Had a couple of goes on the multiplayer, really didn’t enjoy it at all. Purely because of the “Blitz” special moves, which frequently activate during the song, and were a total ballache. From hiding the notes, to adding false ones, to freezing you temporarily,to completely obscuring your view with moogles/chocobos so you literally can’t see what notes are coming up. It was a total clusterfuck, and not fun at all. 

Doesn’t seem to be any trophies linked to that mode. So I doubt I’ll bother with that again. Maybe you can turn that shite off. But even so, I’ve enough to do still with the single player.

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