I never saw this review coming at the start of the year but I really need to get this up now because it’s oddly become something of an obsession of mine in the last two-ish months, despite the fact I’ve never really played rhythm games before, and I have no doubt it’ll end up on my Top 10 2023 Games list somewhere. It’s all thanks to the YouTube channel Good Vibes Gaming for covering the build up to its release so favourably combined with a demo release allowing me to think “well, why not? It’s free, I’ll give it a try.” Famous last words…
Background:
Yep… that’s a pretty plain screenshot I’ve chosen here… Um… *runs away*
Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line was released for Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch on February 16th 2023 worldwide. It’s the fourth entry in the franchise after Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy and Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy – Curtain Call on the 3DS and the Arcade exclusive Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy – All-Star Carnival. There was also a Theatrythm for Dragon Quest that was never released outside of Japan, if you want to count all games with Theatrythm in the title (an annoying title that’s giving this word document a seizure!) and they also did Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory in the same style, even if it didn’t have the same sub-series title.
Obviously not owning a 3DS or living near an Arcade in Japan even if I did like rhythm games this would’ve been my first chance to give the franchise a go.
Gameplay:
I didn’t need any help getting the timing on this one, lord knows I’ve listened to it enough over the years!
As mentioned, plus it being in the title, this is a rhythm game where classic Final Fantasy songs from across all fifteen (as of this writing!) mainline games, countless spin-offs and even band covers are turned into timing sheets where you have to press two buttons and use the two analogue sticks to match button presses, button holds and flicking the sticks in specific directions at the right time as they pass across a circle picture at the right side of the screen. There are two kinds of music, with Battle songs you get four lines worth and as the difficulty goes up you have to press two buttons at the same time, two directions (that often swap right after each other) and even press and hold one button while pressing the other then going straight into a very rapid-fire series of directions. Frankly anything over a 6 or 7 out of the 16 (I think) levels was too quick for me and my reactions. The Field songs are just one line but a lot of the holding notes move up and down while you hold, forcing you to move an analogue stick up and down to match.
While that’s the main crux of the gameplay there are light RPG elements as you unlock characters as you go and they level up, as they level up they unlock moves and abilities. You see as you play the music sheet at the top of the screen at the bottom your chosen party battle monsters and bosses, gaining experience, items and “CollectaCards”. They do damage based on their stats and their moves, plus your timing also doing damage to enemies depending on how good you do (as it’s rated from rainbow critical, regular critical, great, good, bad and miss). You can also unlock summons which not only do damage when their gauge fills but they can have stat-boosting abilities as well, plus different airships and outfits for your Moogle, though both of those are purely cosmetic.
An example of multiplayer! I honestly did this one round for exactly this purpose and then never played again… I’m just not a competitive online kind of guy.
There are three main modes, with the main mode being Series Quest where you sort-of replay through the storylines of all the games covered by playing the songs and fighting the foes and bosses relevant to the moment with special challenges for each stage (“Beat the boss in 25 seconds”, “Get at least 70% critical score”, “Beat X amount of enemies” that sort of thing), this is where you unlock songs, characters and gain game-specific CollectaCards. You then have a mode for freely playing any song you want and a multi-player mode where you can face off against up to four other players head-to-head online. I have to mention as well that all three modes offer three ways to play: “Standard” which is as described, a two player co-op and “Simple” which reduces everything down to just a single button press. They each have their own recorded Top Scores so you’ll know if someone scored higher than you used a different mode than the standard when they share their score!
That just leaves a museum where you can look at all your different rarity-level CollectaCards, which in case you haven’t figured it out yet is just collectable images, and look at the Feats list which is like achievements/trophies but while those are actually doable by your average player (I’m a silver away from the Platinum trophy myself, something I basically NEVER do with any game) some the Feats are damn-near impossible, like getting nearly 10,000,000 points on an “Supreme” difficulty song for example… Screw that, my fingers don’t move that fast!
Graphics and Sound:
Awww, the Tomberrys are so cute… Wait, what’s the name of this song?!
The character graphics have frankly a cheap phone-game look to them, with basic Funko-Pop like faces and movement like they’re made of different bits of paper. The backgrounds are otherwise fine but if the actual game wasn’t so much fun I’d be more annoyed with the graphical style, as it stands during actual play you’re far too focused on the actual notes to look underneath you!
Sound wise? Bit crap honestly… by which I mean it’s a rhythm game full of songs from Final Fantasy and other Square games, it’s obviously great!
Downloadable Content:
Enraged Battle got stuck in my head for a good week or two. Never played the game it came from, most likely never will, but damn it’s catchy as hell!
There are three “seasons” worth of DLC song packs set to come out over the next year featuring songs from other Square games like the SaGa series, Nier, Chrono Trigger, Octopath Traveller and even The World Ends With You, which came out a week or two ago. That made me laugh because I had to cover NEO: A World Ends With You for Anime UK News last year (or two years ago now? Can’t remember) and I’d completely forgot about the song “Breaking Free” until I heard it again here. Made me laugh as at one point I couldn’t get that song out of my head…
Thoughts Now:
I know that this song has immediately popped into your head! (Also I got a “bad” due to pressing the Screenshot button at the same time as trying to time button pushes… honest!)
What else can I say about Final Bar Line? Tried the demo on a whim, played the demo to DEATH, got the full game and then proceeded to play it TO DEATH until only just recently thanks to the RE4 Remake… but even then I’m dipping back in here and there “just for a few songs quickly” and then losing an hour or two. While I’m not likely to become rhythm game obsessed now (it is more the Square soundtracks that are the big appeal) I’m happy I stepped out of my comfort zone and gave it a go, so if you have any love of good video game music and a spare hour why not download the demo yourself, you may be surprised!
Hogan Reviews 