Going on 35 years, fifteen mainline instalments, and a wide selection of varied spin-off games, the Final Fantasy RPG franchise is one of the industry monoliths that have been applauded for many reasons. One of those continuous reasons has been its stellar soundtracks, with songs supporting everything from kick-ass battles to moments of emotional beauty with a memorable and fitting melody. During the franchise’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, Square Enix conceived, developed and released a celebration of Final Fantasy music on the Nintendo 3DS – titled Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. With this release, fans now had the opportunity to enjoy hundreds of tracks from all currently released games, complemented by simplistic rhythm-based RPG mechanics, uniting mainline instalments, characters and beasts in a massive crossover experience. Ten years later, the Nintendo 3DS is no longer being actively developed for, and Square Enix has opted to pivot the spin-off series to a range of home video game consoles with Theatrhythm Final Bar Line for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Boasting a repertoire of 385 tracks with many, many more to be released over the coming months through DLC,
While it might feel a wee bit awkward at first, the transition from the tiny Nintendo 3DS touch screen to a controller for gameplay is a very smooth one, keeping things simple at the base level but adding a few elements that can easily throw players off if not paying attention. There are generally two different play styles depending on which song you choose, pretty much returning from the past games. First, you have Field Music Sequence (FMS), where your chosen party travel across an overworld, occasionally encountering mobs to take down. This is arguably the simplest mode, albeit fewer in number, where you move a cursor up and down in response to the notes flying at you from the left side of the screen. While built with the 3DS’ stylus in mind, adapting the system for the analog stick worked well, and there were very few “unfair” moments where I overshot or undershot the movement of the cursor. Then you have the Battle Music Sequence (BMS) songs, often consisting of battle or action-oriented themes from each game, where each of your four party members lines up in a row a la classic Final Fantasy battle style, and you hit the notes as they reach each respective character’s respective cursor on the right side of the screen. Hitting the notes enables the characters to do basic attacks, perform skills and summon, while missing them causes your party’s HP to drop. Event Music Sequences (EMS) songs also reappear in the game, often one per game, with simplified rhythm controls so you can enjoy the cutscenes playing. As mentioned before, they do a good job at replicating the mechanics from the 3DS releases onto home video consoles and offer a few tweaks here and there to make gameplay approachable overall.
While meant to be a celebration of all Final Fantasy music, this time around they don’t give you access to the full library of songs immediately, outside of those available through downloadable content. Instead, you begin the game with a single key and are made to work your way through the Series Quest. In this game’s storyless story mode, you choose a game, unlock its respective characters, and subsequently play through its songs – obtaining a new key once you complete a good 1/3rd of the tracklist, before repeating. It is a good way of encouraging you to slow down and enjoy all the music on offer and not just the greatest hits… but at the same time sometimes you want to enjoy those songs without having to trek through 20-30 songs to unlock it. Furthermore, while there is a massive selection of songs, it shows that with live service games such as the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, the tracklist favours tracks from the base game and first expansion, with only a small of music from later expansions, which is a shame given FFXIV could be deserving of a Theatrhythm game in itself. Outside of the ‘Series Quest’, the standard options apply, including a free-play mode, competitive online multiplayer support, and a gallery mode to enjoy all unlockables at your leisure.
Featuring the music of an RPG, it is only fitting that Theatrhythm Final Bar Line features RPG mechanics within its rhythm gameplay. The character progression system from previous instalments returns, with players able to unlock and form parties consisting of four characters from the same or different games. Broken down into multiple job classes (Physical, Magic, Defense, Healer, Summon, Hunter and Support), each character starts at level 1 and incrementally levels up as you use them in songs, eventually unlocking new skills and abilities, summonable creatures, stat boosts, and a few aesthetic enhancements such as Moogle costumes and an airship. Technically nothing is stopping you from getting a perfect score with a party of Level 1 characters, however by increasing your level and equipping your unlocked abilities, you can take down additional foes, and in turn unlock stage rewards including collectable cards, usable items and more.
With the aforementioned caveat, the music selection is great in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, even if I would sometime question the inclusion of one song over the other, and perhaps a bit of an overreliance on songs available in previous instalments to make up the bulk of the song list. This is especially true with some of the side games, such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, which has amazing music, yet only 8 tracks across its mainline release and Wii sequel. Furthermore, the FMV sequences are often underwhelming, where it tends to be a mishmash of clips from the game rather than the FMV clip it is associated with. Again using Final Fantasy XIV as an example, ‘Answers’ is an incredible song with arguably the best associated FMV of any Final Fantasy game – but instead was out of sync and included clips from other parts of the game. Not deal-breaking, but would have been better to stick with what was amazing in the first place.
On a very positive note, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a treat to the eyes, bringing the charm of the original 3DS games to the big screen. From the charming opening cinematic and moving into the game, it is clear the development team at indieszero saw this as more than just another project, with high-res 2D visuals, and well-designed character sprites, ensuring that each battle and overworld map didn’t look like ‘generic RPG’ but instead were set in their respective game world, and overall just a great amount of polish. While it is a shame that the DLC does not appear to have additional characters associated with them, which is a tad immersion-breaking, those that have been released to date have featured their individual unique environments as well, so kudos to them for keeping this approach to design up.
Part bringing Theatrhythm to current generation gaming consoles and part building upon the series’ already expansive tracklist, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a fabulous celebration of Final Fantasy’s 35 years in gaming, and through its post-launch DLC, a celebration of Square Enix music as a whole. While initially tedious to unlock the songs you like, the control scheme has ported across well for controllers and is easily accessible to all, while also offering some RPG mechanics and complexity for players who wish to challenge themselves further. Overall, a great, stress-free rhythm experience, with a tracklist you are unlikely to find repetitive anytime soon and nostalgia aplenty.
