Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (2023)

With having recently completed my playthrough of Lightning Returns I was finally able to finish the last set of series quests I needed to complete all the feats in the game! I'm a bit salty I can't get the 5 stars on my profile card because multiplayer is basically dead on the Switch but that 100/100 looks pretty sweet!

So I decided to grab all the DLC after seeing that there still wasn't a premium edition upgrade for people like me that bought the game physical.

It's been very fun so far, even though I haven't played many of the franchises featured in the DLC packs.

My very uninformed opinion after playing through a bunch is that the Mana series's music is stellar but SaGa series's music (which I had not heard of prior to this) is kind of lame. The latter is unfortunate because there's a TON of representation for SaGa in here. More than there is for most other non Final Fantasy series in the game. So idk if someone on the Dev team just really loves that series or they picked bad tracks from it or what but I'm glad I got through them all. At least until I revisit to go for critical chart completion and perfect chains.

I don't have a review together, but here's a list of my random thoughts so far.

CONTENT

1. This is super subjective, but I feel like a lot of important songs aren't included. No Eyes on Me? Melodies of Life? I don't love FFXIII-2's soundtrack but shouldn't Worlds Collide be there? Also, not even important songs, but there are lot of GREAT songs from titles that just weren't included and it's weird.

2. There are a lot of iconic FF songs, and good lord there are a lot of awful, generic songs. Dissidia, 14, some of the 13 sequels, looking at you, and we can throw a lot of 15, Type-0, Crisis Core, and the "FF Series" tunes in there as well.

3. Record Keeper didn't get great representation in this game, there were lots of original tracks that didn't make it.

4. No rep for my underdog FF Dimensions :(

5. It is WILD to me that 6-10's final bosses' music is significantly truncated. Like, what is the point of this game if not that? But then I recall some boring, unmemorable 14 tune that was SO. LONG. I don't get it.

GAMEPLAY but really QoL improvements I'd like

1. I really wish there was a legitimate way to practice tunes you want to get better at. Auto mode gives you a hint of what it sounds like, I suppose, but Practice mode is only slightly better than useless. This would be my ideal: a. Slow the tune down incrementally as much as you want; b. See a graph of how you did on the whole tune. Like, see an image of the triggers like when you're playing, and where you pressed the button relative in time. As is, seeing that you're late or early in the tune isn't very helpful if you can't remember your habits; c. isolate the sound of the triggers from the song, especially on Auto mode, so you can just hear the triggers outside of the music; d. Have a togglable metronome.

2. Would be nice to have a tempo indicator

3. Would be very nice to have bar lines or some way to delineate time, even if it's just the downbeat. THE TITLE IS A LIE.

4. I don't know how to do this while still being clear and concise, but the red for press, green for hold, yellow for arrow is maybe a little insufficient? A tune like The Castle from FF8 on the hardest difficulty is really tough to parse. But it might be enough with measures like I mentioned above.

5. Ok this is a personal one. I have a hard time differentiating between triplets and dotted notes sometimes with how the triggers are notated. So I've picked a couple tunes I like that I'm focusing on getting gud at, and one of them is The Conflict from Romancing SaGa. I swear there's a triplet in the 10th measure, but they programmed the triggers wrong around it, so I can play it perfectly, but it doesn't sound like the music. This is driving me insane. So is the offbeats part with all the press-release and arrow sticks but, I can't ever seem to stay in time on that, and I think it has something to do with the game assuming you're hitting a surrounding trigger out of time but not that one. Maybe? Maybe doing three things at once is too much, game. Sometimes I can get through it and keep the chain going, but rarely.

How's everyone else faring?

PSA about Event Music Sequence (The Video Songs):

EVENT MUSIC SEQUENCES CONTAIN SPOILERS - Except for XIV.

The videos are different in this game than the 3Ds versions, and will now use ALL footage including the endings!! Some are SUPER spoilery, like X-2, XIII-2, and Type-0 which reveals big twists. And then XV's EMS is somehow long and... showcases the entire game lol.

The safe(r) ones I'd say are the following:

• XIV - Only one that's 100% safe, because this is just the Realm Reborn Intro Sequence.
• VII - Because the ending is already a Smash Bros stage
• VII: Remake - I don't see big reveals in this one
• X - I don't see big reveals in this one
• Curtain Call Medley - Mostly because the featured clips are super short and it's "minor 1s ending spoilers without context"

Solid entry overall that's primarily an upgrade over the 3DS Curtain Call version. Here's my assorted random thoughts:

There's one nitpicky thing that bothers me...

Field Sequences NO longer have unique backdrops -- losing a lot of personality

For all field sequences, the background is now a generic forest / village / castle / etc. It's not a problem with the older titles, but it feels REALLY weird playing a song from a more contemporary setting like VII's Midgar (Motorcycle Chase), VIII's Balamb Garden, or XV's Insomnia (Somnus) and seeing the backdrop... still be a generic medieval castle. Really weird considering these all had unique backdrops even in the 3ds game that could just be copy and pasted.

Therefore there's a bit of inconsistency with how some titles are treated. XII feels like a dud now because most of the songs from that game are field songs with generic backgrounds now, with the battle songs re-using the same 3 backdrops. On the other hand... EVERY battle from XIV has a unique backdrop actually based on the dungeons / raids which is... really cool. Even the 5 Alexander songs (more than actual Heavensward lol) all match the exact battle arena when you play against the different bosses in the actual game.

XIV questline feels weird to end on Eden raid final boss when that's just side content. Even if Endwalker isn't in this game, I would've appreciated something like "To The Edge" which is played during a very major fight of post-patch Shadowbringers to wrap up XIV.

Glad to see VII: Remake songs even though most songs are (understandly) shortened. The VII: Remake version of One Winged Angel starts with a really weird cut to the last section, but otherwise the original track is like 11 minutes long so I get why. Airburster is cut short for the same reason.

You're also forced to start with II, V, VII, XIII, XIV, or XV. And you can't unlock any other games until you've fully finished one game route to the end. Granted it's very likely you'll already be drawn to one of these, but suppose you wanted to start with X instead it's a bit of a bummer. I'd feel a better starting selection would I, IV, VII, X, XIV, and XV.

Stayed up late to play for a little over an hour last night. It's glorious for the most part, but I still really don't like how the songs and series are unlocked. I would prefer more challenge in unlocking characters like in the previous entries than this restriction from freely playing any of the tracks in the Music Stage. You have to play them in the Series Quest to add them to the Music Stage.

I was hoping that the six games from the demo were just that--for the demo, but unfortunately, they're the only ones you can start with in the full game as well. (I didn't carry over demo data, either.) You then have to fully clear a game before you can even use a key (found midway through a game's tracks) to unlock one of the other games (not including the six at the start).

So I played through all of XIII's (which actually only meant clearing 10/13 tracks because it doesn't also make you clear the second track option that might be on some stages) and unlocked my precious FFX. The plus to clearing a series is that you unlock some other goodies, and it adds all of that game's tracks to the free play mode instead of just the ones you cleared for that game.

Regardless, I'm super happy to have another entry in this gem of a series.

OKAY. I think I'm getting the hang of this. I went ahead and pre-ordered, I'm having fun with it. The easy levels are reeeaaalllly easy, but above that it gets challenging. One thing that trips me up, it seems like they're making you feel the tunes in the most difficult way possible, like all of the 6/8 or 3/4 stuff in the FFXIII music, they make you feel it in 2 over 3, which is really tough, especially when the music doesn't feel that way. Some of the really hard ones are seemingly impenetrable for now, like the most difficult Chocobo tune. I'm trying to hold the controller in a way that frees up as much of my hands for whatever as possible, but some of this stuff is just yikes hard.

I'm proud to say I'm able to get a perfect run on the hardest level of the XIII battle tunes, so that's fun. It just takes some practice. I think the hardest thing so far, other than deciphering fast rhythms with no sort of pulse display or barlines, is when you have to hold a note, then do other stuff, and release the note in time with another button press. Or, alternate holding notes and releases at different times, THAT stuff is hard.

As of right now, I've picked up a bunch of summons, have all the demo characters at level 30, and can complete all the tunes on every level except Supreme, so I'm ready for this. :)

I can't help but wonder, why in this and the Dissidia games do they choose to use Onion Knight as the FF3 rep, and not Luneth, Arc, Refia, and Ingus, but then also, and in Record Keeper, shoehorn in minor characters like Sarah, Matoya, or "Amano WoL illustration but not in the game" from FF1, Gilgamesh, or Cid Raines from 13?

The only other thing, I wish it was possible to see the action of the game more, but alas, thus is the curse of a rhythm game.

Worth mentioning FFXIV: Endwalker is not featured anywhere in the base game at all, and not even in Deluxe. The latest the game seems to go is FFXV DLC songs and base FFVII Remake. FFXIV only goes up to Shadowbringers, including an Eden raid song.

Source: https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/theatrhythm-thursday-final-bar-line-song-list

Then again I still think Endwalker and even FFXVI might be the "???" unrevealed DLC packs. Or it could just be the Chocobo Racing series in the end. Who knows.