SUPPORT US ON KO-FI!
Final Fantasy is the latest in a long line of video game series to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and it goes without saying that Square Enix is pulling out all the stops to mark the special occasion. You would expect a decent celebration to include a soundtrack or two, but this one features a very different kind of musical tribute: a brand new rhythm title set to the music of Final Fantasy and featuring some of the series' most recognisable and enjoyable tracks.
Featuring more than seventy songs from the thirteen numbered Final Fantasy games, with more to be made available as paid add-on content after launch, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is an original musical title in which players must hit the right notes (known as triggers) at the right time by tapping or moving the stylus on the touch screen as they pass by on the top screen. Think of a cross between the gameplay of Donkey Konga (and any other instrument-aided music game) and the control methods of Rhythm Paradise and you're pretty close.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy features three different types of triggers, which all act the same way no matter which mode you're playing in, but in every case you need to get the timing spot on to get the best possible score. Hit the trigger perfectly to get a Critical hit, miss it completely and you'll get a Miss, and anything between gets you a Great, Good or Bad hit. The simplest and most common trigger is the Touch Trigger, which you just tap the screen to hit. You also have the Hold Trigger, for which you hold the stylus down between the two triggers either side of the holding space. The yellow Slide Triggers are tricky: you have to move the stylus in the direction of the arrow on the trigger, but if you don't hit it exactly right, it'll give you a Bad or a Miss hit, which can be unfair at times.
Theatrhythm features three different types of music stage - Battle, Field, and Event - all of which are based on the core gameplay of the Final Fantasy series. Battle Music Stages include four lanes on the top screen, each with triggers moving towards a marker at the end. Triggers will never overlap, so you'll only ever need to hit one at a time, but you'll still need to keep an eye on all the lanes. These stages feature enemies, though they can never actually hurt you; the only thing that can damage you in any stage is getting a Bad or a Miss hit. Field Music Stages are based on open world areas from the series: they feature just one marker, but the main difference is that the green Hold Triggers move up and down the screen. When you're holding the stylus on the touch screen, you'll also need to move it up and down, though this is made a lot easier by the fact that the marker moves to show where you are.
In the Event Music Stages, the marker moves instead of the triggers, so you'll need to hit the trigger when the marker moves over it. It's not as easy as the other stages, mainly because the marker can speed up and slow down, and Slide Triggers can display arrows in almost any direction. If you don't get the direction exactly right, you'll get a Bad hit, which can seem unfair in quicker stages, especially given the game's tough stance that you must keep the stylus on the touch screen for these - you can't just flick it. Despite this, the Event stages are still enjoyable, though the Field Music Stages are generally the most fun, having the best flow to them.
The game's main mode - and its biggest pull if pure enjoyment is anything to go by - is the Series mode. There are thirteen different Series, one for each main game, and each includes a Field, an Event and a Battle stage. They also include two Demo stages, where all you have to do is tap the touch screen whenever musical notes hover over the crystal on the top screen. Demo stages bookend each Series and are set to the opening and ending themes of each game, making each Series feel much more like a complete set. Once you complete a Series, you can play the individual Field, Event and Battle stages in the Challenge mode, where you don't need to play all three at once and you can work on any individual track you like to better hone your skills at it. Making players complete a Series before being able to access the individual songs is a clever move, ensuring you'll play the entirely of the game's main mode if you want them all.
You would assume Theatrhythm, much like any music game, doesn't need a storyline; however, it's also a Final Fantasy game, which would seem to suggest that it does. The solution to this conundrum is a low-profile backstory which actually works quite well: the story goes that two gods, Chaos and Cosmos, rule over the world, and that in the space between the two is the Music Crystal, which is being dimmed by the power of Chaos. By clearing stages, you collect Rhythmia, which is used to restore power to the Crystal. You'll need to collect as much Rhythmia as possible to progress through the game, and by doing so you'll also be able to unlock some neat little extras.
To add a little more strategy into Theatrhythm, you also have a party of four characters with you. Initially, you can pick between thirteen characters - one for each numbered Final Fantasy game - but by collecting Rhythmia, you can also find coloured shards, and collecting enough of these unlocks a lot more characters. Each character has seven stats, the main ones being their HP, which depletes every time you hit a Bad or Miss in a stage; their Strength and Magic, which are important for more easily defeating enemies in Battle Music Stages; and Agility and Luck, which let you travel further and get better items in both Field and Event Music Stages. Each character also has CP, which are the points that let you assign special abilities to characters, examples being "get better item picks" or "increase Agility during stages". Beating stages also gets you EXP, which is used to increase your characters' Level, in turn improving all their statistics at once.
You're probably still getting over the fact that there's a Final Fantasy music game, so goodness knows what you'll think to it featuring characters and RPG traits like the ones we've just mentioned, but rest assured it's not something you need to worry about. It's a fun addition to the game and certainly not one you'd expect, but the level of customisation you have with your party is very impressive, and you'll no doubt find yourself trying different combinations for certain stages. Try getting the best Agility and Luck stats for your party and playing a few Field stages, or setting up a powerful Strength and Magic team for Battle stages - you'll find yourself getting plenty of useful items. You can equip one item to your party at any time, and these are pretty similar to characters' Abilities in that they can help you out whenever you need them, adding even more strategy to the mix.
These aren't the only types of items, though. We've already mentioned shards - collect eight of the same colour to unlock a new character - but there are other collectibles as well, all of which can be found in the game's Museum. This features a music player and a video player, where tracks and videos you've unlocked by collecting Rhythmia can be listened to and watched. It also includes your collection of CollectaCards; these are cards with information about characters, monsters and more from Final Fantasy's history. By collecting duplicates of cards, you can unlock even rarer versions with more information and better (read: shinier, prettier) designs. Whether you're a series veteran or a newcomer to the world of Final Fantasy, it's a great addition to the game and it provides some really interesting information on the characters and enemies in the series.
An intriguing aspect of Theatrhythm is its difficulty level. There are three difficulty levels - Basic, Expert and Ultimate - and you'll select the difficulty level once you've picked the track you want to play. The harder the difficulty, the more notes the track will feature, and the more varied they'll be. Basic speaks for itself: even the game tells you beginners won't have any problems with this. It's a lot of fun, and you'll enjoy the flow of it, so its easiness certainly doesn't cause it to be lacklustre. We call the difficulty intriguing because of the considerable step up to Expert, though given the even bigger step up to Ultimate it seems to level out pretty well. We checked the number of triggers on one Field Music Stage track, which totalled around 120 on Basic, around 200 on Expert and around 320 on Ultimate. It's a great challenge, though you might want to stick with Basic for a little while before you move up.
The difficulty is really shown off in a section called the Chaos Shrine. This features Dark Notes: randomly-generated compositions made of two movements, one Field and one Battle. The difficulty of these ranges anywhere between the Expert and Ultimate courses in comparison, though some are noticeably easier than others. As per usual, enemies will show up in the Battle stage, but each Dark Note has three bosses, each of which drops rare items. The catch is that you'll only see one boss each time you play, and if you won't do well enough in the Field stage you'll only see the boss with the less valuable item drops. A lot of the rarer items are the shards used to unlock characters, and these are probably the biggest incentive to try out the Dark Notes.
It's a testament to the music of the Final Fantasy series that Square Enix has managed to pick out more than seventy fantastic tracks - with more to come as paid add-on content - that are all so enjoyable, not just to listen to, but to play along to as well. Not only are the soundtrack choices second to none, the presentation is sublime (everything is cute, but not overpoweringly so), the extras are well thought out, and the game in general is just an awful lot of fun. Our only minor issues are the sometimes unfair Slide Triggers and the somewhat steep difficulty levels. Those aside, if you're a fan of the rhythm and music genre, this is one game you really have to dedicate some time to. It's not only a great tribute to Final Fantasy in its 25th year, it's also one of the most original titles on the Nintendo 3DS.
