For RPG fans, the score of most Final Fantasy games is appropriately orchestral and exciting. Through the whole franchise, main theme music and battle hymns follow similar musical patterns, but actually feature different styles that have always fit into the context of the game's characters - ranging from the manic Dancing Mad when fighting Kefka in Final Fantasy VI to the futuristic sound of The Man With The Machine Gun in Final Fantasy VIII. Until now, for fans of the songs in these games, there hasn't been a good "greatest hits" compilation album featuring a lot of these memorable ballads.
Enter Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, a 3DS rhythm game that fits this mold, and adds some light leveling mechanics to keep things interesting. Final Fantasy characters from I-XIII are represented, much as they are in Dissidia, or more accurately Dissidia Duodecim. In fact, this game's throwaway story revolves around Cosmos and Chaos and the music of the crystals being corrupted into disharmony....or something. The context of this really doesn't matter, since the plot of this is basically Dissidia with DDR mechanics thrown into it.
For the uninitiated, buttons on the top screen correlate to stylus actions on the bottom screen in beat with the music. You either have to hold the stylus on the bottom screen, swipe in a direction, or tap the screen. These notes sync with the music and songs are divided into three types of note highways: EMS (generally dramatic/love themes) where the cursor moves in any direction on screen, BMS (battle music) where notes come at your party of 4 characters, and FMS (world map music) where one character walks across screen and the notes come at different positions of the screen, which only comes into play for the green/hold down the stylus sections because these notes have to match the wavy positions. Crazier still, the music comes from the original format, so the NES square-wave stylings of II are on the same cartridge as the PS2 sounds from XII.
In practice this gameplay is not only addictive, but it also works surprisingly well. The stylus turns out to be an effective way to tap along to the music of these games and swipes across the screen register accurately. The downside of this system is that for the more challenging difficulties (Dark Notes and Ultimate Scores) swiping in opposite directions on 1/32 notes after long holds is not intuitive and can ruin a good run. Also, on EMS stages, the slower-paced tempo of these songs do not jive well with the sometimes-frenetic swiping inputs on screen.
But the game does a great job with tutorials and gradually increasing the pace as you become more familiar with the controls. You start with Series Mode, which is a collection of three songs from any of the FFs, then unlock Challenge Mode, which works as a kind of Free Play option for choosing whatever song you want. Unlocks come from Rhythmia, a currency that really only ever goes up and, at certain intervals, unlocks a new movie/song/character for you to see/watch/play as in the gallery, respectively. There are lots of neat easter eggs in the game and nods to known FF tropes, as well as a trading card system that shows off the doll-like quality of the characters and monsters the developers put in the game. Cactuar, as always, is a funny monster to look at.
What isn't explained well is the skills/stats screen that comes with choosing characters for your party - Strength, Magic, Agility, and Luck are said to have an effect on how songs across the modes play out, but better stats don't necessarily translate to better performances or ratings. Agility and Luck play more of an effect in 2 of the 3 modes, while Strength and Magic take into effect on BMS stages. Regardless, they don't seem to do much other than increase the chance of items or Moogles appearing. Characters level up, gain new abilities that help these stats, and generally increase survival on songs that are a lot harder...but unlike some Final Fantasy games, there isn't a wall you hit on difficult stages requiring you to grind levels to get past them. For example, you can take on One-Winged Angel on Ultimate Score with all 4 characters at level 1 and still succeed (good luck with that!). The leveling system gives the game some progression beyond simple performance ratings, but doesn't add much.
There are 70 or so songs on the cartridge (though some of the omitted choices are a little baffling), with more DLC promised on the way. DLC songs can only be played on Challenge Mode and as such are "deeper cuts" into the FF music (like Cosmo Canyon from VII), but the trade-off is songs are only $1. That's a reasonable deal, but there is no way to preview the song before you buy, unlike Rock Band where a snippet of the song will play when you highlight it. The store right now has a sparse selection and doesn't seem to include some of the more popular "deep cuts" in series history. Here's hoping they put the soundtracks from every FF on the store at some point - I could get down with some Samba de Chocobo.
The promise of this mash-up between RPG and Music game mechanics doesn't always work, but Theatrhythm has a lot of style and moxie for a Final Fantasy game and brings new life into some old tracks and wraps it in an addicting experience for fans of the series. Maybe some of these systems will be even more polished for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy 2: Electric Boogaloo?