The Final Fantasy series is one of the biggest Roleplay game series (RPG) of the modern era with over 95 games including 15 main titles, 1 relaunch of Final Fantasy 14, 1 upcoming title coming out this year, and 78 spin offs on different consoles. There is no argument to be made that this franchise is massive just by its sheer number of games that have been produced. One of those games that I will be reviewing is neither a main title nor a spinoff, but a fun unique way of retelling the story of most of the Final Fantasy games. The game I am referring to is THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE which recently got rereleased onto the Nintendo Switch, so join me on this retelling to find out if this rerelease still holds up to the original.
TheatRhythm Final Bar Line is a rhythm game that uses the soundtrack of each game to retell the story of each game the soundtrack is from. It isn’t just one narrative but a retelling through the rhythm of all the Final Fantasy games that were released at the time. The game was recently brought back into the Switch from the 3DS. There are three playable modes for the game: Series quests, Music stages, and Multi Battle. Series mode is where you play the main game and unlock the various songs and characters throughout the Final Fantasy series. There are two types of gameplay modes: the battle mode and the field mode. The battle mode has the player combat many minions and bosses of the series through Rhythm and the field mode has the characters traverse using rhythm that features a special kind of trigger that only appears in that mode. The Music stages allows players to replay their favorite Final Fantasy songs in different styles and difficulties. Finally, Multi Battle allows up to 4 online players to play battle mode songs against each other. The player can either create a room or join one and battle others using the power of Rhythm.
The gameplay is simple; there are different types of triggers in the rhythm game modes. In the battle mode there are three types of triggers that each have different colors. 1.) the red ones are the triggers that are only required to press once there are ones that require a single button press and ones that require two presses from different buttons at the same time which buttons does not matter as long as they are pressed at the same time. 2.) the green triggers that have to be pressed and held down until the end which can have two prompts that need to be pressed and held at the same time. There is also a green prompt in field battle mode that is only exclusive there in which the prompt needs to be pressed and held, but also moved up or down using the analog stick. 3.) Finally, there are the yellow prompts that have arrows, these prompts require the use of the sticks in order for them to be registered. There will either be one arrow or two; the one with the two arrows requires both analog sticks to be moved in the direction they point towards. The player can have up to 4 characters from the Final Fantasy series in their party regardless of what game they are from. Each character has their own set of abilities that they can unlock as they level up that can help them defeat more enemies. There are also creatures that can be summoned during battle when a gauge fills up once summoned; these creatures can help by either attacking enemies or buffing/healing your party. There wasn’t anything buggy that I noticed with the gameplay and this game does have a few other RPG elements than most Rhythm games I have played. There is also a large amount of replay ability with this game, however I have noticed that there are some songs that are locked behind DLC and season passes which I don’t think should be the case for a game that was brought back from the 3DS era, but it could have honestly been a lot worse if each song and level was locked behind a paywall.
The visuals of this game are very colorful and energetic. The style is very reminiscent of Poptropica mixed with a puppet show where the puppets run-in place while the backdrop moves behind them. It’s a very fun art style that I haven’t seen in a while in many video games in recent years.
In conclusion, I had a very fun time with this game. It was a unique experience and something that I am normally not used to. I’m glad that there was an opportunity to experience all of these legendary songs again with a very much different aesthetic and fun game, despite having most of the songs locked behind season passes.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch