Thank you Square Enix for sending us a review code! I really enjoyed playing Theatrhythm Final Fantasy and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call on the 3DS system. The first game in the series came out over ten years ago. Wow, Time flies! The 3DS versions of the game heavily relied on the touch screen, but Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Final Bar is fully playable with the JoyCons/game controllers. Touch screen is supported in the game menus, but not for gameplay. The story isn’t really explained in this entry, but if it’s the same as the previous games, the gods Chaos and Cosmos are separated by rhythm and the crystal between them has been corrupted by Chaos. It’s your job to restore it by producing rhythmia. There are three game modes: Series Quests, Music Stages, and Multi Battle. Unfortunately, Multi Battle (online multiplayer) is rather empty and it’s difficult to find online matches. Thankfully, there’s nearly four hundred songs to play in the base game with many more available through DLC purchases. In order for songs to appear in the Music Stages area, you’ll have to unlock them in the Series Quests.

The Series Quests are broken down by each of the Final Fantasy Games and in the beginning, most of them are unavailable. You can unlock them by obtaining a key in one of the available series. Most of the series titles have four characters that you can add to your party. You can swap out players at any time, but I tried to significantly level up each of characters to see what kind of abilities they have. Games with multiple entries like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XIII have alternate versions of the same characters (Cloud & Lightning). Like the previous games, there are three stage types: Battle, Event, and Field. Your party has a shared health bar and if that gets depleted, you’ll get a game over screen. To prevent that happening, you can equip items at the stage selection screen like health potions, and phoenix downs, which can resurrect your party. Silver and golden growth eggs can also be equipped to help level up your party members faster. The gameplay is still the same by tapping, slashing (with the joysticks), or holding in time with the triggers as they slide across the screen. You will get awarded with a bad, good, or critical rating depending on your timing. The best rating is a rainbow critical. Your overall score is determined by the number of points earned and you can be given anywhere from an F to a SSS.

Each level in the Series Quests has two completion modes. You can clear a level by surviving a playthrough. Completing a level will require you to clear the objective as well. The objectives range from having a particular party member to having to defeat a boss within twenty-five seconds. You’ll often be rewarded with an item or collectible card when finishing an objective. Between the number of songs and multiple difficulty levels, there’s a ton of replay-ability in this game. The Series Quest mode also has an unending world where you have to see how many random songs you can clear with only three lives. If you don’t want to be challenged at all, there’s an autoplay mode as well. I personally don’t see much fun in that. The backdrops in the levels are wonderfully detailed and I recognized many of them from the games they were inspired by. I haven’t played all of the games, so I can’t verify many of them. The characters still retain their chibi art style and even the enemy characters look relatively harmless. The enemy musters and bosses are plenty intimidating though. Sadly, some of the female characters tend to show off their skin a bit. Playing through the original games brought back so many fond memories. Newer games have vocals in their songs and some of the songs are very heavy metal with growling singers. I did notice that one of the songs was talking about hell. During boss battle levels, you can get the assistance of a summon and a couple of these are inspired by deities such as Odin and Shiva. Like any game with battles, violence is a given. I don’t recall seeing any blood though. If you enjoyed the previous Theatrhythm games, this one is worth adding to your collection. It’s also a great starting point for any Final Fantasy fan out there. It’s a shame that the online community is lacking, but there’s plenty to do offline to keep you busy for thirty hours or more.