Holy shit, thank god I wasnt playing on Playstation and getting trophies. Just to play the entire "story mode" playing each song once (and the FFXVI DLC) took me 25 hours. With all that I only did around 60% of the game. The choices of which characters from each game to add was interesting, with a good amount of notible characters not getting the Theatrhythm chibi treatment but if I could change 1 thing: instead of doing a bunch of DLC of non-final fantasy properties, since im paying for the FFXVI content, give me some chibi 16 characters. I want a Little Clive!

I got the stupid expensive edition of this while it was on sale in November.

Higher difficulties are still impossible to me, I wish there were more characters, I think the pricing model is as ridiculous as gating iconic songs like Zanarkand behind expensive premium editions.

And yet, Final Bar Line is still just addictive as hell and I still love this series as much as ever.

this shit is FUCKING FLAMES OH MY GOD
i've always had immense respect for theatrhythm for doing the seemingly impossible: making me actually want to play final fantasy. literally a gun to my head would't be enough to get me to truthfully say "gee maybe i should give XIII another shot" but goddamn does this game do the impossible.

i dumped way too much time into the first two theatrhythms, but this game fucking demolishes those games in terms of just how much stuff there is. a ridiculous amount of songs, new difficulty levels, an insane amount of characters, song-specific sidequests... to be honest this is about as deep as a rhythm game can get. stuff like the party system has been completely overhauled, and now every character has a unique role/gimmick - which is absolutely insane considering how many there are. even though your rhythm game skills arent gonna rely too heavily on what kind of party you're working with, it's still a blast to slap together dudes to take on certain sidequests.

i have zero complaints about this game that aren't wholly selfish. i kinda miss stylus controls, there are some iconic songs that are weirdly absent, and im pissed that chads like irvine and sazh didnt make the cut (you fucking monsters). but i can see myself going for perfect chains on this one for a WHILE man

My jumble of thoughts while playing this game:

Art style is hideous but mechanics are good
Advent Children has the shittiest soundtrack ever
Collapsed Expressway from FF7Remake is amazing
Where are Cait Sith and Kimahri!!!!!!
The early FF14 songs are boring and generic but they get way more interesting as you go along
Octopath 2 DLC when?

Review PT/ENG

Final Fantasy: E os Guerreiros da Musica.

Começo essa analise deixando claro o óbvio, apesar de não ter jogado do inicio ao fim varios JRPGs, acho que posso dizer que o genero é um dos meus favoritos no mundo dos games(se não for O favorito), e é claro que eu AMO a saga Final Fantasy que moldou MUITO meu eu gamer junto com outros classicos como Chrono Cross e Xenogears. Dito isso....oque falar desse jogo que reune literalmente as MELHORES musicas já feitas para video-games? Se contar com as musicas das DLCs nós temos os maiores nomes da game music envolvidos em um jogo desde o lendario Nobou Uematsu(Final Fantasy) autor da maioria das musicas do jogo até nomes como Yoko Shimomura(Front Mission, Kingdom Hearts), Yoshinori Mitsuda (Chrono Cross/Trigger e Xenogears), Kenji Ito (série Mana) e tantos outros. E por falar em musicas....o jogo conta com um numero literalmente gigantesco de musicas de Final Fantasy(e outros jogos da Square se contar com as DLCs) só no jogo base são ao todo 385 musicas de todos os Final Fantasys, desde o 1, passando por classicos da era 16 e 32 bits como Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII até jogos mais recentes como Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy VII Remake, até o mais novo Final Fantasy XVI(esse via DLC) até mesmo spin-offs como Crystal Chronicles e Type-0. E nesse mar de musicas, como não se enctar com varias delas? Como não ficar maravilhado com a Terra's Theme(Final Fantasy VI), empolgado com os temas de batalha de Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, XV, etc...., se emocionar com o tema da Aerith(Final Fantasy VI), se sentir vitorioso com os temas de vitória, apaixonado com o Theme of Love(Final Fantasy IV), sentir vontade de sair dançando com o Mambo de Chocobo(Final Fantasy V), se sentir triste ou reflexivo com o tema da Celes(Final Fantasy VI), esperançoso com Answers(Final Fantasy XIV), maravilhado com o Scars of Time(Chrono Cross), etc...
O jogo não brilha só em termos de musica, sua mecanica de gameplay que consiste em uma mistura de jogo ritmico com RPG eleva a experiencia a um outro patamar, sempre tentando tirar o melhor de nós nas musicas e nos recompensando com personagens desbloqueaveis de toda a série, magias, poções e tudo o mais que é comun de um FF. O jogo tambem é muito acessivel, possuindo varios niveis de dificuldade e modos que vão desde o Basic(facil), expert(médio), Ultimate(dificil) e Supreme(dificilimo) até modos como apertar apenas um botão(simple), apertar dois botões ao mesmo tempo(standard) e pair(que é pra jogar com outra pessoa) fazendo com que o jogo seja indicado para todos os tipos de jogadores, sejam novatos no genero até experts em jogos ritmicos.
O jogo ainda conta com um multiplayer que consiste basicamente num modo versus pra ver quem se sai melhor em determinada musica.
Uma coisa legal é o sistema de RPG do jogo, já que alem de nos preocuparmos em acertar as notas das musicas, nos precisamos ''combater'' inimigos que surgem na tela com os personagens que desbloqueamos no jogo e pra isso contamos não só com eles mas tambem com magias e um sistema de fraquezas dos inimigos, poções de cura e afins.
Aqueles que gostam de jogar jogos de cabo a rabo irão passar MUITO, mas MUITO tempo nesse jogo, visto que é preciso de muita dedicação pra masterizar as musicas nos seus niveis mais dificeis, e o jogo ainda incentiva que você sempre esteja tentando se superar nas musicas atraves de uma infinidade de colecionaveis que vão desde figurinhas dos personagens estilo chibi até artworks de cada um dos jogos da série, só de artworks são mais de 1200 pra colecionar, uma verdadeira ode a historia de Final Fantasy e aos artistas que já passaram pela série.
Enfim...esse com certeza é o melhor jogo de musica/ritmico que já joguei de longe, com certeza o mais divertido superando games como taiko no tatsujin e até o meu amado Kingdom Hearts: Melody of memories.
Se você é fã da saga Final Fantasy esse jogo e literalmente OBRIGATORIO pra você, na verdade eu diria que é obrigatorio pra todo mundo que curte uma boa musica, porque na real não há uma musica ruim nesse jogo.

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English

Final Fantasy: And the Warriors of Music.

I begin this analysis by stating the obvious: although I haven't played through many JRPGs from start to finish, I believe I can say that the genre is one of my favorites in the gaming world (if not THE favorite), and of course, I LOVE the Final Fantasy saga, which has greatly shaped my gamer self along with other classics like Chrono Cross and Xenogears. That said... what can be said about this game that literally brings together the BEST music ever made for video games? With the addition of DLC music, we have the biggest names in game music involved in a game since the legendary Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), the author of most of the game's music, to names like Yoko Shimomura (Front Mission, Kingdom Hearts), Yoshinori Mitsuda (Chrono Cross/Trigger and Xenogears), Kenji Ito (Mana series), and many others. Speaking of music... the game features a literally gigantic number of Final Fantasy music tracks (and other Square games if you count the DLCs). In the base game alone, there are a total of 385 tracks from all Final Fantasies, from the first one, through classics of the 16 and 32-bit era like Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, to more recent games like Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and even the newest Final Fantasy XVI (this one via DLC), including spin-offs like Crystal Chronicles and Type-0. In this sea of music, how can one not be captivated by several of them? How can one not be thrilled by Terra's Theme (Final Fantasy VI), excited by the battle themes of Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, XV, etc..., moved by Aerith's Theme (Final Fantasy VII), feel victorious with the victory themes, passionate about the Theme of Love (Final Fantasy IV), feel like dancing with the Chocobo Mambo (Final Fantasy V), feel sad or reflective with Celes's Theme (Final Fantasy VI), hopeful with Answers (Final Fantasy XIV), amazed by Scars of Time (Chrono Cross), etc...

The game shines not only in terms of music; its gameplay mechanics, which consist of a mix of rhythm game and RPG, elevate the experience to another level, always trying to bring out the best in us in terms of music and rewarding us with unlockable characters from the entire series, spells, potions, and everything else that is common in an FF game. The game is also very accessible, with various difficulty levels and modes ranging from Basic (easy), Expert (medium), Ultimate (hard), and Supreme (extremely hard) to modes like pressing just one button (simple), pressing two buttons at the same time (standard), and pair (for playing with another person), making the game suitable for all types of players, from genre newcomers to experts in rhythm games.

The game also features multiplayer, which basically consists of a versus mode to see who performs better on a certain track.

A cool thing about the game's RPG system is that besides focusing on hitting the notes of the songs, we also need to "battle" enemies that appear on the screen with the characters we unlock in the game. For this, we count not only on them but also on spells and an enemy weakness system, healing potions, and the like.

Those who like to play games from start to finish will spend A LOT, but A LOT of time on this game, as it requires a lot of dedication to master the songs at their most difficult levels. The game also encourages you to always try to surpass yourself in the songs through a myriad of collectibles ranging from chibi-style character stickers to artworks from each of the games in the series. Just in artworks, there are over 1200 to collect, a true ode to the history of Final Fantasy and the artists who have contributed to the series.

In conclusion... this is definitely the best music/rhythm game I've ever played by far, certainly the most enjoyable, surpassing games like Taiko no Tatsujin and even my beloved Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories.

If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy saga, this game is literally A MUST for you. In fact, I would say it's mandatory for anyone who enjoys good music because in reality, there is no bad music in this game.

Lots of great tunes, lots of characters to unlock and a lot of levels to play through. A lot. It took 24 hours to play through the 376 songs from each of the Final Fantasy series on offer. From the early 8 bit games to the online and mobile offerings, I think the only games that aren't featured are some of the ds spin offs and Dirge of the Cerberus, however, 32 tune for Final Fantasy XIV was taking the piss a little bit, when they missed out some of the best ones from the late 90s/early 00s games. In my opinion.

I had a good time for the most part. Some of the levels got quite challenging, and I'm not sure I could play some of the levels on a higher difficulty than the presets.

Some great fan service and you definitely get your moneys worth. Well, I certainly did as I got it for just over £20. I like the little video edits you unlock when finishing each series. A nice touch getting to see some of the fmv from over the years. Although it does pose the question, how come they haven't tried releasing FFXIII on switch?

This game has so much content in it, its actually insane. There are so many songs, so many characters, so many unlockables, just so much stuff to do. And that's not even counting the DLC, which while I don't have it, gives you access to music from like 20 other games.
This release has so much to keep you entertained, and really does celebrate the aspect of Final Fantasy that in my opinion has remained consistently excellent across its entire history, it's music. And the gameplay itself I actually found really comfortable, and better than on the 3ds titles provided.
I don't know how they could top this game, this seems like both the peak of this series, and rhythm games as a whole.

Played the first two Theatrhythm games ten years ago and they were little more than niche obscurities, little rhythm games on the 3DS for Final Fantasy diehards meant to scratch nostalgic itches. Chippy little MIDI battle songs, sweeping and bombastic orchestral stuff - it all falls into the same "hey, I 'memba that song!" basket, and that's really the extent of what those games felt like. Imagine my surprise then when I dug into this third title and found a full-fledged JRPG system in its own right, serving as a framing device of sorts around 400-something songs from the franchise. I dumped so many more hours into this thing than I ever imagined I would, not content just to "beat the game" but trying to complete every series and song and quest, collect every character, and boost each of them up to Level 99. Cooler heads are prevailing in 2024 and I'm recognizing that I'm just still so, so far away from achieving... any of that. I've got a PS5 now, I can't dump another thirty hours into this thing. Let's retroactively call it a 2023 finish - I'm overqualified, I beat this back in March and only sat waiting on "endgame" content for so long because I wanted to wait for Chrono Trigger DLC - and increase last year's logging output by 50% in the process. It'll be a better 2024 folks, I promise. Did I mention I got a PS5?

As a fan of Final Fantasy and Elite Beat Agents I really wanted to try to get into the original Theatrhythm game on the 3DS. For whatever the reason it just didn't gel with me very well and it was not satisfying to play. I admit I am not very good at the the Theatrhytm games and it does hamper my enjoyment of the original title. While not perfect there was a lot to like but I just never felt like playing it.

Warp to Final Bar Line being on announced for console. I was really intrigued on how the game would play without the touch screen and how in the world would that be satisfying at all. Then I had heard that it was going to have a demo to try it out and mess with the settings to your playstyle. It's been a long time since a demo has actually swayed me to purchase a game but this one surely did.

First thing I noticed was how much I struggled. Man the difficulty can be quite intense for someone who does not play these kinda games often. However I swallowed my pride and tried out simple mode and believe it or not it was much more enjoyable for me. Simple mode just concentrates on hitting the beats in sync at a more relaxed pace. I was able to enjoy the songs much more this way. Not trying to hit crazy notes going lightning fast and more complex motions on harder settings. Being able to enjoy the massive song list at a relaxed pace had me much more engaged.

So then I thought if this was easy now and im just going to go through the motions for song completions am I not just going to get bored? Thankfully I wouldn't because I think they did a really great job in the series quest mode. You can go through each title of game and play all the songs and try to accomplish quests during the song to get a reward and some unlockables. Such quests might include beating a stage with a certain character, hitting a certain number of critical hits, finding 5 treasures chests, beating a boss in 30 seconds, not using items or killing an enemy with a certain weakness and so on. Now on simple mode most of these quests weren't so bad but some really do make you prep and customize your party to tackle a challange. Each character has their own stats, abilities and special moves that you can use during songs to fight monsters, find loot or up your defense. Soon it became not about hitting 200 flying notes on hyper speed and prescion but building a party and level characters and customizing my party to equip myself on completing a challange. Theatrhythm started to feel more like an RPG than a rhythm game to me. That and the achievment list was very much catered to this kind of play instead of simply being hit every note perfectly on every song and thats it. Even a less skilled player could complete the trophy list, which gave me extra motivation. By the end of the series quest play, I really had to carefully plan my party to complete some hard quests but nothing that was simply impossible without repeated play.

The only things that really annoyed me about FInal Bar Line is that despite having a massive song list there are a lot of poplular pieces not here. They seriously not include "Eye's on Me" from FF8? It's like the main theme of the game. A FFX2 series list but no english versions of 1000 words or even the intro song? That and some tracks that were selected were kinda head scraters as to why they are here. Some songs are so short and slow they don't work very well in this kinda game. That and the bias for certain titles of the franchise does kinda stick out. Would have liked to seen more Dissidia tracks as they have some great originals and remixes in that series. Also since the characters are simple and sharre a lot of skills and stuff they should have included every playable FF character from all the games listed. The event mode songs also feel really cheap and lazy in the video department. I feel like they could have been better.

In the end Final Bar Line I expected to play pretty casually but ended up more drawn in than I bargained for thanks to the great gameplay customization and multiple game types suited for all skill levels. I'd recommend if your a fan of FF or a die hard music rhythm gamer.

Platinum #199