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
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