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?