Theatrhythm - Final Fantasy
Jan. 7th, 2014 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroIn this spiritual successor to the Dissidia series, you play the warriors of Cosmos (aka, the chibi-fied heroes of the 13 Final Fantasy main titles) in the never-ending battle against Chaos (aka, a rhythm game playing the major tunes of the 13 Final Fantasy main titles) to restore “Rhythmia” to the world.
Jethrien described this as a hybrid of Guitar Hero and Puzzle Quest, and I think she was on to something: The actual game play is “tap along with the rhythm” bog-standard, most similar to Elite Beat Agents; but the setup is an excuse to play many, many sessions of that instead of random battles in a vaguely rpg-like fashion.
Each game in the series contributes three songs (plus downloadable content); a battle song where you damage enemies by correctly hitting notes; a field song where you try to travel, meet chocobos and acquire items; and a story song where you try not to be distracted by a video of cutscenes from the game. Knowledge of the melodies helps, but it’s not strictly necessary, I don’t think.
I’m not the greatest ever at rhythm games, and I found the Basic mode easy enough to often be relaxing, and the Advanced mode for most songs to be challenging. (Though “One Winged Angel”and “The Man With the Machine Gun” are both really nasty.) I didn’t bother trying Ultimate mode, as I suspected it would make me cry.
Getting the “ending” takes five to six hours; the credits roll when you acquire 10,000 Rhythmia and defeat Chaos in a scripted battle. But really, this is a triumph of “casual” game design. There are a gazillion trophies, cards, videos, music player songs, extra characters, Dark Note stages, and hidden items to unlock. There’s tons of downloadable content that costs extra. There’s a “stickiness” to the game, in that you get daily play bonuses to get you to play a little every day. You could play hundreds of hours of this in twenty-minute bursts over the course of months if you wanted to, and still not unlock everything.
Overall: If you generally like rhythm games and like Final Fantasy music, it’s pretty neat. Big warning: The series mode videos include spoilers for the major cutscenes and endings of all the main-series Final Fantasy games.
Jethrien described this as a hybrid of Guitar Hero and Puzzle Quest, and I think she was on to something: The actual game play is “tap along with the rhythm” bog-standard, most similar to Elite Beat Agents; but the setup is an excuse to play many, many sessions of that instead of random battles in a vaguely rpg-like fashion.
Each game in the series contributes three songs (plus downloadable content); a battle song where you damage enemies by correctly hitting notes; a field song where you try to travel, meet chocobos and acquire items; and a story song where you try not to be distracted by a video of cutscenes from the game. Knowledge of the melodies helps, but it’s not strictly necessary, I don’t think.
I’m not the greatest ever at rhythm games, and I found the Basic mode easy enough to often be relaxing, and the Advanced mode for most songs to be challenging. (Though “One Winged Angel”and “The Man With the Machine Gun” are both really nasty.) I didn’t bother trying Ultimate mode, as I suspected it would make me cry.
Getting the “ending” takes five to six hours; the credits roll when you acquire 10,000 Rhythmia and defeat Chaos in a scripted battle. But really, this is a triumph of “casual” game design. There are a gazillion trophies, cards, videos, music player songs, extra characters, Dark Note stages, and hidden items to unlock. There’s tons of downloadable content that costs extra. There’s a “stickiness” to the game, in that you get daily play bonuses to get you to play a little every day. You could play hundreds of hours of this in twenty-minute bursts over the course of months if you wanted to, and still not unlock everything.
Overall: If you generally like rhythm games and like Final Fantasy music, it’s pretty neat. Big warning: The series mode videos include spoilers for the major cutscenes and endings of all the main-series Final Fantasy games.
