Systems: Nintendo Switch & PlayStation 4
Release Date: February 16, 2023
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: indieszero
I have a history with the THEATRHYTHM Final Fantasy series since the first game was released on the 3DS back in 2012, so I have seen the franchise, specifically related to the Final Fantasy series (there is a Dragon Quest entry released only in Japan), evolve over the last 10 years. Each entry takes the concept of a rhythm game based on an RPG series while integrating RPG elements into it in different ways all wrapped up in a cohesive art style that can best be described as animated Funko Pop! characters meet chibi, but that is the style that the series started with and while not my favorite, I have grown accustomed to is and it does work really well with a lot of the characters.
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Mechanically, because of this entry, Final Bar Line is only available (at least currently) on the Switch and the PlayStation 4, various ways the modes are played had to be adapted for controller-only controls. The first two entries were made initially for the 3DS and ported to iOS later, so the series is very much a touchscreen-centered franchise, although the second game in the series, Curtain Call, did integrate button-only controls as well as a hybrid system where you could use both buttons and the stylus; this became one of my favorite methods because the arrow-triggers felt easier and more forgiving with the 3DS' joystick. But with Final Bar Line and there being no touchscreen functionality during the in-game stages the triggers had to be modified a bit and be a bit more forgiving on the green-sliding triggers. They have also created now button mechanics such as pressing two triggers at the same time or having two arrow swipes on a single trigger which are really more mentally there to trip you up than being actually difficult. Because the default setting allows either joystick or any button to count towards a trigger, it allows for maximum accessibility in which buttons you want to press for each trigger. For the most part, I have felt that the transition from 3DS touchscreen to Switch button-only controls has been pretty seamless, likely due to the experimentation done in Curtain Call.
I have noticed a change during the field music stages (FMS). In the original and Curtain Call, the stages were all pretty mellow in that it was just your characters traversing horizontally with a bonus Chocobo section that was activated by successfully hitting "enough" of the triggers. This Chocobo section would slightly alter the sound of the triggers giving them a Chocobo-like chirp with each successful hit. Those Chocobo sections have been removed and the FMS stages (yes, Field Music Stages Stages) are now more like actually wandering in the overworld in a JRPG because there are now semi-random encounters with monsters that you fight. I was a little disappointed by this change because there are already the BMS (Battle Music Stages), so it feels a little redundant.
There are a couple of other changes that as of right now, I am not really a fan of. An interesting mechanic in this series is that you have party members and can equip them with abilities that they learn as they level up. In Curtain Call, you have a set of Skill Points that you allocate toward different skills. So you might have 10 Skill Points and four skills costing 2, 3, 4, and 6 so you have to decide which skills you want to equip, but I am getting away from myself. In Final Bar Line, those Skill Points spending mechanics are simplified to just be whichever skills you want to learn. I can kind of understand the simplifying of certain RPG mechanics if indieszero wanted the focus on the game the be playing a rhythm game to Final Fantasy music and not having to strategize how you are going to choose which abilities when you are going through a specific type of stage or if you know what the boss-type is going to be. There is even an option for the game to select what it believes to be the most powerful/useful abilities for you.
My second criticism might be premature because I have not played through all of the various Final Fantasy titles, sequels, remakes, and spinoffs and another game mode might eventually unlock, but unless a new mode is unlocked I will be a bit disappointed. In Curtain Call, you unlock the Quest Medley mode that allows you to play through 10+ stages filled with randomly selected songs from all of the songs you have available, which I love when dealing with a catalog of 220+ songs. There are times when I might want to play through only songs from the original Final Fantasy but other times I just want to be surprised by which songs the game calls up on its own; it is probably why I like to listen to my entire music catalog on random a lot of the time. I like the idea of knowing that you are going to play a song from Final Fantasy IX, but you do not know which one until the level starts and you hear the opening notes to "Dark City Treno."
One addition to the series that did not exist in prior editions that I greatly appreciate is how they modified the pause function. In previous entries, you could pause any time you were playing, with the obvious exception of playing in an online battle. When you unpaused the game, the music and the notes immediately continued flying at you, often at a breakneck speed at Expert and harder difficulty settings. In Final Bar Line, when you unpause the game, you get an on-screen three-second countdown so you and mentally reorient yourself before feeling that you have to press the start button and immediately have your fingers at the ready. It is a little accessibility feature that I have seen in other rhythm games like Ragnarock but is oddly absent from Beat Saber (being the only other two more recently released rhythm games I have played in the last five years). I have not noticed however if the countdown timer is in time with the tempo of the song, but I think it is the same three-second tempo regardless of the song.
The other interesting thing about this game, apart from making me want to replay through all of the Final Fantasy games all over again, is that it is introducing me to more of the music from the games in the series that I have not played (VII Remake, VIII, XI, XIII-XV, Crystal Chronicles) and often music that I am not familiar with that does not have the same nostalgic impact as music from earlier games. Because of this, music from the later games in the series, I feel less interested in, but that is all because I have not played through them. But now I am actively watching the price of Final Fantasy XIII on Steam because I really need another 100+ hour JRPG added to my queue. Conversely, I am just as excited for people who are not familiar with older Final Fantasy games that came out 30+ years ago to be introduced to music that I absolutely love. Maybe they will be as interested to play older titles in the series as I am to play some of the newer titles.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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