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Introduction
Music is such an important part in capturing the feel of a game, especially in the RPG genre, and the games of the Final Fantasy series are certainly no exception. No one who played FF7 to its conclusion will have forgotten One Winged Angel, and To Zanarkand from the beginning on FF10 will no doubt be remembered by many. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is the most recent version of the rhythm action game series that allows you to relive many of the Final Fantasy games through their music.
Gameplay
Final Bar Line is a rhythm action game and I think it does a good job at being easy to learn, while giving a sufficient challenge on higher difficulties. There are 3 types of notes to hit: red presses, yellow swipes, and green holds. On the 3DS games, these were mostly done via the touch screen, and Final Bar Line does a good job of translating them to home consoles. You can use any buttons for the red and green notes which I found to be really straightforward - I play on Switch and use the triggers as that is most comfortable for me. The choice to not use the touch screen on Switch is understandable as I think the swipes would be tricky without a stylus. Missing notes deals damage to your health bar and if that is emptied then you fail the stage.
There are several types of music stages as well: battle, field, and event. These play the same except for the field tracks hold notes where you have to follow the tracks with the analogue sticks, which is far easier than it sounds. The event stages are fewer and only in the free play once a series has been completed and they have clips from the original FF games which can be an added distraction to the rhythm action. There are 3 difficulty levels available (plus a 4th ‘Supreme’ level for some tracks) and once I had got used to the gameplay, stepping up to the next level felt like a suitable challenge.
The main modes of the game are Series Quests, Music Stages, and Multi Battle. The Music Stages mode is the free play mode and is quite self explanatory, letting you select from all the songs you have unlocked or purchased in the store - more on that later. The Series Quests are the main course of Final Bar Line and this is how you unlock more songs and characters to use. These are split into individual Final Fantasy games, from the numbered main titles to spin-offs and mobile games. You choose one to start with to unlock your first characters and then progress by completing songs and earning keys to unlock more titles. Each song also has an additional quest which grants consumable items, art cards, airship skins and Moogle costumes and these can vary in difficulty. I was really impressed at the amount of titles available beyond the numbered games, FF Tactics and Crisis Core are some of my favourite spin-offs and those were especially nostalgic to play through. Some titles have far more tracks than others, the spin-offs tend to be grouped together or have around 5 tracks whilst FF14 has the most at 33. There is also no real story to the game, it is far more focused on you reliving the games through their music. To some that will be a negative, but I think it would over complicate Final Bar Line to try and add this on top. As with people’s preference for FF titles, this is largely down to individual opinion.
Track List
Overall, Final Bar Line has 385 tracks available and purchasable DLC tracks raise that up to 505. These DLC packs mostly cover other Square Enix games like The World Ends With You, the Nier series, Bravely Default, and Octopath Traveller. There is also a FF16 pack which boasts the largest selection of tracks. As a big fan of other Square series and their own soundtracks, seeing some of these series get represented here was a genuine delight and the song choices are excellent. I do wish that these packs came with a character or 2 to represent them as well, especially the FF16 pack. Overall, I think these are a great addition but if you have not played those games, you most likely won’t get too much out of these packs.
The RPG elements of Final Bar Line is another element carried over from previous games, with each title bringing at least one new character that you can assign to your party. They fulfill a number of roles from dealing physical or elemental damage to healing effects to increased item drops. Completing songs levels up the party and gives them new abilities to bring along. This is mostly used to optimise for certain quests in the Series Quests mode and isn’t overly necessary to complete tracks but I enjoyed having that extra element of customisation and seeing some of my favourite characters from the franchise team up. You can also unlock summons with different bonuses to assign to your party which again isn’t wholly necessary but can be a big help in quests (and is a nice additional bit of nostalgia).
Group Performance
The Multi Battle mode mentioned earlier is Final Bar Line’s online multiplayer versus mode and this is the part of the game I found to be skippable. You make or join a room based on the difficulty level you prefer and there is the option of playing with or without special skills that are to distract the other players. I’m sure that this mode appeals to other players but I found it to be less enjoyable than simply playing the Series Quests. There is also the option of playing with 2 players cooperatively in any of the modes, with one player taking half the notes and the other taking the rest. This is a nice addition for if you have another player interesting in trying out the game and avoiding trying to cram everything on a split screen.
Ambience
Now I always make time to talk about the soundtracks of games in my reviews as I think it can be one of the best ways to relive them, from intense boss themes to relaxing overworld ambience. Final Bar Line really takes this to the next level for me and on multiple occasions while playing through a title I would get the urge to replay the original as I remembered my favourite moments. There are definitely titles whose soundtracks click with me better than others. I found some of the older titles to have less tracks that I enjoyed, but that may be more down to my music taste and title preferences. There are also a fair few arrangements of older tracks which I think are excellent but I can see some people wishing these slots were used on other original songs. Final Bar Line continues the theme of the Theatrhythm series using a chibi art style and it does an excellent job of keeping a consistent style between all the titles. I also think it is quite funny seeing enemies translated into this style in the battle stages!
Verdict
Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a celebration of the soundtracks from the long running Final Fantasy series and a very competent rhythm action game. I do think players familiar with FF will get far more out of this game than rhythm action fans however. The light RPG elements and quests offer a bit more depth to those who want to dive into that, but it is not necessary if you just want to play through the tracks of your favourite FF titles. Final Bar Line is pure nostalgia and I hope to see more from the Theatrhythm in the future.
