Topic: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

I'll go ahead start a thread for this one. This is the follow-up to 2014's Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call. It's a music/rhythm game with sub-systems of an rpg and card collecting. Developed by indieszero, the same dev team behind 2021's Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. If you enjoyed that game or are a fan of Final Fantasy in general, I recommend you give Theatrhythm a try. Either Curtain Call or Final Bar Line which...I expect FBL to be a sight better than CC.

Here's the song list for those who are curious: All 385 base game tracks + confirmed DLC

My personal highlights include expanded TWEWY music selection and Octopath music. Now I just need Bravely Default music to return. Hopefully with new tracks in addition to what they had in Curtain Call.

I'm excited for this. The original 3DS game was legit my first introduction into Final Fantasy as a whole, and this game seems to be more of that, but with even more songs. The only thing I don't like is how if you want all the DLC with the game, you need to spend 100 Dollars, but eh.

I’ve been playing through Theatrhythm Dragon Quest recently and was super excited to see this announced in the direct. My only reservation is seeing how the controls will be handled without the stylus on the 3DS.

Is this getting a physical edition or should I just go ahead and accept digital?

@ElRoberico

It'll be available physically worldwide.

@Magician does that include the digital deluxe content? Or is that locked in the digital-only versions?

@ElRoberico Just the base version with 385 songs. The DLC is digital only.

I am now over two hours into the demo. Having...a blast. Although I found the "ping" sound effect that acknowledges every note you hit to be...annoying. So I went ahead and turned the sound fx all the way down to zero.

The negative side effect being no combat sound fx play either. But that's alright. I'm here for the music, not the quasi-combat happening in the background. And the music is glorious.

This will be a must-have for any Final Fantasy fan.

The demo is great honestly. My only qualms is that they removed the tiny details like characters opening chests up in the field segments, and the special zones in the song where you can ride chocobos or summon the summons. Other than this though, the gameplay is just as solid as the others, and the music selection is going to keep me busy for a long time. I believe they brought back the cutscene song category in full for every game as well, so it isn't like Curtain Call, where only the new categories have them.

The only thing that took me getting used to was the double notes. I'm still sort of trying to wrap my head around them, since I keep forgetting them and how fast they show up on the screen. The one I have the most issue with is the double joystick one.

Overall, I can't wait to have the actual full game in my hands. The demo is leaving me to want more.

The demo is so, so good for this. It feels right on Switch. I have yet to try it on my TV, but it looks great in handheld mode, which is a massive plus for me. I may not be in a position to pick it up on day one, but it's definitely shot up on my list.

After having my hype for the full release elevated, I took another glance at the track list for the retail version. I was mildly disappointed to not see Azys Lla - Order Yet Undeciphered listed. I've posted the same sentiments in the video game music thread, but It still remains as my favorite overworld theme.

I suppose I can only hope it'll be included in a season pass later on.

So, on one hand: it's fun. Theatrhythm is always fun. Both of the 3DS entries were fun as well. But I can't help but feel like they had the opportunity to make it into something more significant than it is with the move to home consoles. This just feels like Curtain Call with one less input option and a reshuffled progression structure.

I'll definitely still get it eventually. Even the base game seems to have more songs in it than Curtain Call + all DLC. But it doesn't feel like an essential upgrade for me at the moment. Thankfully, since Square-Enix is publishing it, I expect it'll eventually dip pretty hard in price. Once I can get the Premium Digital Deluxe version for $59.99, I'm swooping in.

Disappointed the Bravely Default DLC hasn't made the jump so far, though. Those were some of the best DLC songs in Curtain Call. Hopefully the two unrevealed music DLC packs are for Bravely Default and Dragon Quest XI.

I played like 500 hours of Curtain Call and got All Critical on all the non-DLC BMS and FMS songs (stuff EMS though) but that was entirely with touch screen controls and I always struggled when trying buttons instead so I dunno about this one. Played a little of the demo and wasn't getting super into it due to the controls and it's a little harder to focus on everything at once on the bigger screen. I kinda want it because I like the RPG mechanics and amount of content it has but at the same time there are better rhythm games on Switch when it comes to gameplay and music. Guess I'll see how I'm feeling about it in a couple of weeks.

Octopath Traveler II and FFXVI were my guesses for the final 2 DLC packs given releasing the tracklist now would be spoilers for currently not yet released games.

I've now played every song in the demo and have 5 quests left to complete but I think I'll just wait for the full game at this point. Square Enix really knows how to make meaty demos. So many rhythm game demos give you just couple of songs to try out, meanwhile this demo has more songs than something like Osu/EBA in total (though they are insanely good despite the low song count).

I wasn't all that interested back when they first announced the game because I thought it's just Curtain Call again but I've been more and more interested since they started showing all the DLC and how much more stuff there actually is. I only ever got TWEWY and Bravely Default DLC for Curtain Call. I really hope Bravely Default music is still coming.

As for the game itself, it's just as fun as before. I never really got into the RPG stuff in Curtain Call but this time I actually paid closer attention to character skills and stuff. Not that they really mattered in the demo and you can probably breeze through the full game without ever touching them. I have some trouble with swipes. They certainly worked better with a touch screen. My biggest problems are left arrows in field music after a hold note and the ones where you need to use both sticks at once. The latter became easier today once I realized that since the inputs aren't tied to specific sticks, inputs such as -> <- and <- -> are identical. It's easier for me to flick the left stick up and right stick down so I just do the same input for both vertical ones that go opposite directions.

Been having fun with the game since I basically just accepted that I'll never be that great at it with the buttons controls and that I just need to focus on doing what I can. I just finished completing every quest in Series Quests which took a fair while but was pretty fun trying to optimise my party to take down some of the harder ones that gave me trouble. Currently sitting at 88/100 feats and looking at the list, some of them will take a long time but I should eventually be able to complete them all... except for one.

I rolled the credits last night on the series quests, but I'm 100% not finished with this. There are still so many songs that I've yet to play, and even then I still have to perfect chain all of them on every difficulty, with me mostly just doing the main quest stuff on easy.

@VoidofLight Every difficulty including Supreme? I watched the All-stars Carnival arrangement of Battle at the Big Bridge on auto on Supreme and it just looks absolutely ridiculous to me. I'd fail in a few seconds if I tried to play it, haha.

@BenAV Yep. I'm going to attempt every difficulty. Even if it takes me 100 years to master, I feel like with enough persistence I could probably do it.