HOLD MY CURTAIN CALLS, THERE'S A NEW THEATRHYTHM: Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line

[Paul le Fou]

My main disappointment regarding the DLC is the lack of any new characters to go along with it. I would love to have characters from TWEWY, Nier, and Octopath Traveler.

THIS. I was hoping each DLC would be a new entry in the series quests to unlock and play and get at least one character from; for the price, it really feels like it fuckin' ought to be. Especially knowing that Chrono Trigger music is coming down the line, I really thought I'd get characters from that.

 

[Juno]

Since earlier I posted about what I felt was wrong about the XIV track selection, I decided to go through and make a list consisting of what I thought the tracklist should have looked like instead. I'm going to keep the tracklist at the same number it was at (33), and not include any Endwalker tracks since I'm assuming the dev team was unable to add them due to the expansion not being out soon enough for them to include it.

The ones I've underlined are the songs I have added.

A Realm Reborn

• Answers
• On Westerly Winds
• Serenity
• Torn from the Heavens
• To the Sun
• Under the Weight
• The Maker's Ruin
• Ultima

Heavensward

• Revenge Twofold
• Ink Long Dry
• Heroes
• Locus
• Rise
• Painted Foothills
• Imagination
• Equilibrium

Stormblood

• The Worm’s Tail
• Wayward Daughter
• Triumph
• Sunrise
• Crimson Sunrise
• Songs of Salt and Suffering
• A Land Long Dead

Shadowbringers

• A Long Fall
• What Angel Wakes Me
• Promises to Keep
• Who Brings Shadow
• Civilizations
• Knowledge Never Sleeps
• Full Fathom Five
• Weight of the World- Prelude Version
• Return to Oblivion
• To The Edge

This is still missing many that should rightfully be in the game (really, FFXIV could easily a Theatrhythm game that consists entirely of just its own songs) but I still think this is far more representative of the game than what we got in Final Bar Line.

 

[Kirin]

Well I’m now at 97% quest completion and down to The Hard Ones, that even tweaking around my high level parties didn’t get through. While the databases are great, this is where I really wish there was a text FAQ that I could search by quest and just get a few strategy suggestions for each that worked for people. Pity it’s not, like, 1997 or something.

 

[gogglebob]

Well I’m now at 97% quest completion and down to The Hard Ones, that even tweaking around my high level parties didn’t get through. While the databases are great, this is where I really wish there was a text FAQ that I could search by quest and just get a few strategy suggestions for each that worked for people. Pity it’s not, like, 1997 or something.

Ask the forum! I know myself and others recently completed everything, and some of them certainly stick in your brain...

Note as a general tip that there were a few that I absolutely could not complete on Novice, but would just get a victory with Standard (or whatever the middle difficulty is). I never had to go all the way to ultimate (unless that was the challenge itself), though.

 

[Kirin]

I did my initial pass through quest mode (with brand new characters for each title) on Basic, and my clean-up pass with leveled characters on Expert (the middle difficulty), so I've tried them all with that. I did clear all the requires-Ultimate ones without too much trouble, probably didn't even need the overkill all-healers party I used.

Anyway, I'm sure I could search up a lot of these since many are probably common sticking points, but if you want 'em you got 'em! Here's everything I'm missing currently:

FF4 - Battle With the Four Fiends (defeat Golbez; half summon dmg)
FF6 - Dancing Mad (defeat God-Kefka; 2.5x boss HP)
FF7CC - Price of Freedom (30 enemy kills; double phys dmg) (haven't gone back to this yet after ppl posted above already)
FF8 - Man with the Machine Gun (defeat Adel; I think there's a boss in front of her)
FF12 - Boss Battle (defeat Yiazmat; 3x boss HP) (I know this was discussed a while back)
FF12 - Struggle for Freedom (defeat Undying; half summon dmg)
FF13LR - Chaos (defeat Atlas; 2x boss HP)
FF14 - The Worm's Tail (defeat Shinryu; 2x boss HP)
Dissidia - Final Trailer (defeat Chaos; 2x dmg) (the opening stage)
Dissidia - Cantata Mortis (defeat Feral Chaos; 2x summon dmg)
Dissidia - God in Fire (defeat Feral Chaos; 2x boss HP)

 

[SpoonyBard]

SaGa pack Vol 2 hit today, and if you were expecting tracks from the second and third Romancing SaGa titles well, nope! We're jumping ahead to SaGa Frontier (and misc) tracks!

And while Battle #4 and #5 from Frontier are pretty rad, I was looking forward to Threat Rhyming against some number of Noble Devils, between 3 and 5. Alas.

 

[SpoonyBard]

NieR pack 2 hit today and includes tracks from the original title, and one from the recent remake. But sadly it does not include the excellent Emil ~ Sacrifice, which makes the weird version of Emil's theme from the first pack the only one we get, which feels like the sort of troll worthy of the series.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The DLCs are getting more spaced out, but hey at least today we get Chrono pack #1!

I really wish we got characters to go along with some of these series, an adorable little scowly-faced Magus would be the best.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I really wish we got characters to go along with some of these series, an adorable little scowly-faced Magus would be the best.

Absolutely. I thought...

Wait, didn't I—yeah, I complained about this at the top of this very page. OH WELL I'M POSTIN' ANYWAY.

 

[Kazin]

More Chrono Trigger songs came out, including "Wind Scene," the best 16 bit song of all time imo. We got two Chrono Cross tracks, too, although neither are "Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World" so what is the fucking point

 

[Paul le Fou]

Playing "To Far Away Times" got me listening to "To Far Away Times" again, and that might be my contender over Wind Scene. I think that song might be the ultimate key to my childhood nostalgia.

 

[YangusKhan]

More Chrono Trigger songs came out, including "Wind Scene," the best 16 bit song of all time imo. We got two Chrono Cross tracks, too, although neither are "Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World" so what is the fucking point

Yeahhh the Cross selections are pretty disappointing.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Some Mana songs came out, a couple of Final Fantasy Adventure tracks and a bunch from Trials of Mana.

 

[YangusKhan]

"Some Mana songs." How dare you disrespect Nuclear Fusion and Sacrifice Part Three.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Got some Xenogears songs today. Only 3 tracks but I suppose those are the ones you'd add if you're adding any from the game. Would have been nice to get the Overworld song though, and the ending song.

But playing Blazing Knights just made me wish we had a modernish port of Xenogears. Even just a rudimentary one that gave us the ability to turn off encounters and increase text speed, those tweaks alone would be a boon to replaying it.

 

[Kirin]

Yeah, I was hoping for a few more iconic songs from Xeno... wonder if the vocal ones have gotten rights entanglements over the years, or are just expensive. At least the backgrounds are nice.

Meanwhile, even though I stalled out a bit on the questy stuff, I've still been just playing this a lot, and my obsessive need to see every chart in the game means I've now played every single song on both Basic and Expert, and am through about half on Ultimate. Definitely improving my skills, I remember having trouble with 6 or 7 stars, now I usually pass 10 stars on a first play without any healing abilities equipped.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The FFXVI tracks were added today, and they even get their own section in the title list instead of being shunted off into 'Square Enix Titles' like all the other DLC.

I think this is the last DLC as well, which is a shame, there's still a lot of tracks that could be added in the original titles but DLC seemed to be all 'new titles only'. Still kind of shocked we never got some Pixel Remaster music, honestly.

 

[Kirin]

I noticed that the game got an actual code update in addition to the DLC data added this time. I guess maybe it was needed to add the new page for FFXVI? Haven't noticed any other changes yet.

 

[Kirin]

So I've been continuing to play this in the background, more days than not, ever since it came out. I have now officially played all 8001 note charts in the game - that's 500+plus songs each on easy, normal, and hard, plus about half again that have Supreme charts.

I've definitely gotten a *lot* better through continuous play, even without actually practicing individual charts at all, basically sight-reading everything. Early on I really struggled with 8-10 star ranked songs, now 10-12 stars are my relaxation warmup and cool-down. Granted for Supreme charts I started playing with a team that's entirely defense and healing focussed so I can miss a *lot* and still make it through, but ranks where I used to barely scrape through are now ones I can usually make As and even Ss on. Now, up at rank 14+ I'm still barely holding on and getting Bs and mostly Cs. Mostly.

I've actually *beaten* 8000 charts. Because I managed to pass with a C on every other 15 and 16 chart, but the damn FFTAC mix of Big Bridge on Supreme isn't really a 16... it's massively harder than the other 16s, seems like... 18? 20? I'm honestly not sure how it's humanly possible. I tried turning on "simple" mode with no arrows and actually did *worse*. I end up in anti-grooves on the ultra-fast runs where each press registers as "Bad" on a note that hasn't quite happened yet, because the previous note that's actually closer in time had already registered Bad from an earlier press.

So... not thrilled to leave it hanging at one chart from full completion but that's where that's at. Meanwhile I need to raise up some character with Graviga and implement the strat for Yiazmat, which is the only story quest I haven't crushed at this point.

 

[Kazin]

I played so much Curtain Call that after playing this game for like 100 hours, I put it down and haven't gone back to it, even for most of the DLC I'd already paid for. I'll go back eventually, though, since the game really is great. I never got good enough to routinely beat Supreme songs, though, even with a defensive/healing team, so well done.