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

[Vaeran]

This is probably more granular than anyone needs, but I determined that the party presets also let you save the same character with different ability sets to multiple teams. For example you could have Terra with all Fire spells equipped on Team 1, and then also have her on Team 2 with all Blizzard spells equipped and the two won't interfere with each other. Neat.

Between work and Ant-Man last night I haven't had as much of a chance to play as I'd have liked, but this evening is all clear and I plan to take a big bite out of the game after dinner. So far I've only cleared FF6, FF7 and Record Keeper, as I had to rescue my boy Tyro. The impulse of course is to play through all my favorites first, but I suppose I should be responsible and space them out with games that I'm less familiar with / don't have as much affection for.

 

[Peklo]

I cleared all base game songs, so under some kind of definition I have "finished"... but we all know that's not true, even if there wasn't about a year's worth of DLC support coming up. I think at this point I'd like to briefly highlight the positives and negatives from the runthrough, per category.

Favourites

• Theatrhythm. This grouping only unlocks after several clears of other Series Quests, and for anyone angling for an escalating trajectory in working through the catalogue, I recommend saving this for last. It's the game operating at the highest level of its conceptual self, with arrangements that have clearly been created with their rhythm game play context in mind, and the charting reflects that focus: even on the otherwise friendly Expert difficulty, these songs feel like they're experientially somewhere between that tier and Ultimate's hurdles. They're all extremely fun to play and make up a natural, spectacular finale for the game, as they're clearly intended to be.
• FFVIII. I've long felt that the game has possibly the most consistently great lineup of battle themes Uematsu ever put together, and the emphasis that a game like this brings only underlines that.
• FFX-2. Matsueda gets no play and while the material itself isn't my favourite above all, the handful of tracks here are characterized by their atypical rhythmic texture that's directly discernible in this context. They're some of the trickiest charts on the default difficulty.
• FFXI. I am mostly unfamiliar with the game in person and have not often sought out the music external to it, so this was a pleasant discovery to make. I find its stylistic tenor extremely refreshing, in focusing on sleepy and serene motifs to an extent that even battle themes feel contemplative. No bombast exists here, just tranquil woodwinds and acoustics. Uematsu is still involved but Mizuta and Tanioka define the sound.
• FFXIII and its sequels. You can just push the buttons to any old rhythm game and have a decent time, but it sure helps if you care about the material, and this period of the series is my happy place, the apex of its musical expression in total, whatever you'd like. I will never tire of it.
• Tactics. Sakimoto has decent representation here but his work on this game always lures me back to trying it for the umpteenth time, thinking my affection for the material would transfer over for the rest of the game. So far it hasn't happened yet, so this context is ideal for indulging in his compositional staples and the era of heavy reverb.
• Dissidia. It's not even a case of necessarily being fond of the material (it's mostly just OK) but for a game series that maintains in regular rotation for me, "nostalgia" isn't really an operative word in most cases... except for Dissidia, which was such a flash in the pan in the late '00s and early '10s that it instantly transports me back to that headspace, ready to partake in its delicious nonsense once again. The main leitmotif is pretty good, admittedly.

Not-so-good

• FFI and II. Stellar material hampered by use of the old, outdated and faulty in non-mono formats masters. Frustrating.
• FFVI. I've never liked this soundtrack much, and in a rhythm game that experience is no different. The chosen tracklist seems conservative to me in its picks, even so.
• FFVII series. Advent Children and Crisis Core are an incredibly miserable collection of music, and the attempt at curation doesn't salvage them here.
• FFXIV. Similar circumstances to XI in that I have only the slightest personal experience with the material and only know the scale of the work in total by reputation. Whatever the game's music is, I hope this selection isn't indicative of it holistically, albeit at 33 tracks it's the largest single selection of any game present so the sample pool is significant enough. I found most of it tonally interchangeable and monotonous, either going for hollow choir work for an epic impression, or repetitive rock riffs set to voice-modulated lyrical output. Outside of a track or two, there wasn't really anything to grab onto as something I'd want to revisit.

For the rest, I was puzzled and maybe even put off by The 4 Heroes of Light and World of Final Fantasy being lumped together under the miscellaneous "Series" banner instead of commanding their own categories. Both of them have among the best soundtracks in any spinoff produced by the series, and no one should hold back if there's an opportunity to include more Mizuta and Hamauzu in a lineup; as it is, they have a scant two and one tracks each, respectively.

 

[Kazin]

Couldn't disagree more with Crisis Core and XIV in particular - Crisis Core has a very particular type of music so I get not liking that, but reading "tonally interchangeable and monotonous" about XIV has me wondering if we played the same music lol. Takes all kinds, I suppose. XI absolutely bores me, in particular (and XII is even worse, though you didn't post about that so nevermind). XIV having great music in Curtain Call is what made me want to play the actual MMO back in 2015 or so.

Anyway, I came here to post how much I'm enjoying how they're setting up some of the quests - "The Price of Freedom" from Crisis Core in particular tasks you with defeating 30 MP enemies - just like Zack had to during his last stand (give or take a couple hundred lol). Having just played the Crisis Core remaster last month, I found that particular quest delightful.

 

[YangusKhan]

Uematsu is still involved but Mizuta and Tanioka define the sound.

Uematsu all but stopped composing for the game by the time a couple expansions were out, so anything from Chains of Promathia onward is pretty much all Mizuta.

As to your point about XIV: I do think the music is elevated a whole lot when experiencing it context, but even given that conceit the music from ARR is not nearly as good as later expansions. The tracks in this game also include kind of a lot from the Alexander raid specifically, which is not terribly representative of other music even from that same expansion. The typical trend from Soken for XIV is that for Raids and Trials he really cuts loose and does a lot of stuff with rock and vocals, but the music comprising the core of the story and world itself isn't like that so much.

 

[Peklo]

I checked the credits per track to know who did what, so I'm aware of the arrangement with XI's composing duties. "Heavens Tower" is my favourite track here, and one of the few I had a chance to encounter in-game, and that's by Mizuta, for example. Uematsu's contributions are still present in the selection though.

I don't think Theatrhythm as a format is particularly helpful for "introducing" anyone to an unfamiliar game's general sound, as the limitations of what's labeled "field" and what's "battle" music (though they do shrug at these definitions a lot) necessarily pushes the selection to lean toward those segments of the whole. If there's more music to my taste somewhere in XIV, it's apparently not found in what was chosen to represent it here, with only the occasional track suggesting otherwise--I probably liked "Ink Long Dry" the most out of these, for not falling into what I perceived as a tired sound.

 

[Kazin]

Exponential Entropy really shouldn't be here, if I'm honest. I know some big XIV-heads who can't stand it and mute the game for that fight lol. It's pretty repetitive. I absolutely adore the other Alexander raid songs though, Locus in parricular. I wish SE would release the full version of the April Fools 8-bit (16 bit?) Rise rendition they did several years ago somewhere - I've heard there's a full version of it instead of the roughly minute long one on Youtube, and I own a few XIV soundtracks on disc and it's not freaking there.

 

[Kazin]

Crazy Chocobo remains the funniest thing Square Enix have ever done lmao

Hey how does exchanging profile cards work? I'd like to get some sweet summonstones. Do we have to play multiplayer or something?

 

[Juno]

I think the XIV stuff in there is largely great, but also there are some issues with the song selection that do hold it back-

1) A Realm Reborn consists of half of the tracklist, which is the weakest part of the OST. I get they wanted to bring back all of the tracks that were in Curtain Call, but we really did not need Hard to Miss, The Land Breathes, and Engage. If they weren't originally on the CC tracklist and were instead being considered against the current selection available from FFXIV today, none of those 3 would be considered notable enough to include. Also, while I'm not exactly begging for more ARR tracks, how is The Maker's Ruin not on here? From a narrative perspective, it's a pretty important song, and one of the strongest ARR tracks!

2) I don't really agree with the decision to include 5 tracks from the Alexander raids at the expense of more variety- I'd say keep just Locus and Rise, and cut Metal, Moebius, and Exponential Entropy.

3) There are zero town/field themes from anything past ARR- they went exclusively with boss and dungeon themes, which creates a problem with every song being one that is trying to amp you up for a big fight. I really think they should have considered a few calmer and low-key tracks appropriate for a FMS, such as Songs of Salt and Suffering, Crimson Sunrise, Civilizations, Sands of Amber, and Full Fathom Five.

 

[YangusKhan]

Not including Crimson Sunrise is a pretty huge miss imo. I agree with your assessment very much!

 

[Sprite]

Crazy Chocobo remains the funniest thing Square Enix have ever done lmao

Hey how does exchanging profile cards work? I'd like to get some sweet summonstones. Do we have to play multiplayer or something?

You have to play multiplayer to exchange stones. There is an option to exchange cards without fighting but you don’t swap stones.

It’s a good way to rope people into multiplayer, I suppose, though it has the effect of people jumping ship after one song.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Disappointed that they'll give the AC version of One Winged Angel it's entire goddamn runtime but they STILL cut Dancing Mad short before it even fully finishes a single loop.

 

[Vaeran]

Some people on reddit have been reporting a serious bug in both the Switch and PS4 versions that causes the game to freeze on a black screen when loaded, rendering it completely unplayable even after restarting your console. The only fix for now seems to be deleting your save data. It seems they've finally found what triggers the bug:

BUG trigger

• Delete Summon Stones (doesn't seem to matter how many of them you delete)
• Exit to main menu and watch the game save ("Game Saved" shows up on screen)
• Close the game immediately afterward

After that point, the save seems to get corrupted and will result in the black screen error. The issue seems to be related to the summon stones.

However, if you play a music stage and then let the game save after that, the bug will NOT occur.

This may or may not be related to the PS4 bug that crashes the game on the Music Stages screen, so I would still recommend backing up your clean saves to the cloud/USB if possible until this is patched.

In summary, either don't delete any summon stones (the cap is 999) OR play a stage and let the game save before exiting out of the game.

Don't let deleting summon stones be your last action before quitting the game.

I'm sure a patch will be incoming before long, but be careful until then.

 

[Peklo]

I've barely stocked a 100 summonstones after clearing every song in the game on Expert and starting on Ultimate, so unless they're deleted for organization's sake, hitting the inventory limit seems like it would take a very long time. Good to know the cause has been isolated, though.

 

[YangusKhan]

That wording is slightly ambiguous. The only way this gets triggered is if you delete Summonstones at all?

 

[Kirin]

Yeah, only if you delete summonstones and then quit before playing another song is my read of it.

You have to play multiplayer to exchange stones. There is an option to exchange cards without fighting but you don’t swap stones.

It’s a good way to rope people into multiplayer, I suppose, though it has the effect of people jumping ship after one song.

So no way to exchange without an online subscription, huh. Bummer, as I don't have NSO.

 

[Kazin]

You have to play multiplayer to exchange stones. There is an option to exchange cards without fighting but you don’t swap stones.

It’s a good way to rope people into multiplayer, I suppose, though it has the effect of people jumping ship after one song.

Ah okay, thank you! I wonder what the point of the exchange function in the museum menu is really for, then. I guess just to see their stats? Sucks because I feel like I have a decent summonstone - I have a Shiva that has +30% Item Dropping, +30% CollectaCard Dropping, and +1% Burst Gauge, whatever that last one does. It's supposedly rare? I've basically had it equipped to every party since I unlocked it lol

I like Battle on the Big Bridge as much as anyone, but holy crap I've played a dozen different versions of it today lol. Can they just put Magitek Research Facility from VI in? Maybe more of Dancing Mad?

 

[Kazin]

Somebody tell me how to unlock Professor Layton, because this is clearly a song from one of his games:

https://soundcloud.com/green_fireballs%2F04-star-onions-fighters-of-the

 

[Vaeran]

"I say, but this raid rather reminds me of a puzzle!"

"oh god here we go"
"not this puzzle shit again"
"how about you just focus on healing this time, professor"

 

[Kazin]

"i haff tvelve adds"

(apologies for quoting P*nny A*cade)

 

[Sprite]

Ah okay, thank you! I wonder what the point of the exchange function in the museum menu is really for, then. I guess just to see their stats? Sucks because I feel like I have a decent summonstone - I have a Shiva that has +30% Item Dropping, +30% CollectaCard Dropping, and +1% Burst Gauge, whatever that last one does. It's supposedly rare? I've basically had it equipped to every party since I unlocked it lol

I like Battle on the Big Bridge as much as anyone, but holy crap I've played a dozen different versions of it today lol. Can they just put Magitek Research Facility from VI in? Maybe more of Dancing Mad?

Burst gauge is what acitvates the wacky attacks in multiplayer. Most of them are dumb but the false trigger one is wild.

Multiplayer is a reaaally good source of stones. I have a Bahamat now with +30% Item drops, +30% Item drops, and +20% item drops. I don’t know how long that bounty will last though as finding opponents already feels a little sparse.

 

[Kazin]

Burst gauge is what acitvates the wacky attacks in multiplayer. Most of them are dumb but the false trigger one is wild.

Multiplayer is a reaaally good source of stones. I have a Bahamat now with +30% Item drops, +30% Item drops, and +20% item drops. I don’t know how long that bounty will last though as finding opponents already feels a little sparse.

I think I'm going to have to play some multiplayer tonight, then, that's rad. I wouldn't mind a summonstone with a big trigger damage boost, as that seems to make a huge difference in how quickly I beat these bosses... Speaking of which, the last Final Fantasy III quest, beat Cloud of Darkness who has 2.5x her normal HP, is really tough. I used up all my stat boosting potions on physical and magical teams, and Princess Sarah, who can clear any ailment 3 times, and I cannot do enough damage to her so far no matter how I set up my teams, whether I use Sarah or not to clear the ailments the first few enemies throw at me. I think I just need some more raw stats, because I'm performing the song quite well, usually only 1 or 2 Greats and all critical otherwise lol. She's just an absolute HP sponge.

EDIT: God dang, she's tough. I've beaten similar quests (and beat all the quests) in FFs I, II, IV, and V, and I can't beat Cloud of Darkness. Maybe she's the true endgame (I'm doing the quests in game order so this is probably not the case lol)

 

[Vaeran]

This game's got a lot of cute nods and references in the quests. I like that the one for FFX Thunder Plains is to avoid getting hit , lol

 

[YangusKhan]

This game's got a lot of cute nods and references in the quests. I like that the one for FFX Thunder Plains is to avoid getting hit , lol

They did a great job with a lot of these. Some FF7 stand outs I remember:
- Golden Saucer: Everything is really fast
- Rufus Ceremony: Get a high% of rainbow criticals

My primary goal at this time is to shoot for 100% quest completion before diving into Endless World/multiplayer mode. To that end... I spent entirely too much time trying to perfect chain FF1 Final Battle on Ultimate, but I finally fucking did it. I started out just wanting to complete the quest (defeat Chaos), but it turned into a sunk cost endeavor where I just needed to perfect chain that fucking song. Didn't even kill Chaos on the perfect chain playthrough, anyway. This whole thing came about because Exdeath and Golbez learn Meteor, and in order to trigger it you need a 300 chain. Turns out FF1 Final Battle only has like 370 notes, which means you pretty much have to full chain the song in order to cast Meteor.

 

[Kazin]

Leveled up just enough to be able to beat Cloud of Darkness on the last possible hit lol. Yuna with Grand Summon helped - there's so many stupid mobs in that fight before you get to the boss, clearing one out for essentially free was great. Guess I'll be leveling her up too!

 

[YangusKhan]

Oh yes, Yuna is super good for quests with a lot of waves. Honestly the biggest pain for quests with a lot of trash mobs is getting AOE damage. Most of the good AOE damage sources are from magic, so whenever there's a quest with "half magic damage" it could be a rough time.

 

[Kirin]

I haven't pushed many characters past the 50-ish you usually get from just going through their respective series once yet so I haven't delved into end-game strats, but I'm curious how far you could push an "all summon, as quickly as possible, as boosted as possible" strat with like Yuna / Garnet / Eiko / some-other-summon-char.

 

[gogglebob]

Yuna / Garnet / Eiko / some-other-summon-cha

It's not like there's a green-haired woman who watched her entire family and home burn to death and then go on to be the first recognized summoner in the entire franchise or anything. Not like she's worth remembering! Not like she helped saved the world! Twice!

(sobs)

 

[Kazin]

It's not like there's a green-haired woman who watched her entire family and home burn to death and then go on to be the first recognized summoner in the entire franchise or anything. Not like she's worth remembering! Not like she helped saved the world! Twice!

(sobs)

Onion Knights summoned long before whoever you're talking about

---

Played some online battles today, about 10 or so. I'm reminded why I don't bother playing anything online much - multiple people had their parties all picked out and sat at the screen where you're supposed to pick "ready" until the literal last second before pushing A, then doing the same thing when selecting a song. "Literally any way to annoy the people we're playing with, we'll do!" -every gamer

Ah, anyway. The actual gameplay online is alright, I don't mind it at all, though I wish the game would pick the first song at random, then let the winner pick the next song or something, because it suuuuure is boring playing Battle on the Big Bridge TFFAC edition over and over again. It's a good song! But pick something else~~~

 

[YangusKhan]

Tidus, Jecht, and Seymour also have some summoning-related abilities.

 

[Kirin]

It's not like there's a green-haired woman who watched her entire family and home burn to death and then go on to be the first recognized summoner in the entire franchise or anything. Not like she's worth remembering! Not like she helped saved the world! Twice!

(sobs)

Haha, sorry, I can assure you I adore both Terra and FFVI in general, it was just that the IX and X teams have more Summon-sunchronicity in their builds and I'd played through them more recently.