• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call Review



    In 2012, Square Enix decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their hit JRPG franchise with the release of a gem on the 3DS known as Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. This game featured musical highlights from the excellent soundtracks of every mainline Final Fantasy game. After two years, we've finally gotten a sequel to this lovely rhythm game. However, does Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call give enough reason for fans of the first game and newcomers alike to purchase it? Short answer: yes!

    The gameplay remains virtually unchanged for this sequel. Songs are still split up between Battle Music Stages (BMS), Field Music Stages (FMS), and Event Music Stages (EMS). This game still has you tapping, slashing, and swiping on the touch screen to the beat of the music. However, this game also gives you the option to use the buttons and the circle pad in place of the stylus. You can even use both play styles simultaneously, allowing you to play the game in a way that feels most comfortable to you. No matter how you choose to play, I found each style to be very responsive and fun to play!




    The first mode available to you is the music stages mode, where you simply pick the game and song you'd like to play. One difference from the first game is that you now start out with every difficulty available to you. This is very nice as the easiest difficulty was always way too easy and boring for me, and it was a pain to unlock harder difficulties.

    One big change in this game is the inclusion of multiplayer. Versus Mode has you competing with other players to see who can get the highest score on BMS songs. Players have the option of competing online or locally, or you can even try your hand against A.I. opponents of varying difficulty. This mode adds a new element into the gameplay: Sabotages. Essentially, as you chain notes together, you will randomly hit your opponent with some new difficulty to sabotage their own gameplay. These include such things as speeding up the display, having elongated triggers stretch and shrink, swapping HP with your opponent, and other such difficulties. It would be nice if you could choose to turn off sabotages should you wish. I also wish that instead of having you kill the same random monsters in these BMS songs that it instead showed your party actually fighting the other player's party. Despite all that, this mode is a welcome and very fun addition to the game.

    Another big change is that the original's Chaos Shrine has been replaced with Quest Medley Mode. For those who never played the first game, Chaos Shrine was simply a mode in which you would play and unlock randomized playlists called Dark Notes, each containing of 1 FMS song and 1 BMS song. Some songs, characters, and items were unlocked through playing these, and you had the chance to encounter different bosses depending on how well you did. That's all there was to it, though.

    Quest Medley Mode is more engaging and provided more options though. In this mode, players choose between Short, Medium, and Long quests. Each quest provides you with a randomized playlist of songs set along a map with branching paths. As you can guess, the length of the quest determines the number of songs available. On the map, you just pick which paths you want to take, the only knowledge about the song you'll get next being the game it is from and what type of song it is. As you move along the map, you'll find spots which provide shortcuts, minibosses, the chance for rarer items, and a boss at the end. All in all, this mode is a vast improvement over Chaos Shrine, but it is not without its issues. Like with Chaos Shrine, the maps start out really easy at first and get progressively harder as you unlock more rather than allow you to control the difficulty. The randomized songs chosen can also become repetitive over time. Also, while Quest Medley is a good place to level your characters and acquire more items, the game doesn't do much to really make you feel those things really matter.




    This brings me to the progression system of the game. As you complete songs in this game, you'll receive Rhythmia points based on your performance. As in the first game, these points build up to unlock new things in the game, such as characters and songs. In a strange move by the developers, you begin the game being virtually locked out from everything, including settings. You'll have to play the game a little before you can access all of the settings, Versus Mode, and Quest Medley Mode. After that point, though, more things are unlocked at a fairly rapid and exciting pace.

    And now for the thing you all really care about with this game: the songs. This game is an impressive upgrade from the original, giving the player over 220 songs to play from. The song list includes the entirety of the original's and its DLC (aside from Somnus). It also has a number of songs from various spin offs and sequels ranging from Crystal Chronicles to Type-0. For the most part, I enjoyed all of the selections available, but there are some strange omissions. In particular, the FFVIII list is missing such important songs as Liberi Fatali and Eyes on Me. All of the EMS songs from the original game have also been relegated to FMS or BMS songs as well; the only EMS songs being for the songs from new games included in this sequel. Otherwise, the song list is excellent and well worth the purchase alone.

    I also have to say that the presentation in this game does feel a bit better than the original. We get a lot more variation with the locations seen in the background of both FMS and BMS songs, we have a lot more enemies we can fight, and we have a lot more characters to choose from for our parties.

    If you are a fan of Final Fantasy, you owe it to yourself buy this game. No matter how you feel about the direction the games have taken, the one thing that has remained consistent throughout the past 27 years is the quality of music. If you already own the original, I'd definitely say there is enough new content to warrant a purchase as well. For everyone else, it is worth a try. As I've said, the music from Final Fantasy has always been excellent. Download the demo to see if the gameplay is something you'd enjoy!
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call Review started by Scotty_ffgamer View original post
    Comments 21 Comments
    1. LocoColt04's Avatar
      LocoColt04 -
      I still can't get over the wonderful selection from FFXIV.
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      I really enjoy playing songs from the games I don't have much experience with. The music from XI and XIV both really make me want to play those games.

      Oh! As another note for this, there are two DLC songs free for the first two weeks of release. I think you have a couple more days to get those songs. One was Rose of May from FFIX. The other is a battle theme from FFV.
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya -
      After I read this review I realized I supppper need this game. SO I bought it today. THANKS SCOTTY
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      Yeah you needed it! Have fun
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya -
      So I know you can use the buttons and stuff now but I still use the stylus to play and after a bit it cramps my hand I need to vs someone!
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      Are we 3DS buddies? We should versus sometime. I can't stop myself from using the stylus, and it does get tiring after a while, haha.
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder -
      Good review. I think I'll get this.
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      After playing VS mode with Freya, I have decided we should all try to do a tournament sometime. It's great fun.
    1. Lone Wolf Leonhart's Avatar
      Lone Wolf Leonhart -
      Right on. I'll VS anyone who wants to share their friend code with me.

      I always use the stylus when I play. I feel like I would have difficulty on the beginner level using buttons.
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      I've had some success doing a mix of stylus/using the circle pad for the arrows.
    1. Pumpkin's Avatar
      Pumpkin -
      I really enjoy the game

      I do get ridiculously itchy when I play though because my body knows I can't scratch

      It knows
    1. Chibi Youkai's Avatar
      Chibi Youkai -
      Never played the original, but Curtain Call certainly is a great deal of fun. Made four plane flights pass much faster. The only downside that I can find is that they could have included a little more plot into it. Made some of the quests tie into some sort of storyline.
    1. Aelitalily's Avatar
      Aelitalily -
      I am so totally in love with this game!! It's the only thing able to tear me away form FFXIV currently
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder -
      So. Many. Songs.

      I'm liking it so far, maininly the number of songs, which seems like it is four to five times as many as the first game. I do agree that it would have been nice to get some kind of story mode. Leveling up characters and unlocking new characters still feels pointless. You level up characters to defeat bosses to get items that unlock more characters? All kind of silly since the characters in your party do not change the gameplay at all.

      I'm also disappointed in the additional FFXI music selections. In the original they picked the 3 exact songs I would have picked for that game but the additional ones in Curtain Call (other than Zi'tah and Selbina) seem like lazy choices. Maybe the DLC or unlockables will give me the Jeuno fix I need.
    1. Lone Wolf Leonhart's Avatar
      Lone Wolf Leonhart -
      http://www.jp.square-enix.com/t_ffcc...dlc/index.html

      That link has a preview of all DLC songs. It's from the Japanese site but you can still make your way down the list easily enough. It even has the DLC that hasn't yet been announced in English.

      I love the DLC I've downloaded so far. I think it's cool the Shuffle or Boogie song has your characters on top of a Triple Triad board.
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder -
      Hm, some interesting ones in there such as Locke's Theme and the Rufus March but not what I wanted from FFXI. It's ok, I have plenty of songs to keep me busy!
    1. Wolf Kanno's Avatar
      Wolf Kanno -
      Man I still need to pick this game up. Next paycheck I guess.
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya -
      I want more IX battle stuff. I dunno what else they could put but I want it. I need to vs lwl this weekend. Del, I don't think I have your friend code!
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder -
      It's in my profile. How does one 'battle' in a rhythm game?
    1. Scotty_ffgamer's Avatar
      Scotty_ffgamer -
      You play a BMS song. Basically, you are just playing the game as normal, but as you hit notes, it fills up a little bar that will eventually lead to something that effects the other person's game (like the arrows are rotating, making it harder to figure out which direction you need to slash. Speeding up or slowing down notes. Making it so you have to hit the note perfectly or it counts as a miss. etc etc). It's pretty fun.

      I would also point out that the characters can have a slight impact as you play. Mainly, having a character with healing abilities could keep you alive in a troubling song. Characters with more offensive abilities could have you go through more bosses in a BMS song, and you can get more items this way. There's so little incentive to experiment with this though.
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