Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
Music game is a love letter to Final Fantasy fans.
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Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this game.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is a rhythm game based on the music of the Final Fantasy franchise available for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Players play along to hundreds of different music tracks from Final Fantasy games using a series of button presses and flicks of the joystick while an assorted team of Final Fantasy characters automatically battles enemies and monsters. This fighting is cartoonish, but completing tracks rewards you with scenes from other games that can be more realistically violent and sometimes feature blood. Intuitive controls and good tutorials help the game feel approachable, but higher difficulties require a high level of coordination.
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What’s It About?
THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE brings the Theatrhythm music game experience to traditional controllers for the first time. Theatrhythm takes over 300 songs from the beloved Final Fantasy franchise and asks players to press and hold buttons and flick and point joysticks to the rhythm while a party of Final Fantasy characters battles to the beat. You take on the music battles of individual games in the franchise to unlock more music, characters, and abilities to use. After unlocking them, you can play individual songs whenever you want to try higher difficulties and raise your score. Multiplayer modes let you trade customizable profile cards or fight one-on-one score battles with your friends.
Is It Any Good?
A huge selection of songs makes this rhythm game a compelling experience. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is an updated port of a game that previously required the use of a stylus on a touch screen, and it does a great job of translating the gameplay to traditional controllers. You're tasked with pressing and holding buttons while flicking and aiming the joysticks to the tunes of the Final Fantasy franchise. While doing so, miniature versions of characters from the franchise automatically do battle with monsters and bosses, using customizable abilities that unlock as you continue to play. The gameplay is separated into Battle, Field, and Event tracks, which each have minor variations to the core rhythm gameplay. You unlock more songs and characters by playing through the Series Quests, which visually follow the basics of the plots of the games they are from. The game also features multiplayer options, where you can compete with other players online to see who gets the best score and trade customizable profile cards.
Despite switching control schemes, the gameplay remains engaging and intuitive, while also allowing for a greater degree of customization. You can manually adjust your button calibration and tweak the background visuals and audio cues to help tailor the experience to your own needs. While there are many characters to unlock with different roles and abilities, the consequence for doing so feels fairly minor. This doesn't distract from the fun of the game itself, and the truly massive number of songs to play keeps things feeling fresh for a long time. Anyone with affection for Final Fantasy as a franchise will love the breadth of the references and details, while players after a pure rhythm game will be more than satisfied by what's on offer here.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about violence in video games. Is the impact of the violence in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line affected by the cartoonish visuals? How did the cartoonish graphics in the auto-battles make you feel, compared to the more realistic violence in the unlockable cutscenes?
How did the controls of the game make you think about music? Do you think that playing games like this can improve your understanding of music in real life?
Game Details
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
- Pricing structure: Paid ($49.99)
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Square Enix
- Release date: February 16, 2023
- Genre: Music & Dance
- Topics: Magic and Fantasy, Princesses, Fairies, Mermaids, and More, Music and Sing-Along
- ESRB rating: T for Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes
- Last updated: February 14, 2023
Our Editors Recommend
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World of Final Fantasy
Amazing RPG with mild violence, realistic relationships.
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Hi-Fi Rush
Stylish game mixes action/rhythm, creating absolute magic.
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Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
Classic RPG bundle hasn’t aged a bit; great value for teens.
For kids who love music
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