Theatrhythm, a title I have to slowly type out and proofread, brought Final Fantasy into the rhythm genre while mixing in the familiar RPG elements in a surprisingly pleasant way. It has the same elements most rhythm games on the DS have as you use the bottom screen of the DS to do the tapping to the music while actions occur on the top screen. It adds more to the gameplay by including many characters from the Final Fantasy franchise along with songs from said Final Fantasy's and allows players to level up the characters making them stronger. Equipping items and moves can change the outcome of the sequence getting further into it and rewarding you with items.
The end goal of the game is to collect as much Rhythmia as possible, which acts as a kind of currency in the game. You don't buy anything, but the amount of Rhythmia you receive also dictates the unlockable characters and songs you can receive. It's not difficult to to accumulate, but it's a grind to have enough to unlock everything.
You start the game selecting the four characters you want to take with you in the series. There are two characters per Final Fantasy game, including the FFXI MMO (but shockingly, not XIV....) They appear as doll-like Chibi models that make me think the kid from Limbo would look like this if that game had light. You can equip them with items such as potions or gear to boost stats, but everything is a one-time use item. It's not a big deal as you gain more of the same quite easily during your playthroughs. As the characters level up, you will notice the normal stats like HP, speed, attack, defense, etc all rise. A stat like Agility speeds up the character allowing you to witness more in a level and HP allows for more mistakes before it's game over. The next question is what Final Fantasy game you want to journey through. Each features music from that game (1-13) and a boost in Rhythmia is given if you have a member in your party from that game. Not something to concern yourself over.
The game has three different type of sequences you play through. The first is a Field Sequence which shows your character traversing the landscape of the selected Final Fantasy. During this, the character will move from left to right as notes approach the right side of the screen. The notes indicate how the player should react by either swiping a specific direction, tapping on the screen, or holding the stylus down and move based on the connected dots on the top screen. At the end of the level, if you reach it, a different character will give you a gift.
The second sequence is an Event sequence, which plays out part of the story (usually cut scenes in later Final Fantasy games) and like the Field sequence, you either tap the screen, hold it down, or swipe. You don't really do anything different here, and instead of seeing your character on the top screen, you are treated to a nice little "movie" consisting of scenes from the Final Fantasy game you selected.
The third, and my favorite, sequence is Battle. Like the name implies, your party of four sit on one side of the screen in classic Final Fantasy battle setup and fight enemies. You deal damage based on your timed accuracy of the previous methods. While the gameplay itself is still the same, I enjoy seeing my characters deal damage based on how well I do. The enemies you fight will occasionally die and be replaced by a new enemy. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to them as they appear to be randomized. My first time playing FF7's Battle sequence, I fought the One-Winged Angel Sephiroth himself as the third or fourth enemy. Hadn't seen him on later playthroughs.
Each sequence also has what is called a "Feature Zone" which causes different actions on the screen to occur. In the Field sequence, you will jump on a Chocobo and the notes will turn gold. The Event sequence will extend the length of the song and change a different color as well, and finally the Battle sequence summons a monster. I've only seen Ifrit, Shiva, and Odin, but Ramuh and Bahamut are summons as well. Each Feature Zone provides more points which ultimately lead to increased Rhythmia.
There is also a introduction and ending screen in which music notes circle around and touch a crystal. You gain Rhythmia here by tapping the stylus as the notes hit the crystal. It's a simple way to receive Rhythmia, but I simply didn't care enough to sit there and do it. These screens also do a poor job explaining the story of the selected Final Fantasy game, but since this is a game that the devout Final Fantasy player would play, there's a good chance they already know the story.
Sadly, that's the gist of what the game is. You can increase the difficulty of it in the Challenge mode and select what songs you want to play, but what you do in them is the exact same thing. The other mode is the Chaos Shrine which has a field sequence followed by a battle sequence with 99 possible level formations. It poses more difficulty and has the possibility for different boss characters in the battle sequence which yields better and rarer rewards, and is something you can streetpass other Theatrhythm players.
The song selection in the game is nothing to scoff at with over 70 songs playable and more downloadable songs coming. The DLC songs provide the biggest laugh with Type-0 and Versus, two games that haven't been released yet, each having one song while the MMO Final Fantasy XIV is nowhere to be seen. But you can expect to find many fan favorites on here such as "One-Winged Angel", "Battle with the Four Fiends", and many main themes.
Overall, it's hard to recommend this game to just anybody. I'm not the biggest rhythm game fan as I find them quick to please, but hard to retain. Speeding up the game and adding more notes doesn't make me want to go back and replay them, and that's the only thing the game really does. The RPG elements are there, but don't sustain my interest as I don't want to slog through yet another field sequence for Final Fantasy X to level up my characters to get 5 seconds further into a song and grind for hours on end to unlock Kain from Final Fantasy IV. It's hard not to love the song selection, especially as a Final Fantasy fan, but you need to ask whether or not rhythm games are for you. If you don't particularly enjoy them, a Final Fantasy one isn't going to engulf you for more than a few hours. But if you love them, then Final Fantasy adds enough to keep you wanting more.
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