Like it or not, there's been something of a trend in the games industry over the past few years towards offering extra downloadable tracks, levels and the like for games post launch, to help keep you interested in them post release. And while, by and large, we don't really have a problem with that, there does come a point when you wonder whether the downloadable extras in questions should really have been put in the game before it was sent out to stores, rather than held back with the intent of charging extra. Back in the good old days, games companies only even started work on expansion packs and the like after the game had been out for a bit - but seemingly, that's not the case for Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, as a selection of extra, downloadable songs will be hitting the eShop as of Thursday - a day before the game launches proper!
Launching this Friday, Square-Enix's new music game, Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy (check out our previous story for a trailier), features over seventy songs, lifted from the sprawling series of role-playing games. Played entirely with the Touch Screen; as the coloured circles scroll across the screen from left to right, you need to either tap, swipe in a direction or hold the stylus down for the duration of the notes, scoring points as you go. Each song has three different difficulties to master, and while the easiest is pretty forgiving, the Ultimate difficulty is strictly for masochists only - or at least requires a fair amount of practice first. Often considered to have some of the best music in games, the Final Fantasy music has quite a following - along with netting many awards over the years, Final Fantasy VII's Aeris' Theme made it to number sixteen on the Classic FM Top 100, beating the likes of Beethoven and Barber!
Notes linked by lines require you to hold the stylus down, shifting it up and down to (kind of) follow the curves.
Hitting the Nintendo eShop tomorrow, seemingly in preparation for the game's launch, are eight new tracks, priced at 90p each - which means you'll be coughing up a whopping £7.20 if you get them all. And with a whole load more coming in the following weeks/months (if Japan is anything to go by), Theatrhythm looks set to be turning into a rather expensive game, if you want to collect all of the tracks. Seeing as a list of titles means very little to those of us who've not really played the Final Fantasy series an awful lot, we've managed to hunt down the YouTube videos of each of the tunes, to give you some idea of what you're letting yourself in for with each of the eight songs:
- A Fleeting Dream (FF10)
- Ride On (FF08)
- Cosmo Canyon (FF07)
- In Search of Light (FF05)
- Fighting Fate (FF13)
- Fighters of the Crystal (FF11)
- The Final Battle (FF04)
- Battle Theme 1 (FF02)
Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy waltzes into stores this Friday - although if you're not sure it's a game for you, you could always give the free demo a spin, which is downloadable from the Nintendo eShop. And don't forget to keep checking back, as we're sure to get more songs in the future - the first batch is just a small selection of the huge choice Japan's received since the game launched earlier this year.
