Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Curtain Call is Great Music, Good Gameplay, and a Poor Mix

Final Fantasy Theatrhythm is proof that great music doesn't necessarily make great rhythm gaming.

It's an unfortunate realization I came to recently, while playing the second Theatrhythm game, Curtain Call. I got the game around it's release, way back in 2014, and haven't played it in about 2 years. But while playing Final Fantasy XIV, I was reminded that the music in Final Fantasy games is always so dang good, and decided to dust off the cartridge. And you know what? I was correct. The music in Final Fantasy is, indeed, so dang good. Sweeping orchestral scores, or as close as 8- and 16-bit hardware could manage way back when, serve as a fantastic backdrop to grandiose stories of capital-h Heroes saving the capital-w World. All of the songs are fantastic in their own right, and a few still give me chills to think about.

And Theatrhythm is a very good rhythm game. Hundreds of songs from the series history are represented, from the very first game for the NES all the way to Final Fantasy XIV, the most recent in the series at the time. Even spinoffs like Crystal Chronicles and the obscure Mystic Quest have a couple songs and characters in the game. Beyond the variety of music, the scoring and progression is unique and interesting as well: you create a party of 4 characters chosen from a wide roster, again culled from across the series' history, which all have their own stats. These stats determine how good they are at what kinds of songs: Some characters will make Battle songs easier, while others make Field songs easier, and more still are suited to cutscene or Event songs. These characters will gain experience as you use them in your party, gaining abilities and stats to further help you pass through difficult songs.

Did I mention all of the different kinds of songs have differing mechanics, as well? Battle Music Stages force you to keep tabs on 4 different tracks for notes, while Field Stages have only one that you'll need to manipulate to keep centered on the upcoming notes. Event Stages will actually move the cursors onto notes rather than the opposite. You also have a variety of ways of hitting notes, so whether you're most comfortable using buttons and the circle pad, your stylus, or a mixture of the two, the game allows it and even keeps track. It can occasionally be a little fiddly when the game asks you to flick the stylus or circle pad in a particular direction, but for the most part it's a fun system. And the incredibly slow progression system, of slowly unlocking art and new characters (earned via crystals) as you gather 'Rhythmia' from finishing songs, ensures dedicated players have a reason to play for months. It's great fun.
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Which all goes to show that sometimes, great tastes do not taste great together.

Rhythm games work best with songs that are more designed to be...well, rhythmic, I suppose. Catchy, recognizable beats that are easy to hum along to. I love Final Fantasy and its music with all my heart, but "hummable" describes very few songs in the series. Some songs certainly work better than others: Battle songs tend to work anywhere from decently enough to pretty well. But once the game wants you to play DDR in time to a slow town theme, the whole things feels off.

Not to mention, the note maps are occasionally...silly. There are a lot of ways high-level rhythm game maps mix up the difficulty: They require more buttons, they force you to more closely follow the notes in the song instead of simplifying, things like that. But there's always a sense that goes into those increases in difficulties. Take, for example, this video from Hatsune Miku Project Diva: Future Tone. It's of the song Sadistic Music Factory, on the hardest difficulty level:

Pretty difficult, right? But there's a flow to how the notes are arranged in the song. There are moments with rapid alternation between two notes, which may shift to hitting the notes simultaneously, or holding one note while hitting out a rhythm of other notes. Ultimately, the speed makes it difficult, but any individual section can be looked at on it's own and have a sense to it that congeals well in the end.

For comparisons sake, let's look at the Final Fantasy XIV Titan Theme at the highest difficulty in Theatrhythm:

The notes are much more all over the place in this one. In the same section of the song, the notes you're expected to play shift rapidly without reason, almost like the game is trying to trick you. Note maps can be difficult, but there's usually a sense to them. Some of the maps in Theatrhythm look like those joke note maps for free computer DDR or Elite Beat Agents games. In a song you'd typically hear in a rhythm game, this kind of stuff isn't necessary because following the song itself can lead to enough challenge on its own. But when the music doesn't get as crazy, you have to resort to stuff like this, even when it feels cheap.

I cannot stress enough that I really enjoy Final Fantasy Theatrhythm. I'm at over 40,000 Rhythmia, a metric which has no meaning even to me but basically means I've played this game a bunch. The music is great, and the gameplay is pretty good. It's just a crying shame that they mix like oil and water.

Violence and Legacy in Hyper Light Drifter

The following piece contains spoilers for Hyper Light Drifter

Also, the story in Hyper Light Drifter is told entirely without text, so all names and proper nouns are derived from the Hyper Light Drifter wiki. In addition, while the player character is typically known as the Drifter, this would create three things in this article which I refer to as “Drifter,” alongside the game’s name and the general concept of a “drifter.” For the sake of clarity I have chosen to refer to the character as The Magician, an alternate name derived from the Steam trading card the character appears on.

Hyper Light Drifter was a game I almost entirely missed out on last year, playing it for about an hour before putting it away and not touching it until the very first day of this year. Over the course of two sessions and 6 hours, I plugged away at the game (finishing it that day) and came back very impressed. The controls were tight even as I used the non-ideal mouse and keyboard setup, combat was fast and fun with enemies that forced me to mix up my tactics, and the visuals were stunning. For a game that could easily be dismissed as “another pixel game,”the places and vistas were amazing, and let you know what the world of Hyper Light Drifter was like, just by their appearance.

For the uninitiated, Hyper Light Drifter tells the story of The Magician, one of many Drifters drawn to Central Town. Each drifter is afflicted by a mysterious illness which threatens their lives, and leads them to follow a mysterious dog known as the Jackal in their search for a cure, periodically assailed by visions: a sea of bodies after a catastrophe; a shadow assailing them; hellish titans too large to comprehend; a massive tower which bursts from the ground; a strange crystal, corrupted by a malevolent force.

The Magician fights through four different areas surrounding Central Town, defeating bosses and raising pillars, eventually leading them to a final confrontation. As you play, the Magician periodically encountering other non-player characters such as a fellow drifter known as The Guardian, who points you in the direction of important collectibles called Modules in each area. The areas are diverse and fun to navigate through, but there was one thing which seemed to link them all: evidence of war and destruction.

Hyper Light Drifter’s world is filled with legacy and history. The corpses of giants cling to mountains, vehicles are overgrown with vines and ivy, ruins lie at the bottom of lakes long forgotten, all of which points to a huge past of prior events. But it is a history of violence and war, of destruction and weaponry. The giants have been killed in the midst of attacks, and the vehicles are armored and fitted with heavy armament. All the Magician can do, all you can do, with that legacy is contribute to it. You cannot read books littered around a library, you can only destroy their stories and words. You cannot broker peace with other beings, only kill them before they kill you. For all you contribute to the legacy of death, you cannot even respect it; coffins and remains are set dressing, and the bones of those who came before, which you find littered about, are as easily crumbled as what those people left behind. You’re even actively encouraged to destroy anything and everything you can as you go through areas; attacking enemies and objects refills the ammunition bar on your gun, an important tool in combat.

When you defeat enemies in the world, their bodies are left behind. But they don’t disappear quickly after you leave them behind, they stick around for quite a while. That was something I definitely noticed when I first backtracked through an area: every enemy, every body, was still there. Dead. Exactly where I killed them. Eventually they *do* despawn, if you leave an area entirely, but I almost wish they didn’t. It felt big, when I saw them still lying there. Another part of the legacy, left behind to be found by someone else.

Even as your adventure comes to a close, you cannot avoid violence. The game leads up to a climactic finale against the shadowy being known as Judgement, who attacked you at the beginning of the game and who you’ve potentially seen several times since if you’ve been collecting enough of the Modules. In the visions which you receive after finding the fourth Module in an area, Judgement appears and, in the tradition of the game, violently attacks you. In one, he summons small crystals which whip and slice through the Magician’s skin. In another, he comes down upon the Magician with his full mass, crushing them into a pile of blood. In the most violent I can recall, Judgement turns his tendrils inwards before stabbing them out, impaling the Magician. He effortlessly lifts the Magician up, watching as they writhe in pain and eventually die.

The fight against Judgement is grueling, with large area attacks forcing you to unfavorable positions, and a single misaimed dash being the difference between survival and getting a massive evil laser to the face and dying. As you strike the final blow, the Magician goes in for the kill, unleashing a flurry of blows before finally plunging their blade deep into…

The crystal you’ve been going after the entire game; the Immortal Cell. The story is vaguely told, but it certainly seems like you’ve been chasing it the entire game, hoping it would be the key to your survival. And now it’s destroyed.

It’s hard to tell if it’s intentional or Judgement tricking you in a final moment. But throughout the game it seems like the core itself was not evil, merely corrupted. Perhaps there was a way to save it, to bring it back to a purer state. But that’s not how the Magician solves problems. Not now, nor anytime prior. The Magician destroys. They destroy monsters, they destroy remains, they destroy harmless objects, and now they’ve destroyed the Immortal Cell.

Despite this, it is generally considered by fans that the Magician has done the right thing. The structure of light which hung above the world disappears, and the Jackal which has appeared throughout the game certainly seems pleased with the outcome, entering a massive structure in one final vision, after which the Magician, apparently, dies. Their hard work is given no reward, their hope in a cure for the disease which has plagued them for the entire game dashed. Their fate is the same as The Guardian, who you see perish earlier in the game, and the same as all others who chose this over peace.

And yet...it seems as though someone had to choose this path. If destroying Judgement and the Immortal Cell is what it took to save the world, then someone had to pick violence. The people who stayed in town, who didn’t fight, are happy. They have their homes and their shops. They peddle their wares and play soccer in the local field. In your journey, you meet a fellow warrior, potentially a drifter, who chooses to return to town, to give up violence, and they turn out okay. But if everyone chose peace, chose to not fight, then Judgement keeps their power and the Immortal Cell stays corrupted. Fan theory claims that Judgement’s goal was to bring back the titans you see in your vision, and destroy the world. If no one stopped him, the world would quite literally end.

Everyone who fights dies.

But somebody has to fight.

Someone has to kill, to save everyone else. It’s a difficult path to choose, and one that carries severe repercussions. But someone has to do it, for everyone’s sake.

One final note I’d like to make: Throughout the game, especially before the violent visions I mentioned earlier, you see further evidence of the Magician’s illness. He hunches over, his vision blurs, and he coughs up a lot of blood. But, the puddles of blood disappear almost immediately, as do the ones created to help show you that your health is low. Your fights stay behind; evidence that you fought and killed remains. But the evidence of your struggles, of your illness, of the times that you were almost the one killed, of the times you bled, that doesn’t stick around. That isn’t what you’ll be remembered for.

Hyper Light Drifter is available via Steam, Humble Store, and GOG on PC, Mac, and Linux; via Playstation Store for Playstation 4; and via Xbox Marketplace for Xbox One

Borb the Birb

In all the hubbub around world events and the unknown future, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. When stress threatens to make you break down and give up, a kind word from a friend or family member can be just what you need to keep going. But, if your friends are unavailable and you don’t want to talk to family, you can do what I did: check out Borb the Birb.

Borb the Birb, by Ludonaut and available on itch.io, is incredibly simple: When you click on the screen, you’ll get a random animated picture of the titular character, with a random animated inspiring quote or helpful bit of advice above them, in random colors, while some chill music plays in the background. The arrow keys can be used to move the quote on the screen, which will rotate around its center if it bumps into Borb. If you press the spacebar, a picture will be saved onto your computer. If you click again, you’ll get a new image and quote to interact with. That’s all.

There’s not much to Borb the Birb, to be sure. If one were interested in the question, there could be a debate about whether or not it qualifies as a game or just an interactive software-based toy. Whatever you’d classify it as, I was surprised by how much it turned out I needed Borb the Birb.

Without going into too much detail, I was having a bad week when I discovered Borb the Birb. The kind of week that makes you afraid for the future of everything, and questioning a lot of things about your life. Here I was, in the midst of the most fear and depression I had felt in years, and there was Borb the Birb. There was this silly, chubby little bird, giving me compliments and telling me everything was gonna be okay. Empty platitudes, honestly. There was no way this thing, this program, could know everything would be alright. I still don’t know it will. But it felt good that someone, or something, was willing to say it. It was reassuring. It was pleasant.

I came closer than I’d like to admit to crying.

So, the question of whether Borb the Birb is a “game” or not is completely irrelevant in my opinion. I certainly think it is. Someone very likely feels it’s not. What it is, is nice. And charming, and sweet, and endearing, and positive. It’s exactly what I needed it to be when I found it, and that’s good enough for me.

On Pokemon's Future, Past, and Nostalgia

This piece includes minor spoilers for Pokemon Sun & Moon

To say nostalgia influences pop culture would be an understatement. There is, of course, the natural inspiration a creator may get from remembering or revisiting a beloved property, but we see it in much more overt ways as well; the recent years have introduced hugely successful films based on Transformers and G.I. Joe, children's cartoons from the 80s, and J.K. Rowling is still writing stories based on her Harry Potter series. Games, ultimately, are no different, with companies like Nintendo using their established properties and the strong feelings people have towards them to sell products. Just because a game uses nostalgia doesn’t mean it’s just empty reminders of the past, however. Good nostalgic games, like good nostalgic movies or books, will go “Okay. What here is essential? What needs to be the same to invoke what we’re trying to evoke? What needs to be different for this to work in the modern day? What should be changed, but can’t be altered for fear of backlash? What’s disliked, but essential for what this game was about?”

Take, for instance, the Pokemon series. For over twenty years, the games have delighted children the world over, and with a twenty year legacy comes a swath of fans now in their early to mid-adulthood. I myself, very young at the release of the first generation, grew up with the games, and consider them a very dear part of both my childhood and my adolescence. To this day I love the series and eagerly await this Friday, when the latest generation of Pokemon, the seventh generation, Sun & Moon, will be released and (with a convenient day off of work that I swear I didn’t ask for) I’ll be spending the whole day exploring the new Alola region, and discovering all the new Pokemon and people to challenge and befriend. As the day fast approaches, I look back and consider the best and worst of the series, at least in my opinion; the worst being the most recent installments, X & Y; the best, their predecessors, Black & White. Why? It all comes down to nostalgia, or to be exact, how those twenty long years of nostalgia are used.

X & Y tried to make you remember the past in the same way a parent might reprimand you; harshly and unsubtly. The third Pokemon you see in the games, after the local professors Gogoat and your mothers Fletchling, is a Rhyhorn; not only one of the original 151 Pokemon from Red & Blue, the first games in the series, but the pre-evolution (a prior form) of Rhydon, the very first Pokemon ever designed! A nice deep-cut for the real, old school fans. Later, when you enter the tall grass where wild creatures roam, what’s the first Pokemon you’d find, guaranteed, with 100% programmed certainty? Why, it’s a Pidgey! The bird you find in the grass in the original Red & Blue, right at the start! It’s like you’re playing those great old games from your childhood again! In the following area, a forest (and oh boy, a forest as the first dungeon! Just like Red & Blue!), you may encounter a Pikachu, the mascot of the series. What’s this? Replacing the electronic noise of a typical Pokemon call is a voice clip of “Pikachu!”, pulled straight from the cartoon you surely remember from when you were a kid.

It feels like the games are trying to distract you from the new, as if they’re afraid you won’t like what they bring to the series, so better to bury it amongst trite reminders of games and experiences long past. Indeed, the game seems reluctant to allow you to see any of it’s new Pokemon. On the first route you can find Pokemon on in the game, barely over half of the encounters (statistically speaking) will be with new Pokemon. In the following area, the aforementioned forest, there’s a measly 30% chance of encountering a Pokemon original to the sixth generation. X & Y lean on the old, and it works at first glance, but once you notice their crutch, you can tell how close they are (or feel they are) to falling over.

In sharp contrast, Black & White’s use of nostalgia was finessed. They didn’t hide their new Pokemon behind old; in fact, no old Pokemon appear in the games before you’d beaten the main story. Much like the experience of the original games, you had to traverse the land and meet new Pokemon to befriend and battle with. If you’re looking for references to the anime, then they certainly did work in the game to characterize the gym leaders and make them important characters in the story, doing the work in-game that would normally be kept for the television screen. Compared to the gym leaders in X & Y, who I felt were largely forgettable and only one of whom had lines outside of their gym battle to my recollection, the leaders in Black & White were downright nuanced.

Black & White were willing to step away from the norm in some pretty big ways as well; instead of only occasionally changing which Pokemon you encounter, the aesthetic of certain areas are entirely different depending on which game you get. Pokemon Black looked to be a Tron-esque future and Pokemon White appeared to eschew technology in favor of more natural beauty. There’s even an entire location that was different depending on which game you had, with players being able to battle a rotating cast of trainers in Black City, or capture rare pokemon in White Forest. A geographic difference between the two versions had never been in the games before, and certainly didn’t make a return in X & Y.

In addition, the story of Black & White were a step up from their predecessors as well, with the opposed Team Plasma being dedicated to freeing Pokemon from what they claimed was the tyrannical control of man. Admittedly, the game did little besides pay lip service to this idea; after a quick anti-Pokemon-capturing rally, you next saw Team Plasma grunts kicking a defenseless psychic tapir, presumably to assure children that no, the evil team doesn’t have a point and you don’t have to worry that you’re being cruel to Pokemon. But the fact that it even brought up something so often joked about in a semi-serious way was somewhat startling, and for all the harm his cronies may do, it’s made clear that your primary antagonist, the young idealist called N, sincerely believed that to be a trainer is to oppress Pokemon; capturing and controlling them against their wishes.

Compare and contrast this with the story in X & Y: a bad man wants to destroy the world. Stop him. Also, friendship.

I turn my eye towards the upcoming Pokemon titles and wonder which direction they’ll go in. I have ample reason to be skeptical; the main Interesting Thing™ of Sun & Moon are Alolan forms of existing Pokemon which grant different appearances and skills; dataminers digging through the released demo and copies of the games acquired early show these only exist for Pokemon from Red & Blue. In addition, there has been plenty of fussing and discussion about the inclusion of NPCs from previous Pokemon games, especially the titular protagonist and rival from Red & Blue. Once again, it seems as though the games will be trying to make up for deficiencies with blatant and poorly made appeals to players’ childhood.

And yet, at the same time, so much of what Sun & Moon are doing, or seem to be doing, are off the beaten path. For instance, the standard rhythm of the games, wherein the player goes to defeat eight different gyms, before facing off against the final challenge of the Elite Four and regional Champion, is gone. In fact, it’s an element of the story that the traditional Pokemon League is still in the process of being founded in Alola. Instead, players will go through the Trials of each of the four islands of the region, consisting of various tasks assigned by the island’s Trial Captain, followed by a battle against the island’s Kahuna. There’s also been a focus on the story of the games in trailers, involving mysterious Ultra Beasts and the Aether Foundation which works, in part, to study them (and who have, for their efforts, been treated with much suspicion by the Pokemon fandom at large). In addition, Team Skull is fulfilling the Team Rocket role of the game by stealing other trainers’ Pokemon. How this will all play out, and how all these pieces will play off each other, remains to be seen, but I’m looking forward to finding out for myself.

Pokemon is uniquely nostalgic for a new generation; I think it’s fair to say it may be to my generation what G.I. Joe or Transformers were to the generation before, the beloved childhood series that did no wrong as far as we can see looking back. This legacy gives Pokemon the ability to excite fans in two ways: It can merely show us what came before, content to retread old ground and confident it will suffice. Or, it can show us the best version of that, evolving and growing better with age without losing what made the games so loved in the first place. Game Freak, the developers of Pokemon, have both succeeded and faltered in taking those original games, the first generation, Red & Blue, and improving and modernizing them for the needs of the time. We’ll see soon enough if Sun & Moon can step forward, or if they’re too busy looking behind.