This game just came out yesterday, and I bought it. I'm liking it, but I was a bit surprised in the bad way.
From the demo that was around before the games' release, I learned that there are difficulty levels, but as far as I've seen, you are forced to complete all the songs in one difficulty to unlock the next (a la Ouendan or EBA).
The game is, at least by definition, a rhythm game-RPG hybrid, but so far I have seen nothing that the RPG elements change. Like Dissidia, you have the heroes of each FF game at your command, and you choose a party of 4, and you can choose their abilities and give the group an item. The abilities are all automatic. They are either passive bonuses, or they are activated at certain times (kill an enemy, regain health, speed up/slow down, whatever). Items are basically just one-time-use skills. Your party levels up, gains hit points and their stats raise, but besides hit points, I haven't quite figured out how the other stats make much of a difference. Agility changes the speed that the notes come to you (imagine 2x or 3x mode on DDR). You have magic and attack stats, which of course make you more powerful when fighting monsters, but they never show you how much damage you're doing, and killing monsters or not has no effect on the song or your score (though I did notice that I was getting more xp, so I'm guessing more power = more monsters killed during the duration of the song = more xp).
The main part of the game is called “Series Mode” which puts you through a set of songs from each game (you can choose which games you play). This is where I was first surprised. Each game gives you only 3 stages (if you don't count the skippable opening and ending themes): an Overworld stage, a battle stage, and an event stage. Each stage plays the appropriate tune for the current came, and they are verbatim from the games they come from (so you get the original 8-bit versions of the FFI-III music, and the crappy midi versions of the FF7 songs. I like the Aeris song and One-winged Angel, but why the midi versions??). The stages vary cosmetically, but the gameplay is almost identical between them, which is more-or-less a tap/hold/swipe to the beat thing that most anyone who played any rhythm games will get down without explanation. I haven't encountered any "boss fights," story, or dialogue to speak of, but then again, it's a rhythm game. The points you get from doing the stages unlock songs in a music player and even extra characters if you collect enough special crystals. I haven't gotten any extra characters yet, so maybe we'll get to see some of our favorites besides just the heroes.
So, that's what I got so far. 3 songs from each game, exactly as they were originally. None of the cool orchestral versions or remixes (Dissidia had amazing versions of the music, so what's up here?). I seriously hope that's not it. With the increased difficulty that will be unlocked, there will be good replay value, but if that's all it is, it's not enough. The game boasted over 77 songs, so I'm assuming the series mode I'm playing is only one section of the game, and there will be much more after I finish.
From the demo that was around before the games' release, I learned that there are difficulty levels, but as far as I've seen, you are forced to complete all the songs in one difficulty to unlock the next (a la Ouendan or EBA).
The game is, at least by definition, a rhythm game-RPG hybrid, but so far I have seen nothing that the RPG elements change. Like Dissidia, you have the heroes of each FF game at your command, and you choose a party of 4, and you can choose their abilities and give the group an item. The abilities are all automatic. They are either passive bonuses, or they are activated at certain times (kill an enemy, regain health, speed up/slow down, whatever). Items are basically just one-time-use skills. Your party levels up, gains hit points and their stats raise, but besides hit points, I haven't quite figured out how the other stats make much of a difference. Agility changes the speed that the notes come to you (imagine 2x or 3x mode on DDR). You have magic and attack stats, which of course make you more powerful when fighting monsters, but they never show you how much damage you're doing, and killing monsters or not has no effect on the song or your score (though I did notice that I was getting more xp, so I'm guessing more power = more monsters killed during the duration of the song = more xp).
The main part of the game is called “Series Mode” which puts you through a set of songs from each game (you can choose which games you play). This is where I was first surprised. Each game gives you only 3 stages (if you don't count the skippable opening and ending themes): an Overworld stage, a battle stage, and an event stage. Each stage plays the appropriate tune for the current came, and they are verbatim from the games they come from (so you get the original 8-bit versions of the FFI-III music, and the crappy midi versions of the FF7 songs. I like the Aeris song and One-winged Angel, but why the midi versions??). The stages vary cosmetically, but the gameplay is almost identical between them, which is more-or-less a tap/hold/swipe to the beat thing that most anyone who played any rhythm games will get down without explanation. I haven't encountered any "boss fights," story, or dialogue to speak of, but then again, it's a rhythm game. The points you get from doing the stages unlock songs in a music player and even extra characters if you collect enough special crystals. I haven't gotten any extra characters yet, so maybe we'll get to see some of our favorites besides just the heroes.
So, that's what I got so far. 3 songs from each game, exactly as they were originally. None of the cool orchestral versions or remixes (Dissidia had amazing versions of the music, so what's up here?). I seriously hope that's not it. With the increased difficulty that will be unlocked, there will be good replay value, but if that's all it is, it's not enough. The game boasted over 77 songs, so I'm assuming the series mode I'm playing is only one section of the game, and there will be much more after I finish.
