Theathrhythm is a splendid yet very challenging rhythm game showcasing the beautiful music of the Final Fantasy series.
Visuals: 8.5/10
It's weird that me being someone who loves cutesy things, I actually don't like how the character models look, primarily the faces. Other than that each character is very much recognizable and the settings for each song look like how they'd be if they were on the 3DS.
Sound: 10/10
Final Fantasy has always been known for it's amazing music and this game takes many of the most recognizable tracks from each entry into one great package. When you first play, you'll notice that whenever you hit a note, it'll make a little jingle noise, I personally found this distracting and turned it off, in which I started playing much better since I was able to fully listen and appreciate the music that was being played. Pretty much every song you hear (provided you've played the game) takes you back to those great memories of playing each franchise.
Gameplay: 9/10
Teathrhthm is a hardcore rhythm game, when you first play each series, it gives you the basic mode which is really easy for the most part. But as you take on the Expert and Ultimate mode, things really kick up and you have to be fast and precise to keep from failing. The primary objective of the game is to collect enough Rhythmia points to restore the Rhythmia crystal (10,000 to be exact) but of course the game doesn't end when you reach that goal.
There are 3 different stages within each series, battle music, field music, and cinematic music. I found that the field music tends to be the easiest while the battle music is usually the most intense while cinematic is the least forgiving. When playing, there are 3 different types of notes, red are simple taps, green are extended notes, and yellow are arrows, the arrows add the most difficulty as the game will sometimes not properly register your stylus when doing an arrow. You're graded from Critical, Great, Good, Bad to Miss and the game is rather forgiving in getting Criticals (except in cinematic stages).
There are also RPG elements which for the most part, hardly impact the overall gameplay. Although you can have a party of healers if to help prevent you from failing more difficult songs.
Value: 9.5/10
Theatrhythm pretty much begs you to constantly come back and play repeatedly to unlock more characters, beat high scores and exchange dark notes (side challenges) with friends. Playing each stage pretty much never gets old since it's about the music (and who here doesn't love listening to their favorite songs repeatedly?)
Overall: 9/10
A great addition to the 3DS library and something all Final Fantasy fans should get, especially if you love music games.