kind of crowd. They weren’t there to hear Mozart, or Brahms, or Sibelius, or Holst.

They were there to hear Final Fantasy. Judging from the reaction - and subsequent world tours,

playing everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to the Royal Albert Hall - the world was ready

to take the music of this new, emerging media seriously, with Final Fantasy’s Nobuo Uematsu

leading the vanguard. But for all the celebration his compositions received, they were never

featured in an actual rhythm/music game. Until now: Behold, Elite Beat Dissidia - erm, I

mean, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

You’ve got 39 songs available at the start of the game, three for each of the 13 primary

games. Yes, FFXIV still can’t catch a break. In the Series mode, each batch of three includes

one field track, one battle track, and one event track, bookended by opening and closing

themes. And while their displays are wildly different, the entire game boils down to three

rudiments: Poke red notes, hold green notes, and slide in the direction of arrows. Field

tracks see your team traversing a familiar series backdrop, occasionally sliding your

target up and down to follow held notes, and trying to cover the greatest distance in search

of moogles bearing gifts. Battles break the incoming notes into four lines, though your

inputs are the same regardless; quality play here lets you fire spells and techniques at

your enemies, in attempts to cut them down and score some item drops. Finally, event

tracks play video footage of memorable Final Fantasy moments behind a linear - but omnidirectional

- cursor.

Once you clear songs in the Series mode, they become available in Challenge, which lets

you pick individual songs to play in one of three difficulty levels - Basic, Expert, and

Ultimate. And if these charts weren’t enough, you can go down to the Chaos Shrine for alternate

versions of most of the available tracks, offered in Field/Battle pairs that often yield

crystal shards needed to unlock the rest of the 29-member cast, as well as collectable

cards for the sake of... well, collecting. In total, there’s 55 playable tracks - 80

if you count the intro and outro pieces for the Series versions, and even more if you

don’t mind dropping a buck a track on DLC. Yes, 3DS DLC. I came close to complaining,

but then I saw that Cosmo Canyon was available, and... well, Cosmo Canyon. DLC aside, my only

real gripe with the game is that the sound often overpowers the 3DS speakers... but with

a decent set of headphones, that issue is alleviated. My only fake gripe is that now

I have the urge to re-play ALL OF THE FINAL FANTASIES. ALL OF THEM.