Square Enix will release Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, a rhythm game based on the music from the popular role-playing game series, on the Nintendo 3DS.
The news comes from the latest issue of the Shonen Jump comics magazine in Japan. There's a photo of the one-page article floating around, and a summary of the game's features at the Andriasang blog.
While the article doesn't go into a whole lot of detail, it does mention that popular and famous music from the series will be used in at least two different types of rhythmic play. Like the role-playing games, it'll be divided up into "Field" (exploration) and "Battle" (monster-fighting) segments. The graphical style is taken straight from Kingdom Hearts Mobile, a Japan-only online game (illustrated above).
There's no release date yet and it hasn't been announced for release anywhere except Japan.
I'm going out on a limb and say this might be good. It's very difficult to make a fun rhythm game, but I hope Square Enix has reached out to a development house that knows what they're doing. Final Fantasy has a long history of excellent music that fans love to listen to, and building a game based on experiencing that music as a game is, in theory, a good idea. If this is executed well it could be a great addition to the 3DS' meager library.
If it sucks, it'll really suck.
I can't help but feel, also, that Theatrhythm is emblematic of Square Enix's development policies right now. On the one hand, the company's Japan side seems to be completely opposed to releasing anything that isn't tied to one of its big three franchises, the others being Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts.
On the other hand, it seems to realize that it needs to expand out into other genres rather than only producing role-playing games. So we get Final Fantasy fighting games, Dragon Quest card games and now this.
Image: Square Enix
