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Theatrhythm Final Fantasy |OT| Yes, "One-Winged Angel" is in! Quit asking!

Acid08

Banned
This game is the best thing ever. I want to go on a date with it and then call it back because we had a nice evening together and it would be nice to go out again to play basketball or something.
 

Munkyspace

Member
Like I said, it is obvious why they did not do it. It is a low-priority localization (that still took five months). That doesn't keep it from being sloppy.

Calling it a low priority localization because of three songs and some background video might be a bit much considering the rest of the little quirks that they took the time to translate/incorporate on, whether it be blurbs on the back of every single CollectaCard, all the characters' one liners splayed throughout the menus and after-battle screens, etc.

I'm personally enjoying practically every inch of the game as a new spin on some old experiences and, as I stated earlier (to some mild consternation), I'm not even into rhythm games.

The game's pretty much powered half on nostalgia and half on being a solidass title with a truckload of replayability.

Then again, I guess "mileage may vary", as they say.
 

lingiii

Banned
This game is the best thing ever. I want to go on a date with it and then call it back because we had a nice evening together and it would be nice to go out again to play basketball or something.

Eloquently said.

Maybe you could settle down have little Theatrythm Chrono Trigger babies, too? Please?
 
Yep, everything's perfect and there's literally nothing wrong.

I actually enjoy the game, by the way, but the OT mentality of "You can't say anything negative" seems to be in full force.

Maybe I will get to actually talk about how much I enjoy and still mention that it did not do everything correctly in the eventual LTTP thread.
 

laika09

Member
Yep, everything's perfect and there's literally nothing wrong.

I actually enjoy the game, by the way, but the OT mentality of "You can't say anything negative" seems to be in full force.

Maybe I will get to actually talk about how much I enjoy and still mention that it did not do everything correctly in the eventual LTTP thread.

That's kind of a childish attitude. Feel free to complain about the inconsistent note mapping on higher difficulties, or having to play 5 hours of basic mode to get a challenge, or the uninspiring song selection for some games, or the absurd amounts of grinding required for new song unlocks, or the stupid 2 million stoic bonus that removes the entire RPG element for challenge mode, or whatever else and I'll be glad to agree with you. I just happen to feel that this particular complaint is a bit ridiculous.
 
So anyway, the localization is perfect.

Yeah, no. Saying it "significantly harms the game," however, seems like an overstatement. That would be true if the game was a POS with no value beyond nostalgia, like Dissidia, but the mechanics are more than strong enough to make up for not getting a preferred version of Song of Memories. I'm honestly more annoyed that the four fiends don't all appear when I play their song. I don't want to fight bomb, goblin, barbariccia, and rubicante. Where the hell are cagnazzo and scarmiglione? I know they're in the game. I have their cards!
 

Munkyspace

Member
Yeah, no. Saying it "significantly harms the game," however, seems like an overstatement. That would be true if the game was a POS with no value beyond nostalgia, like Dissidia, but the mechanics are more than strong enough to make up for not getting a preferred version of Song of Memories. I'm honestly more annoyed that the four fiends don't all appear when I play their song. I don't want to fight bomb, goblin, barbariccia, and rubicante. Where the hell are cagnazzo and scarmiglione? I know they're in the game. I have their cards!

Super strange. When i play the four fiends song, they're all there.
 

Boogiepop

Member
Got through story mode and moved on to Dark Notes. And... holy crap these are hard. Also, either I have weird luck, or the Dark Notes seem to... chain together somehow. Like, first I got one with Samba de Chocobo (Yay Samba de Chocobo!) and the Ending of XII. Then I got a new one from that, and it was Zanarkand and... the ending of XII. And THEN I got one from that that was Samba de Chocobo and Battle at the Big Bridge. Which was awesome because those are probably my two favorite FF songs, but still, I was noticing a pattern. Are they supposed to be giving me a repeat song from an earlier Dark Note every time, or do I just have weird luck?

Also, hoooooooly crap was Battle at the Big Bridge tricky in Dark Note form. Took like 6 tries to barely make it past. Those quick transitions from slide to tap that just... keep... coming can really do a number on your HP. I think I'm going to do challenge mode or something in order to build my skills before jumping back in to the Dark Notes.
 
Yeah, they're all in the game.

Pretty sure if they have a card they're in the game as a PC or enemy.

Got through story mode and moved on to Dark Notes. And... holy crap these are hard. Also, either I have weird luck, or the Dark Notes seem to... chain together somehow. Like, first I got one with Samba de Chocobo (Yay Samba de Chocobo!) and the Ending of XII. Then I got a new one from that, and it was Zanarkand and... the ending of XII. And THEN I got one from that that was Samba de Chocobo and Battle at the Big Bridge. Which was awesome because those are probably my two favorite FF songs, but still, I was noticing a pattern. Are they supposed to be giving me a repeat song from an earlier Dark Note every time, or do I just have weird luck?

there are 10 possible FMS and 10 possible BMS for Dark Notes, and each Dark Note is some combination of the 2. You can tell what the music combo is by the Mv number.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I do think that ShockingAlberto has a point, though. You may not agree with it, however. Localization isn't just text translation--it's modifying audio, voice acting, visuals, font, changing things to suit the target audience, etc. There's a bunch of stuff involved in it, but Theatrhythm's localization seems to be vastly relegated to the text. I think what he means is that it harms the experience or mood of the game rather than the game itself.

I may have played a handful of FFs in Japanese, but I played most of the games in English, and thus that's what I expect out of it. Stuff like Dissidia and Theatrhythm (especially Theatrhythm, since it's the 25th Anniversary game at this point) serve as fanservice. It isn't necessarily fanservice if you aren't giving one part of the audience something that they'd recognize. It's perfect for the Japanese audience, though. FFIII might be a dodgy one to place into the EMS, but the other games can be captured in some sort of fashion for western audiences.

I'm having fun with the game outside of the hiccups I posted on the last page with regards to switching instruments, rhythm progression, and general inconsistencies which come up in higher difficulties. But I can't help to agree with him here in some cases.

Anyway, moving on--did anyone get Mt. Gulug in the Chaos Shrine and have it end up being an arranged version or were my ears tricking me?
 

laika09

Member
Yeah, no. Saying it "significantly harms the game," however, seems like an overstatement. That would be true if the game was a POS with no value beyond nostalgia, like Dissidia, but the mechanics are more than strong enough to make up for not getting a preferred version of Song of Memories. I'm honestly more annoyed that the four fiends don't all appear when I play their song. I don't want to fight bomb, goblin, barbariccia, and rubicante. Where the hell are cagnazzo and scarmiglione? I know they're in the game. I have their cards!

Perfection is still subject to working within constraint. I guarantee you the localizer didn't have any access to the background videos or song files - nothing but a long list of strings to change from Japanese to English. This is to say nothing of the resources that would be required to plan, arrange, and record videos that in no way correspond to the original content. In this sense I have a very hard time imagining a translation that captured the essence, the whimsy of the Japanese version, while still playing on English speakers' fond memories and being accessible to a general audience.


I do think that ShockingAlberto has a point, though. You may not agree with it, however. Localization isn't just text translation--it's modifying audio, voice acting, visuals, font, changing things to suit the target audience, etc. There's a bunch of stuff involved in it, but Theatrhythm's localization seems to be vastly relegated to the text. I think what he means is that it harms the experience or mood of the game rather than the game itself.

I may have played a handful of FFs in Japanese, but I played most of the games in English, and thus that's what I expect out of it. Stuff like Dissidia and Theatrhythm (especially Theatrhythm, since it's the 25th Anniversary game at this point) serve as fanservice. It isn't necessarily fanservice if you aren't giving one part of the audience something that they'd recognize. It's perfect for the Japanese audience, though. FFIII might be a dodgy one to place into the EMS, but the other games can be captured in some sort of fashion for western audiences.

This is a much more reasonable way of putting it, and I can certainly see it that way. I think I'm a lot less sensitive to this kind of thing since I own so many of the (Japanese) OSTs and have listened to them for years now. Again, though, given the obvious constraints and scale of the project, it's incredibly hard to find fault with the localization.

Anyway, moving on--did anyone get Mt. Gulug in the Chaos Shrine and have it end up being an arranged version or were my ears tricking me?

Mt Gulug is from a rerelease, supposedly because it "wasn't long enough". Incredible disappointment especially considering other just-as-short songs from FF1 (eg. overworld theme) are in the game.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Mt Gulug is from a rerelease, supposedly because it "wasn't long enough". Incredible disappointment especially considering other just-as-short songs from FF1 (eg. overworld theme) are in the game.
Ah, I figured. Thanks. I thought it was from FFI: 20th Anniversary Edition/Dawn of Souls.

Guess they didn't choose the FFIX arrangement since it didn't use a tempo that they wanted.
 

lobdale

3 ft, coiled to the sky
I do think that ShockingAlberto has a point, though. You may not agree with it, however. Localization isn't just text translation--it's modifying audio, voice acting, visuals, font, changing things to suit the target audience, etc. There's a bunch of stuff involved in it, but Theatrhythm's localization seems to be vastly relegated to the text. I think what he means is that it harms the experience or mood of the game rather than the game itself.

Easy, Theatrhythm wasn't localized.
 
Perfection is still subject to working within constraint. I guarantee you the localizer didn't have any access to the background videos or song files - nothing but a long list of strings to change from Japanese to English. This is to say nothing of the resources that would be required to plan, arrange, and record videos that in no way correspond to the original content. In this sense I have a very hard time imagining a translation that captured the essence, the whimsy of the Japanese version, while still playing on English speakers' fond memories and being accessible to a general audience.

I think it's more of a problem of a narrow mindset. It's pretty obvious that this game was conceived for the Japanese audience first and foremost as the 25th anniversary celebration of the entire series. That's great, but it's not like Final Fantasy isn't also hugely popular outside of Japan. Why didn't SE keep that in mind when the game was originally being planned? Certainly, going back and getting new footage may be difficult, but if SE had properly planned for localization while the game was actually in development, I wager adding in English footage wouldn't have been that much of a problem.

The big problem would be FF3, but, eh, just fudge that a little.
 

laika09

Member
Easy, Theatrhythm wasn't localized.

It was absolutely localized. Check out the quotes on the main screen, or the item names, or the Collectacards. They took a lot of care to match precedent where relevant, and maintain specific (localized) script references. They just didn't have a lot of room to work with.

I think it's more of a problem of a narrow mindset. It's pretty obvious that this game was conceived for the Japanese audience first and foremost as the 25th anniversary celebration of the entire series. That's great, but it's not like Final Fantasy isn't also hugely popular outside of Japan. Why didn't SE keep that in mind when the game was originally being planned? Certainly, going back and getting new footage may be difficult, but if SE had properly planned for localization while the game was actually in development, I wager adding in English footage wouldn't have been that much of a problem.

The big problem would be FF3, but, eh, just fudge that a little.

Yeah, that was another thing I wanted to mention. It definitely seems like this game was not originally slated for a western release, possibly because SE didn't know what they would get out of Indieszero, or that Indieszero just didn't have a ton of experience with i18n.
 

Caelestis

Member
I would because I'm so used to the note progression in those themes. Melodies of Life messed me up a little because I'm so used to the English version due to listening to it and practicing it in the past. I don't have much of an attachment to the Japanese version. Those were the songs that were added to the original games during their localizations for the western audience, and they should add them for the sake of consistency and nostalgia.

For the love of pancakes, the game plays off of nostalgia, and it would have had a better effect if it had a better localization--for the EMS segments, in particular.


The man localized Phoenix Wright. :O
I see, I feel opposite since the English version has never taken up with me but I've listened to the Japanese one enough times to remember it more. But anyhow, you say the note progression is not the same... wouldn't that mean they'd need to remake that song level to fit in with the English note progression then and not just swipe the songs in and out?
 

Bururian

Member
Man, this is going to be one expensive game when all is said and done. Looks cute as hell, though.

Already spent $8 on the songs available, and will continue to do so as the DLC expands. I enjoy Rhythm games that expand their library, and I don't think any other game that i personally know of outside of Rock Band/Guitar Hero does this.
 

Famassu

Member
This game has a really sloppy localization, holy shit.

Square just did not give a damn.
If you're referring to the Japanese songs & text in the vids, I don't completely blame Square Enix. It's a portable game from a niche genre. It's not like they have sold like gangbusters recently and it's not like stuff like that matters, ultimately. Besides, it's not like the initial reception for the announcement of this game was overly positive ("OMG! Such a cash-in on people's nostalgia", "looks like crap, what's with the shitty chibi art style", "might buy when it's 5$ or less").


if the game was a POS with no value beyond nostalgia, like Dissidia
lolwut? Dissidia is an awesome game and in no way just a game with no value beyond nostalgia.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
I see, I feel opposite since the English version has never taken up with me but I've listened to the Japanese one enough times to remember it more. But anyhow, you say the note progression is not the same... wouldn't that mean they'd need to remake that song level to fit in with the English note progression then and not just swipe the songs in and out?
Yes. The instrumental is the same. The main vocal melody is obviously not.

For example (gosh this would be so much easier with sheet music):

The English text would go:
"Melodies of life / To the sky beyond the flying birds - forever and beyond"
(So here, we have 20 syllables in these lines, but despite that, the note progression differs because of how some of the phrases are sung -- for example, birds is held long, as is the last syllable of the final beyond in the phrase)

The Japanese text would go:
「夜を越え/ 疑うことのない/明日へとつづく 」 / "Yoru o koe / Utagau koto no nai / Ashita e to tsuzuku"
(damn look at all them syllables; so that's 21-22 syllables in that entire thing? Not to mention that tsuzuku isn't held compared to the final "beyond" in the English phrase--it's three syllables long as opposed to two. The way both phrases in each language are sung is different, so they'd have to modify the speed, or how the notes are strung, I guess.)

So if they wanted to change the song, then yes, they would have had to omit some of the extra syllable notes. But this game already isn't consistent with regards to note progression, so I don't think they'd change it completely. Melodies of Life seems to provide a pretty big Ending Theme rhythmia bonus because of the syllables involved...
 
I just SSS'ed all 13 Basic Series courses....aaaaand didn't get a trophy for it, lol. Disappointed in that but at the same time, very happy to SSS those courses. Wanted to post a picture but there's no menu where it shows the overall score of all the courses combined.

The EMS parts were by far the hardest.

Weird I didn't get a trophy for that considering I already got 1 for getting an S on all basic courses. Would have expected it to appear on page 8 of the trophy list.

Going to work on getting more characters to 99 and probably start SSS'ing the Expert Series courses. I spend 2 days with the Basic Series. Let's see how long Expert will take.
 
I just SSS'ed all 13 Basic Series courses....aaaaand didn't get a trophy for it, lol. Disappointed in that but at the same time, very happy to SSS those courses. Wanted to post a picture but there's no menu where it shows the overall score of all the courses combined.

The EMS parts were by far the hardest.

Weird I didn't get a trophy for that considering I already got 1 for getting an S on all basic courses. Would have expected it to appear on page 8 of the trophy list.

Going to work on getting more characters to 99 and probably start SSS'ing the Expert Series courses. I spend 2 days with the Basic Series. Let's see how long Expert will take.

There's no trophy for SSSing anything. Kinda disappointing.
 
Man, this is going to be one expensive game when all is said and done. Looks cute as hell, though.

It already is for me. Its triggered me hunting down old FF games i didn't own, and i spent a decent amount on missing OSTs/Arrange albums i was missing from my collection on ebay. Oh and i'm buying DLC songs. This game is evil!!! (and very good)
 
I wished they would have used the Famicom version of Mt. Gulg. It's so chipy.

The version in the game is nice too, but it seems weird to have one track not be the original.
 
OT and slightly related....very but was on you tube looking at videos for Theatrythm and stumbled on a video called Final Fantasy Tactics EX. Basically its a Dissidia/Thearythm but played like a tactics game. Uses the same animation art-style for the FFT PSP game.

Id play it.


FFTacticsEx
 

Thoraxes

Member
Glad I'm not crazy. Friends tell me that they look the same, but they look..cleaned up? Definitely better than what I originally remember.

Yeah, I can completely agree with this. There's a certain clean-ness to everything.

One question for everyone: On the green lines on the field stages, do you only get points for hitting the dots, or are there point gains for staying on the green line the whole time too?
 

Bururian

Member
Yeah, I can completely agree with this. There's a certain clean-ness to everything.

One question for everyone: On the green lines on the field stages, do you only get points for hitting the dots, or are there point gains for staying on the green line the whole time too?

As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter, as long as you hit the green dots within the green lines. Staying on the line doesn't help your score otherwise
 

Thoraxes

Member
As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter, as long as you hit the green dots within the green lines. Staying on the line doesn't help your score otherwise
Awesome, thanks!
Thank this game Nintendo, it got me to buy my first DLC on any of your platforms

I have like, $2 left on there which is exactly good for nothing. It's mighty tempting, and I don't usually buy DLC ever. It's all staying $1 right?
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I don't care about the localisation of vocal tracks. Almost all of them are gross animu crap with dumb lyrics and boring melodies. At least if it's in Japanese I won't cringe at the lyrics.
 
Trying to do a "Battle at the Big Bridge" Dark Note and I have no fucking idea what is going on towards the end of it. The instrument the rhythm follows seems to change to something I can't pick out.
 

Thoraxes

Member
I don't care about the localisation of vocal tracks. Almost all of them are gross animu crap with dumb lyrics and boring melodies. At least if it's in Japanese I won't cringe at the lyrics.

I noticed at the mode select screen it says something like, "Revisit the songs of Final Fantasy as first released in Japan!"
 

BluWacky

Member
I bought a 3DS for this game and don't regret it at all. Got the end credits last night but there's still much more to do.

Alas, I can't do Man With The Machine Gun on Ultimate :( I'm only around level 15 or so with most of my characters so I guess I just need to grind some more.

It's funny what you end up being nostalgic for. From the music choices thus far, my favourite tracks have been from Final Fantasy VI (which I've only finished once) and Final Fantasy XII (which I've never finished despite owning both JP and EU copies, and likely never will do now that the PS2 is gathering dust in a cupboard).
 
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