Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call does the one thing a sequel is supposed to do and rarely does: it fixes the first game’s problems without breaking what worked. Square Enix and developer indieszero shipped it for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, and it is the second title in the Theatrhythm series. The pitch has not changed. Players hit notes in time with music from Final Fantasy, and the game dresses that up with role-playing elements — character levels, four-person parties, bosses to beat, quests to clear.
What changed is the size of it. The track library tripled, from around 70 songs in the 2012 original to 221 here. That number is the headline, and it holds up.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
221 songs, and the spin-offs get a seat
The original Theatrhythm Final Fantasy pulled from the mainline series. Curtain Call widens the net, adding tracks from spin-off titles alongside the familiar scores. Other Square Enix properties, SaGa among them, arrived as downloadable content.
That is a real expansion of the brief, not a marketing line. A rhythm game lives or dies on its setlist, and 221 tracks is a setlist that can carry a player for months. The music spans over 20 Final Fantasy titles, fusing the series’ scores with cinematic visuals and the role-playing pieces the franchise is known for.
The development period ran about 1.5 years, starting in late 2012, when work on additional content for the first Theatrhythm was winding down. Curtain Call was designed as the finale of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. That framing explains the ambition. This was not a quick follow-up. It was the version the team wanted to make the first time.
The selection interface and the unlocking mechanics were reworked to make all of it easier to get at. That sounds like housekeeping. In a game with 221 songs, it is the difference between a library and a wall.
Buttons, because you are on a train
The first game was touch-only. Curtain Call lets players choose touch controls, button controls, or a mix of the two.
The reasoning behind the button scheme is specific and sensible. It was added so players could enjoy the game during commutes to work or school. That is a design decision made with a real person in mind, and it is the single best change in the package. A 3DS game that demands a stylus and a stable hand is a game you play at home. One you can play with buttons is a game you play on the bus.
Songs come in three types, split by what they were in their original games.
- Battle Music Stage (BMS): four chibi characters fight enemies against a battle background. Four fixed horizontal lanes, notes flowing left to right toward trigger marks.
- Field Music Stage (FMS): one chibi character on the field. A single left-to-right lane, with notes that shift up and down.
- Event Music Stage (EMS): a background clip from the original title. The note track moves across the whole screen, and no characters appear.
Each song carries three difficulty levels. Notes require a press, a hold, or a swipe. The core loop is unchanged from 2012, and that is fine — it was never the problem.
Chaos Maps and the four-person party
Quest Medley is the mode that pushes the role-playing side forward. It first appeared in the iOS version of the original Theatrhythm, and Curtain Call brings it into the main game.
Before a quest, players arrange a four-person party from the unlocked cast. Every character has a level, statistics like HP and attack, skills, and a type — defense and recovery among them. Quests take the form of Chaos Maps of varying length and difficulty. Each map holds numerous nodes, each node an FMS or a BMS to play, and the routes branch.
That branching is where the mode earns its place. You are not just clearing a list of songs. You are making choices about where to go with a party you built, and the songs are the terrain.
Curtain Call also ships with 60 playable characters. Versus Battle adds two-player matches for anyone who wants to test a party against another person rather than a map.
The game is single player and multiplayer, played from a side view, and it sits in the music and role-playing genres at once. That combination is the whole idea.
What the first game got wrong
The 2012 original was a good game with a narrow door. Touch-only controls limited where you could play it. Roughly 70 songs limited how long it lasted. Unlocking and selection made the content you had paid for feel further away than it was.
Curtain Call addresses all three. The button scheme widens where. The 221 tracks widen how long. The interface work shortens the distance.
None of this is glamorous. There is no single feature here that will sell the game in a trailer. The improvements are structural, and structural fixes are the ones that decide whether a sequel gets played for a week or a year.
The 3DS is the right home for this
This is a Nintendo 3DS game, developed by indieszero with sAs and published by Square Enix, under Square Enix Business Division 4. It does not pretend to be a console spectacle. It is a handheld game built around short sessions and a deep library, and the hardware suits it.
The chibi character work is stylized and readable on a small screen. The stage types give visual variety without demanding much from the system. The music does the heavy lifting, and the music was already written.
There is a version of this review that complains Curtain Call is more content than invention. The core note-hitting is the same as it was in 2012. The modes are expansions of ideas the series had already tried, Quest Medley included.
That complaint is technically true and beside the point. A rhythm game’s job is to give you reasons to keep playing, and Curtain Call gives you 221 of them, plus a control scheme that lets you play them on the way to work.
Where the role-playing layer runs thin
The RPG scaffolding is a delivery system for the music, not a second game. Players who want real depth from character levels and party types will find the systems shallow once the novelty settles.
That is not a flaw the game hides. It is a trade the design makes on purpose. The party exists so the quests have stakes, and the quests exist so the songs have order.
Judged on those terms, the layer does its job. Judged as an RPG, it does not. Buy it for the 221 tracks and the buttons. The levels are the packaging.
What this paper makes of it
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call is the definitive version of what Theatrhythm Final Fantasy was trying to be. It takes a good handheld rhythm game and removes the reasons to put it down: the control limits, the thin setlist, the cluttered unlocking. What is left is a large, generous, well-organized game that treats the Final Fantasy catalog as an archive worth playing through rather than a greatest-hits disc.
The weaknesses are inherited, not new. If you did not like hitting notes to Final Fantasy music in 2012, the third stage type and the Chaos Maps will not convert you. The role-playing layer is a framework for the music, not a substitute for it.
For everyone else, this is the one to own. The 2012 game is now the demo. Curtain Call is the album.
Key facts
- Title: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call
- Release year: 2014
- Platform: Nintendo 3DS
- Developer: indieszero, with sAs
- Publisher: Square Enix
- Track count: 221, up from around 70 in the 2012 original
- Playable characters: 60
- Development time: about 1.5 years, beginning in late 2012
- Modes: single player, multiplayer (Versus Battle)
- Critic aggregate score: 8.1/10 across 7 outlets
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