Game of the Month: February 2023

If I told you that February was a quiet month for games I’m interested in this year, I’d be lying. I’ve got a handful of honourable mentions to go alongside the main feature this time. We’ve got JRPGs, a rhythm game and a platformer. Question is, which one should I feature as my Game of the Month? Read on and find out.

First up, the honourable mentions.
Tales of Symphonia Remastered – A remaster of the very first Tales of… game I ever played. Lloyd Irving sets out on a journey alongside childhood friends Genis Sage and Colette Brunel in order to regenerate the world.
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe – An enhanced version of Kirby’s Adventure Wii, expanding upon the original game by offering lots more subgames as well as extra content in which you take control of Magalor.
Octopath Traveler II – The second JRPG from Square Enix that features eight characters with eight respective stories to discover. A free demo lets you play three hours of the game. My first character choice was Throne, the thief.
Grim Guardians: Demon Purge – What if you take characters from Gal*Gun, and put them in a Castlevania style game? You get Grim Guardians: Demon Purge, which looks great. Being able to switch between Shinobu and Maya during gameplay is very reminiscent of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, a game which I like a lot.

The game I’ve chosen to highlight for this month is this one:

THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINEWhy is the title in all caps? That’s a question that should probably directed toward Square Enix. Anyways, I’m sure people can, and have, argued at length about which Final Fantasy game is the best (for the record, I would say the DS version of Final Fantasy IV). One thing that is very likely universally agreed upon, however, is that the music is fantastic.
So it would make a lot of sense to have a rhythm game featuring the music from the series, and here we are: THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE.

The base game includes a whopping 385 songs. Naturally it includes tracks from the very first Final Fantasy all the way up to Final Fantasy XV, but it also include remakes, spin-offs and even soundtrack CDs. That last one is kind of an insane detail to me, wow. The grand total of games represented here? 46.
To play through the tracks, you’ll create a party of up to four members. With 104 characters to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice.

Not sure if rhythm games are your jam? There’s a free demo you can download that lets you play a handful of songs from a small selection of the titles on offer. You can even carry over your save to the main game should you find a liking for it.

There’s also DLC available for the game, with music from some of Square Enix’s other games being made available. The songs from The World Ends With You and LIVE A LIVE are particularly tempting for me.

I’ve always enjoyed rhythm games, and one that features music from one of the most prominent JRPG series is definitely going to appeal to me a lot. Now just imagine the possibility of Square Enix collaborating with other publishers to offer Theatrhythm games based on their titles. That idea holds so much potential, but will we ever see it realised? One can hope, I suppose.