Dengeki Online has posted a lengthy interview with Theatrhythm Final Fantasy producer Ichiro Hazama just ahead of the game's release tomorrow. The eight page interview contains lots of bits about the game. Here are some of the major points, as summed up at Game Jouhou.
Square Enix hopes to release over 50 songs as download content. Eight songs will be available at launch. The DLC list includes songs that the staff had wanted to put in the game but couldn't fit due to capacity limitations.
The game's hardest difficulty setting was handled by the staff members who know their rhythm games, so it has some songs that are extremely difficult.
There are some hidden songs that are unlocked after clearing the game. One example is Final Fantasy VI's final boss music.
The game includes over 70 songs. The music selection is based off music surveys conducted at Square Enix Members during the development of Dissidia, as well as considerations of balance. Hazama joked that if they'd just followed the survey results, the game would have been more like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy VII.
All the included songs are in their original form. The only exception is the Gurugu Volcano theme from FFI, which is based off the PlayStation arranged version because the original Famicom/NES version was too short.
The game outputs at 60 frames per second even when stereoscopic 3D is on. This is something the team worked hard to achieve, because it's necessary for playability in a rhythm game. Event music stages are left at 30 frames per second because of the need to output video, but even here the touch controls are read at 60 frames per second. (Note: I'm not sure if they're saying all event scenes are 30 fps, or just the event scenes with movies are 30 fps.)
Some of the event stages will show their movies in 3D (I'm not sure if this is true for all, but the interview specifically mentions FFX and FFXIII). Making the rhythm gameplay work while playing back a movie presented some high technical hurdles.
When playing the game's four player multiplayer mode, all players receive the record of the best player in the group. This means you can get good items by playing with good players.
Hazama said that he'd of course like to make Theatrhythm into a series. However, there are some internally at Square Enix who want to do the same thing with music from Romancing Saga.
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