Theatrhythm Final Bar Line and the mountain of other games I'm working on

 

It's been a slow month for completing games. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but I have to admit I always start to feel a little antsy when I'm juggling multiple titles and not making meaningful progress toward finishing any of them. I always like to move on to the next thing, but my habits have shifted a little in the last year or so. I've really become enamored with replaying games I enjoyed a few years ago. Part of this was spurred on by the Steam Deck, but it's more than that. Since a bit before Elden Ring came out, I've really gotten into the Souls speed-running and challenge-running community. I replayed Sekiro and I replayed Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. Much more recently, I've been replaying Elden Ring remotely with a friend. We've been swapping back and forth, assigning each other new weapons and spells after every boss kill. That's been a ton of fun. On top of that, I started a Sorcery-only playthrough in my own time.

This is all to say that I'm doing it to myself. I'm sabotaging my progress. It's not because I feel like I need to complete an arbitrary number of games or anything, but more just that I want to move on to new games that are waiting in the wings. There's Octopath Traveler II and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty waiting for me. Trails to Azure just came out. Meanwhile, I'm deep into a playthrough of Fre Emblem Engage on Maddening, a difficulty level that absolutely lives up to its name. Although I'm close to the end, there's no telling just how many more sessions that will take to finish. Every stage is a protracted military campaign.

Because I felt like I didn't have enough of these titles to manage all at once, I decided impulsively to pick up Dead Cells again due to the new Castlevania DLC. I've had a really good time with that because I can just pick it up and play a run in less than an hour. I think that's something I've been craving in between these epic-length RPGs I've been playing.

Theatrhythm is accessible and can be played in short bursts too, but the catch is that it has a ton of content in it. By my count, there are over 300 songs in this thing and more coming in DLC all the time. I've now finished every song in the base roster on Ultimate difficulty. I originally had ambitions to start tackling them on Supreme as well, but that may have to wait. Whittling down my hefty Now Playing list is kind of my priority at the moment, especially since I'm reaching the conclusion on a few of these.

Final Bar Line isn't exactly radically different from previous entries in the series despite now appearing on a platform without a touch screen, but it's a lovely revisit to a whole pile of games that have fantastic soundtracks. I was pleased to see Final Fantasy Tactics and even more niche titles like Final Fantasy Record Keeper or Mystic Quest, even if I have PTSD from how addicted I was to the former title about six years ago. 

I bought the Season Pass for the game, so I'm definitely going to keep returning to it to play the DLC as it arrives. I may even give Supreme a legitimate shot once I feel like I don't have so many other games to try.