THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE devs explain the lack of touch controls

Those who played previous entries in the THEATRHYTHM series may have done so with touchscreen controls, but that’s not possible with THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE. Some fans of the franchise were upset to see this decision made, but now the team behind the game has explained the change.

The devs behind THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE spoke to Japanese outlet Dengeki Online to share insight into why touchscreen controls were skipped for this title. Rather than a single explanation for the removal of touchscreen controls, multiple reasons were shared.

First up, the devs said the difference in touchscreens on the 3DS and Switch was one reason for the swap to button controls. While the 3DS had a pressure-type screen, the Switch uses a capacitance-type screen. Pressure-type screens are more geared towards stylus use and can read pressure of touches to a degree. Capacitance screens are meant to read even the slightest touch as an input.

Along with that, the dev team didn’t want players using their fingers to play THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE on Switch. This could have caused issues with viewing the playfield, covering up important information and making it tougher for players to read the action.

Lastly, the team felt that making sheet music for THEATRHYTHM FINAL BAR LINE that was fun to play both with a touchscreen and button controls wasn’t possible. According to the devs, what’s fun to play with button controls doesn’t necessarily work for touchscreen play, so yet again they saw reason to stick with button inputs as the only method of play.