Adhering to this week’s theme of repurposed fantasy role-playing games, Theatrhythm uses the copious catalogue of theme music from the Final Fantasy series and its spin-offs in a rhythm action game. Using either the 3DS stylus or a combination of buttons, you tap, swipe and slide along with the music in three distinct stage types, which vary from very easy to maddeningly complex. Fluff a note and the enemy gets a punch in, lowering your party’s hit points and resulting in game over if they run out completely. Theatrhythm is refined and elegantly structured, its layers of RPG-style levelling-up helping propel you through the cornucopia of Final Fantasy’s musical scores. Its compendious approach and lovingly recreated cute versions of characters add appeal for superfans.

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK

Hyrule Warriors, Wii U

It’s got Hyrule – mythical land of The Legend Of Zelda – in its name, and all the familiar locations, sound effects and characters, including Princess Zelda herself, but this is actually made by Koei Tecmo, and plays identically to its ancient China-centric Dynasty Warriors franchise. That means you control a hero whose extraordinary power lets you carve your way through legions of puny cannon fodder, with intermittent changes of tempo to chop up bosses. The repetitious slashing is bolstered by the need for light tactics, where focusing your energy on the right outposts to defend can turn the tide of the wider battle, and ignoring cries for help for too long can be your undoing. It’s more polished than Dynasty Warriors, and the incorporation of Nintendo’s jealously guarded Zelda IP is seamless, but the dialogue is insufferably poor and battles are long.

Nintendo, £30-£39.99