Battle Music Sequence

Battle Music Sequence, commonly abbreviated BMS, is a gameplay term in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. It is one of three types of gameplay along with Field Music Sequence and Event Music Sequence.

Gameplay
During BMS, the player's four party members line up opposite an enemy as in a traditional Final Fantasy battle scene. Notes fly from the left to the right in one of four tracks, one for each party member. The player must tap the touchscreen as the notes fly by the cursors in front of the party members to score a hit, damaging the enemy. The better the player's rating for the note, the more damage they do. Missing a note results in damage being taken. The power of hits and the damage taken is dependent on each party member's individual Strength and Defense values when they hit or miss a note. Numerous abilities and items can activate during BMS to damage enemies further. The damage abilities deal is reliant on the caster's Magic stat.

When the current enemy takes enough damage, it is destroyed and another enemy enters. This continues until a Boss-type enemy enters, signaled by a brief visual distortion and roar sound effect playing. These enemies are stronger and explode more violently when defeated, and some items and abilities activate specifically in response to a boss entering. When a boss is defeated enemies continue to appear, eventually cycling over and over including the boss, until the end of the stage. Defeating more enemies rewards more exp to the party at the end of the stage. In the Feature Zone of a BMS, the player must hit silver notes in order to cause a Summoned Monster to appear. At this time the party and the background vanish, replaced with a summoned monster and a color-coded background for that summon. A single track of notes now appears, the player's success in tapping them causing the summon to attack the enemy monster. When the feature zone is finished the party reappears and the song continues as normal. Abilities of equipped party members remain active during the feature zone, and if a damaging ability defeats the enemy monster the next monster will appear normally. The five summons that may appear are Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Odin, and Bahamut. Bahamut is the most powerful of the summons, but does not appear under normal circumstances, needing an item to be equipped by the party for him to appear.