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Met has been a strange decade for the rhythm game genre. The classics of Rock Band and Guitar Hero seem to be gone, but companies are still making plastic guitars. Tango Gameworks, a studio known for delivering horror games, developed Hi-Fi Rush and dominated it, but Microsoft sold the studio. Indie titles like Sayonara Wild Hearts and Rift of the NecroDancer have done well in the margins, but now Epic Sports swept in, added a music system to Fortnite so now it’s popular again. All of these themes have reinforced the idea that their parents are born with: rhythm can cross over into video games just as it connects into our daily lives.
Few hold this sentiment as strongly as Rhythm Heaven. It’s been around since 2015, the new entry, Rhythm Heaven Groove (called Rhythm Paradise Groove in Pal territories), focuses on the concept of providing a bite-sized, groove-based experience where you follow sounds to perform all kinds of fun with just a few buttons. Whether you’re catching veggies in mid-air, dancing, or talking to a stranger, each mini-game is designed to be fun, a little cacophony with its own set of rules.
Some of the new options pay homage to old mini-games from previous titles, but for the most part, there are more challenges to complete. Multiplayer returns, allowing groups of up to four to play together, revealing whether your ideas and music are as good as you think. In between there are side modes and events to unlock, with Beatspell being the most popular. It’s an RPG-lite where you have to press buttons that are tied to hit to cast a spell. It’s a fun concept that’s well-crafted, and one that could stand as its own standalone adventure.
In the last decade, other games have tried to capture the spirit of Rhythm Heaven (see Melatonin, Rhythm Doctor, and the mini-games in Rift of the Necrodancer). But the series has a familiar charm. Considering how risky Nintendo was during the Switch 2 era, it’s amazing to see the company putting in the time and resources to get into the current mode.
This is not without compromise, however. Awesome WarioWare, the DS-era spirit of the original is missing, and most episodes play it safe in terms of showmanship or magic. And it always feels easy, with only a few sections requiring a little retry to progress. Sadly, something that hasn’t changed is speed and accuracy. If you’re playing Beatspell on a TV, for example, a warning will prompt you to manually edit it for a better sound. This works for many games. There are many times that I to hear I clicked the button at the right time but the game didn’t record that, which is very frustrating when trying to score well.
However, none of these things prevented my excessive enjoyment. The smaller games in Rhythm Heaven Groove may not reach the same level of consistency and success as the classic games Ringside or Hole in One, and the overall package doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel like many of its contemporaries. But it doesn’t have to. After 11 years, I feel like meeting an old friend who has not suffered from the passage of time. Even if he sings a familiar song, you’re always eager to hear what new stories he has to tell.
