Rhythm Heaven Groove review: Nintendo's beloved series returns on Switch

Full text

After a decade-long sleep, one of Nintendo’s best handheld series is finally making its Switch debut, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’ve always loved the Rhythm Heaven games for their irreverent humour and formidable musical gameplay, and now Rhythm Heaven Groove has once again ignited the competitive fire within me, challenging me to tackle an onslaught of tempo-shifting trials in hungry pursuit of perfect scores. Its RPG-inspired Beatspell mode isn’t quite the hit I was hoping for, but the rest of Rhythm Heaven Groove is still a more than worthy successor packed with a medley of moreish minigames that are both deeply satisfying and surprisingly difficult to master.

It all starts with the controls, which are deceptively simple. Different button presses, from quick taps to lengthy holds, cause the characters you control across its bite-sized levels to perform all manner of odd tasks to a variety of specific beats. You’ll accelerate and brake in a sports car to film a promotional video, engage in PaRappa the Rapper-esque call and response with an alien, and dance with a troupe of sentient umbrellas. The clever twist is that there isn’t a clear note highway telling you when exactly to tap, so you have to recognise a mixture of visual and auditory clues to hit the sonic sweet spot. As you progress, reaching rhythmic excellence becomes harder as tunes grow in complexity. Naturally, this process encouraged me to lock in and enter a state of meditative listening to succeed, which felt demanding and relaxing at the same time.

Thankfully, each game starts with an in-depth tutorial that guides you through the beat patterns you’ll face. With the help of Rhythm Heaven Groove's adorable, antennaed mascot, you’ll try out new skills one at a time before getting a taste of them layered together all at once. Even with these interactive pointers, it typically takes some practice to get it right, particularly because the arrangements featured in the actual level differ quite a bit from the warm-up.

Arriving courtesy of series-veteran composer Tsunku♂ (among a handful of other secret artists), the music runs the gamut in terms of both BPM and genre, skillfully flitting between shredding guitars, sustained synths, and percussive performances to keep you on your toes. This randomised approach is mirrored in the central loop of each minigame, too – one level might require you to match the flow of other creatures, while another will have you bouncing items or popping bubbles all by yourself. There are also a surprising number of fake-out endings that lull you into a false sense of security when there's actually plenty more music to come. This kind of unpredictability could easily ruin your momentum, but instead, the diversity is brilliantly orchestrated, ensuring Rhythm Heaven Groove feels fresh throughout the solo campaign’s approximately eight-hour runtime –– though there’s at least that many additional hours' worth of medals to hunt for and side modes to complete, too.

Catch a Vibe

It’s not enough just to stay on beat, as most minigames are packed with little surprises hell-bent on ruining your flow. During a game called Disc Dog, I was tasked with counting down from seven before telling a pup to catch a Frisbee. Halfway through, the camera slowly zoomed in on the frisbee-throwing owner rather than the dog, so I was forced to rely on my ears to find the ideal jump window. Elsewhere in the aptly named Ribbit Rocket minigame, the aim was to shoot frogs into the sky using a powerful lily-launch pad. As the music ramped up, an amphibious creature suddenly appeared in front of the pads, limiting my vision. It might seem cruel at first, but these distractions exist to train you on Rhythm Heaven’s rewarding approach to the genre. Instead of relying on falling notes or consistent visual targets, audio prompts are far more important. Eventually you’ll be able to ignore these distractions and achieve perfection nonetheless.

The solo campaign is split into eight stages, with four games per stage and a finale remix that blends all the stage’s rhythm games and their accompanying tracks into an engaging interactive DJ set. While the individual minigames are a joy, the remixes are particularly exhilarating and capture the ultimate rhythm-game high: that moment when muscle memory takes over, and you nail almost every beat on pure instinct.

TV Sync Options

Since this is only the second time the Rhythm Heaven series has been playable on a console instead of a dedicated handheld system, I’m glad to report that those looking to play on their TVs have reason to rejoice: there is a dedicated TV sync system to help with latency and input delays. Once I’d completed the quick check, I had no issue playing through the entire campaign on my own TV. That said, I did still notice a slight improvement in timing accuracy when I played natively on the Switch 2 in handheld mode. The difference was pretty negligible for me, and obviously your mileage may vary depending on your setup, but it’s at least great to see that thought has been put toward this as a potential problem.

Once you complete one of the rhythm games, you’ll receive a rating that ranges from “Keep Trying” up to “Amazing.” To progress, you need to earn at least a “Good” (the second lowest) on every rhythmic puzzle in the stage, as well as its respective remix, which naturally becomes more challenging the further you get. Still, the difficulty is carefully balanced, ensuring I was rarely overwhelmed and continued to feel a burning sense of purpose as I unlocked new games. Earn an Amazing rating, and you’ll also receive Medals, which unlock additional minigames within a submenu called Rhythm Toybox. The options here are a lot more straightforward than the campaign levels, but can still be amusing in their own way – I can’t wait to see who’ll earn the record for longest game of puffer fish keepy-uppy post-launch.

The mechanical momentum is key here, as Rhythm Heaven Groove doesn’t have an overarching story to cling to. Although familiar characters appear on and off, it’s all about enjoying these pint-sized vignettes at face value. Just because they’re small doesn’t mean they aren’t meaningful. For example, during the crunchy pixel game Hop & Slide, the aim is to test a game-within-a-game coded by a young girl for a programming class. The premise is simple enough: control a bunny to jump over and slide under a series of hurdles and reach the finish line. However, halfway through the project, you start experiencing bugs, and your screen bursts into warped hyperspeed, leaving you helplessly tapping to avoid smacking into obstacles. This high-octane twist was a thrilling challenge whilst also delivering a cute microstory.

There's an ingenuity that makes this disparate world of wonder a real joy.

It’s this kind of ingenuity that makes Rhythm Heaven Groove’s disparate world of wonder a real joy to spend time in, even when the games got so infuriating I was tempted to throw my controller out the window. From matching lettering on stock images to bouncing fruit on a buff beachgoer's biceps, it’s irreverent in a way that feels intentional, with an effervescent sprinkling of randomness to keep your curiosity piqued.

Rhythm Heaven Groove also features a separate pool of cooperative minigames that expertly harness the same infectious feeling that is abundant in the campaign, just with the added chaos of up to three more players. There are 10 games total, each with three levels of difficulty, and you’ll need to succeed at the first iteration to unlock the later games. There’s a mixture of collaborative and competitive options, though admittedly the player-versus-player stages were a tad more fun.

My personal favourite was Cake Wait, a game in which you and your friends have to count down in your heads to snack time, all aiming to nab a treat at exactly 3 p.m. As you swipe at the plate, the player who pressed down closest to the target time ends up snatching it away and earning the delicious reward. It’s straightforward but incredibly compelling, and I’m embarrassed to admit how loudly I yelped in disbelief as my partner ripped the sweet treat out of my grasp with a time only 0.01 seconds closer than my own. There are ratings to be earned too, and you can unlock Rings here instead of Medals, which in turn unlock their own Toybox with games intended for more than one player.

I would be remiss not to mention Rhythm Heaven Groove’s pint-sized RPG mode, called Beatspell, in which you also unlock chapters by earning Medals. In this fantasy side story, you step into the shoes of a young magician who chains together button presses to cast spells and slowly chip away at enemy health bars. It starts novel but quickly becomes tedious, the constant repetition leading to silly mistakes during battles. That tedium improves significantly as you start to learn more spells – but even so, this extra feels slightly underbaked, especially compared to the other frenetic minigames on offer.