One of my favourite games of all time is WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Nintendo Wii. The ability of this title to get players out of their element and into fun poses (looking at you, elephant trunk and waiter) is unmatched, and it creates rooms filled with laughter and sometimes serious competition (hard when people are fumbling with Wii Motes around the room). So, when I was offered an opportunity to go Joy-Con on with the latest Rhythm Heaven Groove title, I raised my elephant trunk and offered myself as tribute. After my brief stint with Rhythm Heaven Groove, it’s clear it embodies everything a fun living room needs for game night, antics and hilarity included.
At first, Rhythm Heaven Groove didn’t just toss me into the deep end (like WarioWare’s zen explanations beforehand), RHG shows a small intro video to the rhythm mini-game, and they even give a small explanation as to where hitting the button at the right time works best. While this does appear a tad like overkill, in practice, Rhythm Heaven Groove will test your timing skills, and the inner workings on display from Nintendo and TNX offer you all of the tools necessary to get into the game without feeling overbearing.
“After my brief stint with Rhythm Heaven Groove, it’s clear it embodies everything a fun living room needs for game night, antics and hilarity included.”
My first mini-game had me at the back of the line of a group of four creatures. These creatures are what I can describe as beans with legs and faces, or Zoloft mascots that can smile. The objective is to literally jump through a hoop when the time is right. When watching the screen, it’s easy to be fooled by how the characters are arranged, so just watching with the volume off will lead to disastrous results. Instead, Rhythm Heaven Groove asks the player to listen and look to determine when the right time to launch the bean through the hoop is.
While this seems easy enough, the music’s tempo picks up to throw the player off, and the level is cleared in record time. It doesn’t hurt that the music produced for Rhythm Heaven Groove infectiously pulls the player into the game. After completing this ‘mission,’ I was given a “Well Done” and sent on my next Rhythm adventure.
The next mini-game had me embody a lucky cat, shaped like a Japanese Daruma doll (with a rounded bottom), to roll under and jump over obstacles. It’s apparent that Rhythm Heaven Groove wants to wean the player into each mini-game so they can become proficient and play them at will, and this works wonders. The cat game was slightly more hands-on than the bean jump, and the music gets better, too!
Next, I was put next to three other identical-appearing characters, and we all had umbrellas on our heads. The rhythmic timing for this one has you play Simon Says with the rest of the group. When one of the three others in the umbrella line opens or closes their umbrella, you have to match it exactly when it’s your turn to enter a note.
As I started to get the hang of the timing in Rhythm Heaven Groove, it’s easy to feel entranced by the music and the rhythmic timing of opening and closing the umbrella. It also feels like you’re helping make music with the game. The umbrella game was the first one the title gave me a “Great!” to, and you know what, it felt pretty great.
The last game in the line was an extremely extended rhythm exercise that had you count a whopping six seconds before the rhythm tapped again. This was portrayed by an owner throwing a Frisbee, and you, as the dog, have to catch it at the exact moment. This is where Rhythm Heaven Groove bares its teeth. This one is unforgiving, and it was the first game I failed. While it was still fun, it’s clear that not every mini-game will be for everyone, but that’s okay. There are A LOT of them.
“Rhythm Heaven Groove is not just a potluck of randomness, though; each of these games is well thought out and drives fun as a factor.”
At the end of the mini-game line, you can play them all together in a row, allowing the player to adapt to each game as it appears on screen. In this group of games, I had to jump through the hoops as the Zoloft mascot, open umbrellas, roll under obstacles as a lucky cat, and catch frisbees as man’s best friend. What other game can say all these things happen? Rhythm Heaven Groove is not just a potluck of randomness, though; each of these games is well thought out and drives fun as a factor.
Rhythm Heaven Groove has also introduced a single-player mode, which I was able to test. This adventure mode has you control a mage that can cast spells as they’re learned, and you must enter the inputs to the beat on proper timing. If you miss timing, the spell won’t be cast, or it will do less damage. This adventure mode is a more traditional rhythm game experience in Rhythm Heaven Groove, and from what I played, it’s a great time.
Lastly, there are multiplayer games that can send a room into uproarious laughter, and I was able to play two different mini-games with a group of four. The first, Cake Wait, has everyone sit around a table and wait until the exact time on the clock to pick up the cake to earn a score. The problem is, after a few seconds, the clock disappears, and it becomes a contest on who can count to the beat most efficiently. What this amounts to is people grabbing the cake too early, too late, and players who hit it just right after the early players will steal the cake out of their hands with gusto.
“Rhythm Heaven Groove is becoming the exact kind of game I want from a Nintendo WarioWare entry, and that’s a good thing.”
The second game is called Ninja Bodyguards, and you, alongside three other players, must work together to protect the MVP’s carriage from arrows. How do you do this? By deflecting the arrows with katanas, of course! Each ninja has to swing their katana at the exact right moment in the rhythm to swipe it out of the air. If the MVP’s health goes to zero, you and Co. lose your protective assignment. The MVP’s carriage also shows how many arrows each player lets by, so the team can hilariously point fingers at who let the assassination occur. It doesn’t help that the small ninjas have incredibly expressive faces that scream “my bad” when an arrow strikes the target.
Rhythm Heaven Groove is becoming the exact kind of game I want from a Nintendo WarioWare entry, and that’s a good thing. A myriad of mini games, ways to put them together in playlists, a single player offering, and multiplayer mayhem await those who want to dive into the rhythm, and so far, I’ve been impressed so far. While Rhythm Heaven Groove doesn’t present itself as a compelling narrative-based experience, it doesn’t need to be, and it’s all the better for it. Rhythm Heaven Groove launches on July 2; maybe then I’ll be able to hit more arrows out of the sky with my katana.
