Oh yeah, now this is the weirdness I signed up for!

As far as game series go, I have a deep and strong love for Rhythm Heaven. One of the first import titles I ever played, I marveled at the simple but engrossing gameplay loop that came to the Game Boy Advance, and how well it translated even though I didn’t understand Japanese at the time. As the series gained traction and steam, the sequels hit the West, getting some attention, but not nearly as much as it deserved. The fact that Rhythm Heaven Fever is woefully underappreciated is a testament to fans overlooking simplicity in favor of flashiness. That’s a wild claim, but I base that on the fact that more arcade style rhythm games tend to get the attention, yet this delightful Wii relic is forgotten in the dust. Thankfully, the Switch can now proudly boast the newest member of the series, Rhythm Heaven Groove, and it’s a delightful banger.

Someone once described Rhythm Heaven as WarioWare for musicians, and I only somewhat agree with that. Yes, you absolutely need to have a sense of rhythm in order to move forward, but the eclectic mix of games that come in each of the series is something that’s distinctly more  “game” than “rhythm.” You’ll be given a silly scenario (help a dog catch a frisbee, let kids communicate with aliens) and then a quick overview of how you’ll be interacting with the music in order to accomplish the overall storyline. Sometimes it’s a single button, sometimes it’s two, and it always has a variant move somewhere inside. For example, with a level in which you need to chop up vegetables, the regular tomatoes that get tossed your way will suddenly change to a quick triplet of broccoli at a moment’s notice. Not impossible to anticipate, but something different nonetheless.

The scenarios are each their own little world, and it’s an early sign of the delight that is Rhythm Heaven Groove. This feels less like a game and more like a brilliant art show where the designers of Nintendo are invited to show off ideas, concepts and fun moments they concocted while trying to dream up something bigger. “A robot that works at an all-night pudding factory” doesn’t have enough bones to become a full fledged game, but it can make for an interesting (if incredibly frustrating) musical adventure. Some, like the soccer practice minigame, are little more than the daydreams of a child who knows she has to practice to get better, but still needs to fabricate an imaginative world around her to keep from getting bored in the process. You’ll have a whole bevy of ideas, and none are quite like the others.

I’m…sorry?

Plus, these ideas get so fantastical for no apparent reason and incorporate moments of bizarre delight. When you have a minigame of catching butterflies with your daughter, for example, the forest suddenly gets ripped away and you’re teleported to a new world. When you’re helping crabs move macarons into holes (you know that old trope), someone will put down a soda can and block your line of sight. It’s a game where you can close your eyes and do amazing, which is what I often challenge myself with at least once a round. But it’s also something where you want to drink in all the details that are generously peppered throughout these games. It’s not enough for a boyband to do a pushbroom dancing routine on top of girders: let’s also have a cosmic manta ray swim through the background. You know…for music!

Newcomers to the series will find Rhythm Heaven Groove to be the most welcoming of all of them so far. The older titles were pretty unforgiving if you weren’t able to keep on beat or missed more than a couple of notes, and the feedback that you’d receive, while not outright mean, tended to have a little edge to them. Comparatively, Groove is very generous at awarding Good, Very Good and Amazing (the last having a medal attached) to you in spite of misses. The game really wants to pump up players who are less confident about keeping the beat, and it shows phenomenal feedback and positive energy all the way through. For hardcore players, the option to strive for a Perfect mark after finishing the song once still exists, so don’t think they’ve completely disregarded the game’s central tenets.

The goodest boy catches all the frisbees while cosmic fish swim on by.

Also, Groove has decided to move away from the direction that Megamix last took players. While Megamix had the most minigames to date, it was also chained to a story mode that was fine, but it distracted from the overall gameplay. Groove lets players simply lock in on the main titles and play them in an effort to create perfection and master their own accomplishments, and even separates the co-op titles from the single player titles. The co-op games, by the way, are great fun, but be sure to have some fully charged controllers on hand. Latency is a big deal, and, in spite of the more forgiving nature of this iteration, you’ll still find yourself getting game over if one or more of your party a.) isn’t melodically inclined and b.) is using some really cheap controllers you got from AliExpress. I love Ali, but strong connectivity is key.

But, if you like storymode, you still have the opportunity with a sidequest called Beatspell. In this, you play a magician looking to defeat The Four Fears, some borderline legendary monsters that plague your world. You gain spells as you go along, which you cast by hitting buttons in time with a diamond-shaped framework around your character. It’s a fun deviation, and it allows for some additional exploration into what you can do with the music and the concept of a storyline, no matter how straightforward it is. It expands a bit as you move along, adding more spells and more complexity with balancing attack and defense, and it can actually get a trifle tricky. You have an actual roleplaying element with leveling up the different spells between battles, and a good sidequest from the main gameplay to partake in.

Sorry, no, do you have any literature?

That’s actually a massive aspect of Rhythm Heaven Groove is how many side things there are to do. Besides the aforementioned RPG and the main gameplay, there’s all these little playhouse sections where you can just enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, which is such a Nintendo thing. You can listen to discovered tracks on a jukebox, perform a call and answer activity with owls, and, my personal favorite, see how far you can kick your shoe off the swing. While these are meant to be relaxing and simple, a few are deeply challenging and made me question my sanity. One game you have to find which little dude is on a different rhythm than the song through touch alone, and the subtlety of it all meant I lost time after time. This is one of those activities that seems good in theory, but is frustrating in practice.

But at the core of it all is the sound design, and Rhythm Heaven Groove never disappoints. There are so many tracks that are positive bops, all running through different elements of electronic, rock, Jpop and more, but staying true to the exciting and fun nature of the game itself. While Tsunuku, the series original composer, is still a huge part of it, it’s refreshing to see that other names are more intermingled to show the sense of cooperation and community throughout. The fact that ultrasensation Ado is present on one track proves that the impact of the series reaches far and wide, and the downtime between releases isn’t a problem for fans. It’s great that you can listen to the music anytime within the application, and the Nintendo Music service will host more tracks in the future makes me excited.

So glad we could clear that one up.

The only issues I have are minor, with one being a personal grievance. First, not all the minigames are intuitive. Some require you really get into the game’s own headspace to get the timing right for buttons and actions. For example, the can crushing game, Can Do, needs you to swing on the offbeat to successfully accomplish the goal, and the pace of the music can feel awkward. While this might be fine in a vacuum, each of the games in a set of four gets put together in the “stage boss” of a megamix, where aspects of the other games get intermingled against a new track. It doesn’t gel well with the other tracks, so it makes that level’s megamix a bit less fun.

Also, I get that Nintendo is very proud of the AI voicework it debuted inTomodachi Life. It’s interesting to see it get used outside of that one title, and it’s clear Nintendo will be slowly trying to make it a part of other games. But I personally don’t care for it. I tried to have it on for several aspects of the game so it could read out instructions and give feedback, but it’s just not for me. You can have the voice read everything (including descriptions of the levels), read out just the text on the screen, or read nothing. But the little robot helper looks so dejected if you choose no reading that I wanted to give it a chance. I did. It’s weirdly nasally in my opinion, and it detracts from the deadpan read that the original Rhythm Heaven games gave players.

Although the weird voice was perfect for announcing this game.

But that’s genuinely it. Rhythm Heaven Groove is the sequel I waited patiently for over all these years. It’s light and fun and feeds into my nature of sometimes only having a minute to play, sometimes having twenty. Sometimes I can play alone, sometimes I can bring my kids in on the fun. Sometimes I’m hyperfocused on doing great, precise work…and sometimes I’m goofing off and bouncing puffer fish on my tennis racket. Stop into the cafe, chat a bit and learn about the game. Read the comics you’ve unlocked from perfect level completion. And just groove. Rhythm Heaven Groove is a warm, funky hug that I’ve been waiting for. It wasn’t too early or too late: it came just when I needed it, and now I can feel like a young man again as I merrily bounce fruit on my massive forearms.

Rhythm Heaven Groove is available now on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Reviewed on Switch 2.

A copy of Rhythm Heaven Groove was provided by the publisher.