Do we know if Groove had time/budget crunch?
Just wondering if Nintendo or any devs have said anything about this, and google is far from helpful. Let me start by saying that overall I really liked the game! But in some parts it just feels... weirdly rushed or undercooked? Sorry if this turned into a bit of a long whiny post but these incongruities have been cooking in my head since release ^^"
Main thing everyone noticed and has complained about, the main menu looks SO out of place and boring, and there are very few themed remixes. Actually having no themed remixes at all would've felt more like it was on purpose lol. Just 5(?) out of 24, spread randomly through the game, feels like they had to say "eh, just ship what we already have". A shame since the ones we got are really great theme and art wise imo <3
The art style variety at least seems on purpose, except in some spots... Those frogs and cars have 0 animation, the rolling dolls, pudding bots and alien translators barely any. The opening card for soccer dreams 2 looks like an intern drew it and doesn't match 1 at all. Anatomy in the pop don't drop end screens is wack af. Also finally figured out why hop n slide bothered me so much, the pixel size is all over the place. Etc. Those only stand out more because there is a lot of good, lively, consistent art to compare it against!
And finally the music. The bangers do bang, but there are a bunch of tracks that feel super generic, use very limited instruments, and don't groove (hehe) with their minigame. They almost seem like rights-free tracks or demos that were just meant to indicate the beat until the real track was made.... but then they never got to make it. Main offenders imo are quick hands, can do, lightning bolting, and feeding the beast. They feel out of place :[ And again, they only stand out more bc of super satisfying songs like high five fever or germ aerobics.
It's hard to imagine time was the limiting factor, with the new release taking 10 years. But then again, maybe Nintendo got sick of waiting and started to rush the team exactly because of that ^^" Any insight is welcome!