u/kopaiot

So... Rhythm Heaven Groove. I know this probably won't be a popular opinion, but I wanted to share my thoughts as a long-time Rhythm Heaven fan.

I'll be honest, and it kinda sucks to say this because it's probably the only entry we're getting this decade. Hell, it's not even guaranteed we'll ever get another one since Tsunku isn't immortal, and he's already been through a lot. As for the content, I feel like they went for quantity over quality. One of the main reasons I've always loved Rhythm Heaven is the music. I've always found the songs insanely catchy. For me, the satisfaction comes from taking part in these tracks like you’re a percussionist, playing along to songs that are energetic and get stuck in your head.

Here... sorry, but it feels like it's 80% generic electronic music. Looking at the whole soundtrack, how many melodies are actually memorable? Personally, maybe three or four? Just think of Fever and you'll instantly have ten iconic tracks pop into your head. The musical styles used to be so much more diverse before Groove. I actually went back and listened to the older games again, and there's way more variety in the instruments and overall sound. I still really liked some tracks though, Alien Alphabet in particular stood out to me.

The UI... I won't even go back over the main menu, we've all talked about that already. But the intro screens for each minigame. Back then there was real effort put into the typography. It felt handmade, not just a single line of text slapped on the screen with some random DaFont font. As for the minigames themselves, I like the fact that they don't really have a consistent visual style. That's nothing new for the series, but it's always fun jumping from one art style to another. But... they were just so lazy at times. It's painfully obvious in some games where the "animations" are literally just the character being slightly stretched and squashed to fake movement. It feels really half-assed. And visually, there are moments like Sneezy Moon that really capture that classic Rhythm Heaven charm.

Oh, and I should get into the actual gameplay of the minigames. At its core it's still Rhythm Heaven, but I have a problem with the games that use the D-pad. And there are a lot of them. Unless I'm mistaken, I think this is the first time since Tengoku on the GBA that the D-pad is actually used. Now, the direction changes from one minigame to the next. In the older Rhythm Heaven games, you could come back to a minigame after months and practically Perfect it from muscle memory. Now you also have to remember which direction on the D-pad performs the action in every single game. Sure, there's a bit of consistency overall, but it's pretty debatable. Take Wiper Bosses for example: I get that Left corresponds to the character’s position, but that’s already communicated by the left stick, so it still feels unintuitive that Up isn’t used for the pink one to jump.

I still think Groove is a good game, but as a long-time Rhythm Heaven fan, I ended up being more disappointed than I expected.

Edit: sorry about the title, i meant Rhythm HEAVEN Groove but we say Paradise in Europe lol