Huge Fever Fan (in my top 10 games of all time). Groove has far exceeded my expectations so far. Here’s why:
Just want to share some nuanced thoughts about this game and how it’s lived up to my hype. I play a LOT of games (typically 40+ a year), and I judge them less on expectations, and more on how they achieve their ethos.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: in many respects this game is not Fever. The music feels less like an album of similar songs, and more like a playlist of varying types of songs. I’d even sadly say there’s a few tracks I’d just consider quite bland (Pop, Don’t Drop being the key example for me). There’s less themed remixes too, of course. But this is not Fever. This is Groove. And to me, Groove is amazingly fun despite what it’s missing from Fever.
What Groove lacks in consistency, it makes up with extremely high peaks. There have been countless times where I’ve found myself saying “HOW DID THEY EVEN COME UP WITH THIS!?”. The way these mini games choreograph surprises and mixups has been incredible. A key early example being the Hop N Slide glitch section. So cool, and there’s so many examples like that as you make your way through the game. In many aspects, this game feels like it takes way more risks to do crazy stuff than Fever ever did. How a mini game will play out can be straight up unpredictable.
The d-pad inputs were a hard sell for me at first, but the game has completely sold me on them at this point. Games like Backup Spotlight have completely justified the mechanic for me. I also love the scramble to remember which input is which in a remix, it feels like a great knowledge check.
Yes, I’d say the game prioritizes quantity, but the quality is still very consistent. There is so much good here. I’m on stage 10 now, and I personally wouldn’t call a single game bad at all. And many of them left a huge impact. I also think, while Fever does have a better soundtrack, people will warm up to a lot of tracks in this game as time passes. As the game has progressed, I’ve found the music to be consistently great, but there were a lot of meh tracks in the first couple of stages to me, so it doesn’t leave the best first impression.
I never expected this game to be a good as Fever. But the more I play, the more I find myself thinking “this is gonna be A LOT of people’s favorite Rhythm Heaven” because it just does so much cool shit with the mini games. Goes in places I never would have expected. Also, this difficulty curve is great. No notes. Love how they handled the flipside.
And none of this even mentions how much great multiplayer stuff there seems to be too, I’ve yet to even scratch the surface with that.
Basically, when looking at Groove in a vacuum it’s a very fun and creative game, and shockingly my GOTY by far (Mina & RE9 being my runner ups). I think we should all at least attempt to take a step back and appreciate this for what it is, even if it’s a bit off from our expectations. I never thought this would be a Fever level game for me, but I’m surprised how close it really is.
Dont let your expectations stop you from enjoying Groove. You always have Fever to go back to, be glad Groove does its own thing and stands out. It feels way more experimental, and I love it for that. Most games wish they had even half of the pure, unhinged creativity of Rhythm Heaven Groove. Enjoy it!