To some, the concept of Rhythm Paradise (or Rhythm Heaven as it likes to be called) is a bit of a hard sell. It’s a rhythm game with the most simplistic controls imaginable, often just a single button, coupled with some simple animations to go along with it.
I don’t blame anyone for being a bit sceptical, to be honest, and in truth I’ve never sat down and played a game in the series before having a go at Rhythm Paradise Groove at Nintendo’s UK headquarters, but the devil (or perhaps angel) really is in the detail.
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I got to try out a handful of the single-player games, two of the multiplayer offerings, and the only somewhat promoted new mode, Beatspell, which featured in the most recent Nintendo Direct, although strangely not by name.
The single-player content is as I described above. Very simple inputs are required to be pressed in time to a beat, with some music and charming little animations to go alongside it. In isolation, not one of the games is anything exceptional; the timing windows are fairly small, so you’re unlikely to get a perfect score first time around, but it’s hard to escape the fact that beyond the odd syncopated rhythm, you’re pressing the same button (or buttons) for a few minutes at a time with limited variety.
Yet I had difficulty getting bored with most of them, except perhaps the one where you have to make a dog jump and catch a frisbee. There’s something oddly intoxicating about the sound design and visuals, coupled with the primal feel-good sensations that come from successfully adhering to a rhythm.
But where things really came to a head was the Remix, where each of the games I’d already played were swapped between unpredictably, requiring me to interact with them in a much more engaging and different manner, forcing myself to really keep track of all the timings required. Lovely stuff.
Multiplayer was a bit more straightforward, but having more than one person involved added more of a dynamic than I expected. One game was co-op, where we had to protect the king’s carriage from incoming arrows. The timing on this was brutal, and I’m reluctant to admit that through my clumsy efforts, the king was swiftly dispatched and we all failed the game. We won later, but I barely improved. I blame the TV’s input lag.
The other was a simple affair of waiting until exactly three o’clock in the afternoon (in-game time, thankfully – I didn’t really want to risk hitting rush hour) to grab a slice of cake. Whoever presses ‘A’ closest to that time wins, and their hair grows to establish dominance.
Both games are devilishly simple, but strangely compulsive. Perhaps it’s the context of having to wait until a specific time to grab a mid-afternoon treat, or maybe it’s my sheer competitiveness, but I found myself disappointed when we had to move on.
But what a thing to move on to! Beatspell is a sort of RPG reminiscent of the likes of Streetpass Quest in how its levels are presented. You cast spells to damage foes and recover health, and…well, I don’t know because I was only allowed to play the first two levels, and they were the only spells I got.
You cast them by pressing buttons in time to the beat, in a gameplay departure some may describe as ‘bold’. Yeah, it’s arguably the same buttons yet again, but aren’t all games just pressing buttons?
Anyway, the better your timing with these spells, the more damage you deal, or health you recover. I never fought more than one enemy at any one time, and once I’d found a technique that worked, there wasn’t any real challenge at all, but the ideas it presented really intrigued me.
I’m still wondering how expansive this mode is; I’m not saying it needs to be 30 hours long — in fact, I think I’d lose my mind if it was — but I am still hoping that there’s a good few hours to be had in this mode, because it’s just as strangely engaging as the other modes, perhaps even moreso.
But the rub of all of this is, will it stand up as a full package? My gut tells me it will, although some people will certainly draw unfavourable opinions for not having more than it does. The real proof will be in the final game, but until we get a proper look at everything it has to offer, I think fans can remain cautiously optimistic. I know I am, and I’ve only been a fan for a few weeks.
Rhythm Heaven Groove releases on 2nd July.
