Rhythm Heaven Review, by GENOCIDEGeorge / CloudBoii12 Game: Rhythm Heaven Platform: Nintendo DS Release Date: 04/05/2009 Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Style/Genre: Music/Rhythm Rating: Everyone Another year, another crazy attempt to pull bored teenagers back to Nintendo. It seems to have worked - and why wouldn't it? Rhythm Heaven is another offspring from the brilliant minds that brought us WarioWare; and I doubt there's anybody who's played WarioWare that can bring a real downer to how much I love it. And really, it's not that hard to distinguish their incredible similarity - both games are stupid, hilarious, and will keep you scratching, tapping, slashing and virtually stabbing your DS for hours on end, trying to beat that stupid but oh-so-addictive level. As much as I would love to continually praise Rhythm Heaven, I simply can't. Often I find myself thinking that the game is extremely unfair, that the near-perfect needs of the game so early on always diminish any traces of fun. The infamous (for me, anyways) "Fillbots" level is just completely overdone. It requires precise (very, precise, mind you) tapping of the pen, and is not funny at all. At times, the game can seem extremely, if not exceedingly easy. Five minutes later, however, you may find yourself stabbing your touch screen to the Liquid Crystals burst, and spill everywhere like a glass of milk on a bench top, in turn, causing you to do something a little like this: Don't be fooled, though - I may just be horrible with touch-screen controls (however, I encountered no difficulty in 100% completing WarioWare: Touched with about 90 solid minutes of actual gameplay). You've probably already guessed this, but Rhythm Heaven, being a Rhythm/Music game, is closely tied with it's soundtrack. While other games like, say, Pokemon, or Mario, will have you humming the tune for a few minutes after you've shut off your game unit, Rhythm Heaven will keep you humming, tapping, and even singing the unbelievably stupid but undeniably lovable song that is Level Four ("Fan Club") (in which you control one of seven monkey-cheerleaders). This level is extremely easy - most of you won't remember the words to it. As you've probably realised, Level Four is after Level three, and so "Fan Club" the level right after "Fillbots". This also demonstrates the weird difficulty curve (or, rather, difficulty surge, then drop). Rhythm Heaven, it's not just one of those games where you say "Oh yeah, right, give us a go" and play it easily, and for this exact reason, they have tutorials at the start of each level. Don't go thinking "Oh, what a beautiful gesture, why, I love Nintendo now!", because you shouldn't be. The Tutorials are long, boring, tedious, and, for the most part, unneeded. The levels are all unique in their own way, with different beats and tracks to each of them, so don't go thinking that all you need to do is check out the first one then off you go! There is also a GBA Version of Rhythm Heaven, and boy is it good. In my opinion, however, not nearly as good as it's Dual Screen counterpart. GBARH is based solely on mashing a bunch of buttons (... WarioWare, anyone?), just as its older brother (or sister?) is a 100% tap/slash/weird-pen-movements game. This concludes my text-review, now read my cold, hard stats;. Presentation: 7/10 or B- - Think WarioWare: MicroMinigames - It looks a helluva lot the same, the game is coloured in nicely (not too much black, or grey, or blue), even though alot of white is detected in-game. Graphics: 6/10 or C - It's just WarioWare: MicroMinigames, but a little prettier. Nothing special. Sound: 8.5/10 or B+ - Well, it's a music game - what else can you expect but a super-cool soundtrack? Gameplay: 7.5/10 or B - It's a nicely executed game, what else can I say? It does it's job at an above-standard level, and it is, after all, a music game. Replay-ability: 4/10 or C- - Look, honestly, as soon as I get through the last few levels of this game, I'll probably never play it again. Unless, of course, I wanna hear some quirky tracks (in which case, i should just play TWEWY), or WarioWare games just get a bit too meh. Pros: It's fun, addictive, and a great way to get your mood up! Cons: It's dumb, it's difficulty is indecisive and it makes you want to impale your touch screen with the stylus. Final Rating: 35/50 or B
Hey, good work. I can accept this review. Just edit your rating system please to adhere with the following review guideline please: Other than that, it's good work and will be approved. EDIT: Also please check this bit:
I played this at a friend's house, and after that, I formed two opinions about it: Firstly, most of the soundtrack was deviously catchy. Secondly, the game is stupid hard half of the time, even for someone fairly skilled at most rhythm games. This came from some level wherein you tried to help a lizard mate with another, and had to "replay" its various rhythms. However, the game gives NO instruction as to how to really accomplish this - yes, it tells you how to perform the actual music, but it doesn't inform you as to when to play the tone. I tried following the beat and playing it after the opposing lizard, but that failed, and I tried also playing it immediately after the lizard, also to no avail. I'm sorry, but no - some of the games were fun, but I had to have further instruction on how to figure them out, because the game is following patterns that aren't expressed, and is about actually realizing that these patterns do, in fact, exist. Love the music, but this game ultimately just pissed me off -.- OTHERWISE, 'twas a very well written and informative review with a bit of personality and likening it both to similar games and to other Nintendo works - nicely done.
