Do you like music in your videogames? Then buy Rhythm Heaven.
Rhythm Heaven, to be released Sunday for Nintendo DS, is a throwback to the days when music-based videogames were a tiny niche part of the business and the words "guitar" and "hero" had never been uttered in sequence by game designers. It is a collection of more than 50 mini-games that use just two simple control mechanisms — tapping or flicking the DS' touchscreen in rhythm with the beat of a song.
It is the perfect example of a game that takes a simple, easy-to-master mechanic and spins it out into a game experience that is complex, challenging, hilariously entertaining and lengthy. Once you've mastered one mini-game, another awaits to test your rhythmic ability and ask a very simple question: Can you keep the beat, while chaos goes on around you?
9/10
The demo for this game is up on the Nintendo Channel, the US name is Heaven, the European Paradise.
Like Soul Bubbles before it, this comes as a complete suprise to me. Trying the demo of this game made me instantly fall in love with it. Why and what is it? The name vaguely aludes to some weird music game. I don't like music games in general. But imagine Warioware Touched with awesome music and doing the games in time with that awesome music. This is that game.
It should be, it's made the same developers. You hold the DS sideways and use the touch screen for control whilst looking at the top screen for visual clues. Then its all about playing your part in the music.
I only tried 3 minigames availible but each one was resolutely charming and really fun. So much so that like Soul Bubbles before it, it becomes an instant buy.
IGN-review
Screens dont do this game justice so watch videos!
It's also surprisingly robust and addictive as hell: though you're only providing three simple touch screen commands in Rhythm Heaven, the designers put everything it could into producing one of the most creative and original music-based games on the market.
In context, Rhythm Heaven is a brilliant DS continuation of the Game Boy Advance game, but since we didn't get the first game, the DS title will feel completely original. Instead of tapping a button along with the music, players instead tap or flick the stylus against the touch-screen in time to the beat using the visual and audio cues to know which to do and when.
Even if you�re not a music fan you�re going to love Rhythm Heaven. It�s completely off the wall and unlike anything you�ve ever played on the Nintendo DS, not to mention incredibly fun and just as addictive. It�s awkwardly heavy in Japanese influence, but that�s half its charm � Western designers just couldn�t get away with some of the bizarre things that are going on in Rhythm Heaven. Hopefully North American gamers snag this one up as quickly as Japanese gamers did in the overseas version � maybe it�ll encourage Nintendo of America to localize the Game Boy Advance original as a WiiWare or DSiWare downloadable game.
9.0
Videos-including-video-review
Further reading:
The Soul Still Burns on (DS) Soothe it with bubbles