Rhythm Heaven (DS – Reviewed)

Editors Note: Not being rhythmically inclined I enlisted the help of my significant other (HulaGirl) to assist in this review.

Rhythm Heaven is the latest in interactive portable music gaming, offering numerous mini games and remixes for your audio pleasure. Gameplay is simple to learn yet hard to master; a tap here, a flick there and your off… Yeah right! Offering catchy, upbeat tunes and addictive game play, players will find themselves on cloud nine.

As I began playing I quickly leaned timing and musical aptitude would be key to success. I also found out I’d be competing for time with this title. Within 5 minutes of turning on the DS, I heard – “Ohhh! What’s that?!” from HulaGirl, the casual gamer in the family, and off she went – tap, tap, tap, flick – she was immediately addicted to playing these catchy and interactive games, so I coerced her into providing me feedback in to this review. Truthfully, I wondered for a few moments if I would be investing in a second DS for the household. Fortunately I was able to wrestle the system and the game back quickly, but it looks like I’ll be investing in a personal copy of Rhythm Heaven for the household.

While cartoon like in appearance you’ll find the mini-game characters simply drawn yet cute and expressive. From the Ninja dog to the dancing frogs and clapping monkeys, you’ll find that the character actions and reactions are timed to the tap, hold and flick interactions with the touch screen. On stage characters are not out to hide their displeasure and will often show your their true feelings based on your (poor) tapping performance.

Fun and campy tunes provide the needed back beats for the various mini-games. These easy to follow tempos form the bases of your tapping, holding and flicking interactions. Timing your actions is the key to finding the the right notes and actions during gameplay, often times playing without looking will result in greater success for players as the visuals can offer distractions and you will lose the cadence.

Pros:

* Cute interactive characters and gameplay
* Fun catchy tunes
* Lots of Mini-game variations

Cons:

* Hard for the Rhythmically challenged

Our favourite Mini-games:

HulaGirl: Glee Club, Moai Doo-wop, DJ School
MVERN78: Ninja Dog, Crop Stomp, Karate Man

Feed Your Console gives Rhythm Heaven: 8.5 out of 10

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Special thanks to Nintendo Canada for supplying us with the review copy.