Lady, I don't even know you!

The Charge:
Tap into the rhythm!

Opening Statement:
With the music game genre already stuffed to the gills with a glut of titles since it exploded into pop-culture conscience with the successful birth of the Guitar Hero franchise in late 2005, Nintendo; probably the undisputed masters of the casual gaming niche, look to be eyeing a piece of that fat money pie with their latest release, Rhythm Heaven for the Nintendo DS.  The sequel to 2005’s Japanese only GBA release Rhythm Tengoku, Rhythm Heaven looks to take the simplistic, frenetic game play that developer TNX (the makers of the WarioWare series) are known for, and use the audio-visual improvement between the GBA and DS to stand atop the tide of lacklustre music titles clogging retail shelves worldwide.  But just how loudly and how proudly does Rhythm Heaven sing?

Somehow I doubt working on a real assembly line is this much fun...

Facts of the Case:
Brass tacks.  Rhythm Heaven is simply put, WarioWare with an extremely heavy focus on music.  TNX have taken their flagship series, stripped out the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gimmick, and instead based every facet of the game on gamers’ ability to recognize and keep a beat.  It’s bold, it’s experimental, 99% of the time it’s flat out insane, and as this gamer himself found out during the span of one lazy evening, it’s addictive as all hell.

The Evidence:
Okay, so let’s see how Jon’s evening game time went when he sat down with Rhythm Heaven.  First things first, we’ve got to tilt the DS onto its side and hold it like a small book.  Okay, I can do that.  It’s weird and scary, but I can do that.  Right off the bat, the game throws a curve ball, by asking gamers to perform a tiny minigame (can I use the term “microgame” without being sued by Nintendo?) in order to get past the title screen.  There are only three of these tiny little actions that make up the entirety of Rhythm Heaven’s control scheme, but believe you me when I say that this one of those “in-a-million” titles that is literally a snap to pick up and play, but will take innumerable hours to master.  Within ten minutes of tapping the stylus, performing quick little wrist flicks, or holding the stylus against the screen; I had operated a factory assembly line, taken orders from a fanatical drill sergeant duck, fuelled freshly build robots, and led a chorus of monkey’s in clapping along to their favourite teen pop idol.  All of which move to the beat of stage specific piece of music that has embarrassingly become stuck in my head for the better part of a week.

Parappa can't touch my skillz!

Rhythm Heaven has that crazy sense of fooly-cooly style that moves at a hyper-kinetic pace and doesn’t take itself at all seriously.  It’s not at all a stretch of the imagination to move from level to level, going from playing ping-pong to slicing vegetables as a Ninja dog in time with the music.  Performing well and attaining the highest of the game’s four end-level grades will grant players a gold medal which can be exchanged for meaningless little rhythm toys like a box of business cards, or a telephone.  The rewards are as pointless as the one’s in TNX’s WarioWare games, but the journey itself is so fun that it’s well worth the time to try and master each stage.  Gamers looking to unlock everything are standing in front of a long road indeed, and the wind is most certainly a gale.  Like its predecessor’s, I can see Rhythm Heaven melting hours of boredom out of long car rides (so long as you’re not the one behind the wheel).

Binary Solo!! 0000001!

Rebuttal Witness:
It’s almost a worthless gesture to try and rate the visuals in a game like Rhythm Heaven.  Players will be experiencing a myriad of graphical styles within the span of minutes.  It’s a torrential downpour of artistic style ranging from simple silhouettes, to scratchily animated pencil sketches; blocky 3D stick figures, and detailed 2D drawings.  The thing to mention is that it seems each graphical styling perfectly matches the feel of the level, and more importantly the rhythm of the accompanying music.  Graphics mongers will look past Rhythm Heaven without batting so much as an eyelash, gamers wanting a more esoteric experience will find one of empyrean scale.
If I had one complaint, and again, this is truly one of the pickiest of nits.  The handful of levels that actually feature full vocals can sometimes be a little of the grating side.  It’s nothing that affects game play in the slightest, and I’m not asking that for the sequel Nintendo spring for Jim Steinman to pen the lyrics; but they probably could’ve done better than “Hey now, here is my song, for you, yeah that’s right!”  That’s a Chad Kroeger level of effort there.

Said I, I'm a little dangerous! Girl I'd love to show ya!

Closing Statement:
Going into this review I was more than a little apprehensive.  I do consider myself a full-fledged gamer with hardcore roots.  Hell, I play wearing a headband like Ryu from Street Fighter.  But would WarioWare with music work?  Would this be just as much fun as everything else TNX have been involved in, or just another “casual game” to end up dying a loathsome death under the crushing depths of the bargain bin?  Surprisingly, a musical WarioWare turned out to be an inspired idea and Rhythm Heaven has enough unique style and charisma to keep gamers hands glued to their DS.  Putting this one down and keeping it down is two completely different things.  For gamers who have even a passing interest in music games, Rhythm Heaven is a megaton of fun, a must-own title that will not disappoint.

The Verdict:

Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: TNX
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: April 5th, 2009
Rated: E for Everyone.