Today, I talk about one of my final purchases from the 3DS eShop before it closed earlier this year, and it's one I'm glad I picked up before it was too late. BACKGROUND:
If I hadn't tried Rhythm Heaven DS purely out of curiosity when I was younger, I probably would have never heard about this series at all. I'm really glad I did, as I had never been into rhythm games before playing it, and that game presented them to me in a way that didn't feel intimidating. Long story short, I ended up falling in love with a silly game that I otherwise would have skipped over had I not indulged my curiosity, and I came out of it more willing to try other rhythm games. Rhythm Heaven isn't one of Nintendo's biggest or most active franchises, so Megamix being announced for the 3DS was a huge deal to me. I really wanted to buy it for the longest time, but the timing of its release during the dawn of the Switch pushed it way down my priority list. I've largely moved on from the 3DS after the Switch came out, but when I heard the 3DS/Wii U eShops were closing down, I knew I had to get this game before it was lost to me forever. So, here we are. PLOT: A being named Tibby has fallen from Heaven World, and he enlists your help to find a way back up. Along the way, you must pass through various other worlds and help their inhabitants who have lost their Flow. What is the Flow, you ask? I'm not really sure, but I like to think of it as the groovy version of the Force that makes each world go round. Anyway, the way you restore Flow is by playing through and completing a bunch of largely unrelated rhythm games, because of course it is. It's a pretty basic (and quite silly) plot, and for the most part, I wasn't really thinking about it. For the most part, I was more focused on the gameplay, but I was amused by the various NPCs you and Tibby run into for all the weird things they say, and I was rather surprised to see that the story goes on a tad longer than I expected it to. Each rhythm minigame kind of has its own little story, and while you're not going to get any substantial narrative from them, many of the scenarios you're presented with are weird in a fun way. Plus, depending how well you do, you're shown different endings, and those can range from embarrassing for the characters involved to a nice, wholesome resolution for all the weirdness that transpires. PRESENTATION: Though each rhythm minigame can vary in art style, the dominant aesthetic is a simple cartoony look with thick lines, simple and bright colors, and cutesy character designs. You'll see deviations from this depending on the minigame, from ones that use simplistic 3D models, at least one instance that goes retro pixel art, to a few that dial it back on the color. Regardless, each minigame has a ton of personality, between fluid animations, all sorts of varied expressions for characters depending on the situation, and the overall goofiness of the premise of pretty much every minigame. Since this is a rhythm game, an awesome soundtrack is more or less mandatory. This entry knocks it out of the park with a smorgasbord of catchy tunes I can't help but nod my head to. There's plenty of diversity in terms of genre as well, from chill jazz, rocking tracks, songs with cheesy vocals, and so much more (a lot of which I don't know how to describe because I'm absolutely not musically inclined). And of course, everything from the movements of the visuals and the various cues the player uses to time their inputs flow seamlessly into each track. I think the best way for me to hammer home how I feel they nailed both these aspects is to point out how many times I've screwed up the actual game because of them. I'll get into this later, but a lot of the visuals for the minigames are entertaining to the point that I get quite distracted when something funny or weird happens, or I notice some subtle detail while playing. As for the soundtrack, many of the songs are so good that I've missed beats because I got way too into humming along. Making mistakes is entertaining in itself, as you get a bunch of unique (and funny) animations to go along with the error. GAMEPLAY: If you haven't already guessed, Rhythm Heaven Megamix is a rhythm game. The basic idea for pretty much any game in this genre is to time your inputs based on the music. However, the Rhythm Heaven series is an anomaly within its genre, as it eschews the conventions of notes sliding along tracks (think games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band) or a line that passes over notes (Cytus is a notable example of this). Instead, Rhythm Heaven is broken up into a series of rhythm minigames, each with their own scenarios as well as unique rules you have to follow in terms of the timing of your inputs (which you can set to either be mapped to buttons or to simple touch screen controls). To better describe this, I'll use a couple of examples. One of the minigames is Air Rally, which features two characters (Baxter and Forthington) playing badminton while flying on their own plane. In order to hit the shuttlecock back to your buddy Forthington, you have to hit the button to the beat of the music. For most of the song, you simply hit the button on the next beat (indicated by the audio cue of Forthington hitting the shuttlecock), but sometimes, Forthington gives you a cue where you have to delay your timing by one beat; this is reflected in the visuals as him lobbing the shuttlecock high instead of rallying it back straight to you. Another minigame is Glee Club, which could not be more different from Air Rally. Here, you're one of the Chorus Kids who can't shut your yap, and you have to hold down a button to close your mouth. The idea here is to follow your fellow Chorus Kids as they sing in a specific rhythm; release the button in the exact timing so your Chorus Kid sings the way they do. As you can see, everything from the scenario, the control scheme, and the cues that determine how you time your inputs is different from Air Rally. Megamix is a very special game in the series, as it's pretty much a Greatest Hits of the entire franchise up to that point. Songs from the original Japan-only GBA game, the DS game (which was the first international release), and Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii are collected in this game, and they add a bunch of brand-new songs to round out the bunch. There are so many rhythm minigames in this game, and they all have something going for them that makes them stand out (whether it's the quirky scenario, a unique control scheme, or a banger of a song). We'd be here all day if I took the time to describe even a few of them. It might be daunting to have to learn new rules every single time for each song, but each one (barring a few, very specific exceptions) has a tutorial that teaches you the controls and exactly what cues to listen for. The game doesn't proceed until you get the timing down a few times, and it'll even show you how to count the beats on the bottom screen if you're having trouble hearing it. That said, many minigames will introduce cues that aren't taught in the tutorial, so you really have to come out of the tutorial at least knowing how to count the beats so you can still respond to these curveballs. Some of the minigames aren't shy about fucking with you in various ways beyond those audio curveballs. Early on, you are taught to rely more on the music than on visual cues, and a few of them force you to do just that by employing blatant tactics that prevent you from using any visuals as a reliable cue. A few examples include obscuring elements, introducing weird shit in the background, or straight up messing with the camera. It's equal parts hilarious and infuriating when this happens in a minigame. The campaign divides these minigames across a dozen or so worlds, with each one having four or five minigames each. You have to beat a minigame with at least a rating of OK to unlock the next one in the world; beating every minigame in a world unlocks the next one. OK is a somewhat lenient rating, allowing you to make a bunch of mistakes, but you're more than free to go for a Superb rating (which only allows for a handful of mistakes), a Perfect rating (you hit every note at the exact timing), or collect the minigame's Skill Star (hit a specific note in the song with perfect timing). Don't worry if you fail multiple times at a song; the game will recognize that you're not progressing after three tries and unlock the next minigame/world for you. I think this is nice, since players aren't pressured to fully master a song just so they can play the rest of the game. Personally, I preferred getting a Superb rating before moving onto the next song; it's satisfying as hell to learn each song and eventually hit every note. Perfect is quite out of reach for me, as for lenient Rhythm Heaven is in terms of overall ratings, the actual note timing (which you can toggle to be displayed via the 3DS bottom screen) is rather strict. Completing each song rewards you with currency, and depending on how well you do, you get more. These can be spent at the shop to purchase bonus content, but more importantly, a few songs require a fee before you can play them. I'm not really a fan of this, since you can easily end up in a situation where you run out of coins before you can fail thrice at the song. On the flip side, you can rack up coins without even feeling the grind if you happen to enjoy replaying minigames with songs that you like. The bonus content is viewable in the museum, and it showcases mementos related to each and every minigame featured in the game. These include (but are not limited to): the ending screens for each rank rating, a Skill Star tracker, and where the minigame originated. These are fun to look at, but 100% is quite the ordeal, since Perfect ratings are one of the things the museum tracks. Later on in the campaign, you get harder versions of the songs you've already played. These souped-up minigames either add new rules to worry about, use a longer song, or increase the nonsense that happens on the screen to mess you up further. I enjoy all these revisits, though my main gripe is these minigames are introduced in the middle of the campaign instead of at the end. I would have preferred that they saved these new versions for the tail end of the story so I could experience every first version of each song first. Also introduced alongside these new versions are the Remix minigames, which is a mashup of all the minigames in the world you're currently in. You get a brand-new song, but as it plays, the rules switch between the minigames. These songs are quite challenging, since you have to remember the rules of four completely different minigames and be aware enough to change your inputs when the Remix transitions. This level of challenge is precisely what makes them so satisfying for me to play, as getting a Superb rating in each Remix affirms my mastery of each individual minigame. Plus, they always come with an amazing song that works seamlessly with the audio design of every minigame. If you want to play through the minigames in a slightly different manner, you can take on the Challenge train, which has you select one of an assortment of challenges. These challenges have you play a gauntlet of minigames, and you have to clear them all for the challenge to count. Clearing challenges net you special currency called Flow Balls, which you can spend at the shop to unlock brand-new minigames to play. It's unfortunate that about a dozen minigames are locked behind the shop (you'd have to grind these challenges quite a lot to get enough currency to buy everything), but these challenges are fun to do as is. There are also a few multiplayer-focused modes that I didn't get to mess around with, and I probably will never get a chance since you can't buy this game anymore. VERDICT: Like I said at the beginning, I am quite happy I was able to pick up Rhythm Heaven Megamix before the 3DS eShop closed down, because I would have regretted not being able to play this. This game is basically a massive collection of so many wonderfully creative and silly rhythm minigames that each have a super catchy song tied to them, and playing through each one is an absolute delight. Each minigame is simple to learn, yet challenging to master, and the game finds additional ways to ramp up the challenge if you manage to get the basics down. While I've since tried other, more traditional rhythm games, it's the more creative entries like this one that will always stick in my memory. It's a damn shame there isn't a Rhythm Heaven game for the Switch, because Rhythm Heaven is an underrated series that deserves a lot of love. Find a way to play any entry in the series whether or not you're into rhythm games; if you're already into the genre, you may be pleasantly surprised by the skill ceiling this game presents. If you're like younger me who was intimidated by rhythm games, Rhythm Heaven is accessible enough that you may end up seeing the appeal like I did. Regardless, I think many would find the many minigames charming or funny that even making mistakes doesn't feel as bad. - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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