RHYTHM HEAVEN GAME SERIES

I can't possibly overlook the convenience of having so many great Rhythm Heaven levels in one place, but after I finished the easier first half, I found myself blazing through the back end simply because I'd played so many of these levels countless times over the past decade. After a fakeout ending, remixes make their return, and the stages introduced feel much more like your standard Rhythm Heaven levels in terms of challenge-probably because they're almost entirely borrowed from the series' past.ДЄnd this is where recommending Rhythm Heaven Megamix becomes a slightly tricky proposition. It's particularly telling that some of the later stages in this first chunk of Megamix actually exist as very early selections in the past three Rhythm Heavens. While it's not communicated from the outset, the first 24 stages exist as a sort of 'easy mode,' in which the songs are roughly half as long as your typical Rhythm Heaven track, require only the most basic input, and offer no supercharged remix at the end to put everything you've learned to the test. Megamix also starts off incredibly easy in a manner that may throw off Rhythm Heaven veterans.

RHYTHM HEAVEN GAME SERIES

Above all, Megamix is far less ruthless about perfection, making this the most welcoming game in the series to newcomers. While you're certainly rewarded for playing a stage perfectly, you now earn currency to buy unlockables just by playing well, and hitting a certain note perfectly in every stage will also net you a prize.

Megamix also places far less of a focus on perfection, which always felt at odds with Rhythm Heaven's carefree spirit.

It may sound like a small touch, but the fact that you can now restart a level and immediately jump back into it makes for a huge improvement: Previously, you'd have to exit out, choose it again, skip the intro, and then skip the training. In an incredibly smart move, the 3DS touchscreen only functions to tell you how far your inputs are straying from what Megamix considers 'perfect,' which is an incredibly helpful feature.Д®ven though I still feel Rhythm Heaven Fever is one of the Wii's finest games, Megamix adds some quality-of-life features that felt like glaring omissions in the previous title. And its developers definitely have a knack for figuring out what works Megamix could have easily used the touchscreen-based interface of 2009's Rhythm Heaven Gold, which unfortunately interfered with the debut's refreshing simplicity. Speaking as someone who's followed the series from its Game Boy Advance beginnings, this latest sequel feels like a further refinement of the Wii installment, Rhythm Heaven Fever.

Thankfully, the almost shocking immediacy of Rhythm Heaven hasn't changed a lick with Megamix. After some basic training at the beginning of each level, Rhythm Heaven expects you to fully grasp what it's trying to teach within the context of the cartoony scenario playing out on your screen. Instead of trying to approximate playing an actual instrument, Rhythm Heaven instead teaches basic musical concepts (like time signatures and downbeats) by creating zany scenarios, like a midair badminton game between two furry pilots, or a chorus line of germs swimming around in a petri dish. Nintendo does things a bit differently, though, by choosing to substitute visual metaphors for the standard on-screen button prompts you'd find in something like Rock Band.

Built from the DNA of WarioWare: Mega Microgame$!, this rhythm game series blends toy-like, one-button interactions with some amazingly catchy tunes and often hilarious visuals.ДЄt its heart, Rhythm Heaven resembles music game pioneers like Parappa the Rapper, in which you're tasked with repeating a phrase to the beat. Over the past decade, there's been no Nintendo franchise as joyful or surprising as Rhythm Heaven.

Rhythm heaven game