Rhythm Heaven Groove review: "Beatspell RPG is a quiet revelation, while Wario-like music mini-games are as solid as ever"

You can tell that Rhythm Heaven Groove shares DNA with WarioWare. Both series focus around quickfire mini-games with zany situations starring a colorful cast of characters. But, here, each musical micro-game is fleshed out into a longer experience, entirely based around rhythmic button presses which, when learned, allows you to tame the chaos rather than simply be reactive – exemplified in the series' iconic 'remix' challenges.

Where in WarioWare you have mere seconds to piece together instructions for what to do, Rhythm Heaven Groove allows you to sit in these oddball moments for longer. Every mini-game has an extensive (skippable) tutorial ensuring you learn the expectations, then deliberately weans you off prompts until you're able to react to the beat through audio and visual cues. A robot who must gently lower wobbly puddings while using eye lasers to blast away poisoned cups. A street-sweeping themed idol group who must synchronize their dancing brush strokes. A tiny yakuza duo who have to jump over windscreen wipers. It all begins to make sense.

Heavenly stars above

Mastery over one of these mini-games is just the first step. Later challenges can rework, add to, or invert the rules you've learned for tougher sequences. But, better than that, each group of stages comes with a Remix level that chops and changes between each mini-game on a whim while all following the beat for one underlying piece of music.

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These Remix stages marry WarioWare-like variety and sense of pace with the rhythmic games, with enough information carried purely in the presentation so that no rules have to be re-explained while playing – you simply play to the beat like you always do. It's immensely satisfying to pull off, and feels like a real culmination of learned skill even while I recognize that Rhythm Heaven Groove has been very clever in guiding me towards those moments.

A particular highlight is one stage that mixes together mini-games from beyond its own group. The remixes levels are so good that they come close to overshadowing the rest of the game. Having that WarioWare itch scratched is moreish, and it eventually means all I really want to replay are the Remixes, though I respect the arcade-like challenge in chasing best individual mini-game scores, and that the Remixes would be close to unintelligible without learning the standalone versions first.

There's a medal to earn on each stage, and an overall rhythm rating you can work to increase by performing well. Mess up too much and, yes, I can confirm it will also decrease. Eventually, you can even chase perfect ratings for further unlocks. But, at times, I find myself a little miffed with how the scoring works. In some stages, I'll feel like I did really well, barely dropping any notes, and only get a passing grade. Sure, maybe I'm bitter. But, in others, I feel like I messed up way too much to justify earning the medal Rhythm Heaven Groove awards me.

Some games have better feedback than others on near-misses – which is likely a factor – but the presentation is deliberately minimalist with its results screens abstracted into a comedic comment from, say, a passer-by, or an instructor. It will sometimes flag particular inputs I did better at than others, but I still struggle at times to know quite how to improve.

Rhythm Heaven Groove also features a bunch of side-diversions that seem less all-encompassing than the main mini-games. So imagine my surprise when, checking out Beatspell, I become absolutely hooked on this musical RPG that has me timing poses and casts to summon magic throughout a sequence of battles in each chapter.

Beatspell's presentation and structure is simplistic, but there's a mechanical depth that's slowly doled out that, as a fan of some of the best RPGs out there with a lot of strong opinions of my own, has seriously impressed me. Playing as a magician who has to fight through fantasy monsters and bosses, a spellcasting ring cycles to the beat throughout combat.

Casting requires unique pose combinations, so a fireball has different inputs and timings to a healing spell. The further you get, the more options you have with how to build your loadout for the chapter. Upcoming enemies might have different elemental resistances and weaknesses, but they also have their own musical BPMs, with some shifting over time or having a different rhythmic structure entirely.

There's plenty of RPG content in Beatspell, but I can't help but wish there was a little more to it. It's the kind of bonus mode that I can see being a test bed here in Rhythm Heaven Groove but, to me, could easily carry its own project – it feels a bit like Ring Fit Adventure meets Crypt of the Necrodancer in its best moments, and I wish there was just a bit more to the experience than the chapter-by-chapter structure. It doesn't help that each chapter unlocks through earning medals in the main game, requiring you to near-perfect challenges in a completely different mode of play to progress here. A small gripe, but I found myself just wanting to push ahead with Beatspell at one point – which is to the supposed side-mode's absolute credit.

Rhythm Heaven Groove is, otherwise, a great follow-up to the series that continues doing what it does best. That does mean that, while refined, this also doesn't feel like too much of an evolution. Developed for the original Nintendo Switch and not the newer Nintendo Switch 2, this runs well on either system, and without much in the way of hardware-specific gimmicks, makes little difference. This might be more of the same when it comes to Rhythm Heaven, but I have to say this does feel absolutely loaded with things to do.

I can't help but wonder if a bit more WarioWare energy would benefit the series, and whether leaning into system-specific features could help Groove stand out like WarioWare: Smooth Moves did. Rhythm Heaven has yet to overstay its welcome, and more of the same of something great is far from a bad thing – but those hoping for these mini-games to feel like a reinvention will be disappointed. Essentially only ever using two buttons, though, Groove still manages to get a lot of the idea. If nothing else, Beatspell shows there's plenty of life left in this portion of rhythmic heaven yet.

Keep an eye on our upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 releases list for what else to put on your calendar.