{"id":15164,"date":"2016-07-01T00:01:37","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T00:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15164"},"modified":"2016-06-25T12:53:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T12:53:17","slug":"rhythm-heaven-megamix-3ds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/01\/rhythm-heaven-megamix-3ds\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhythm Heaven Megamix (3DS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RHYTHM_BOX\"<\/a>There is a little-known series of music games by Nintendo called Rhythm Heaven, yet they have a cult following.\u00a0 The series first appeared on the Game Boy Advance in Japan only, but also globally on the DS and Wii.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago during E3, Nintendo surprised everyone by releasing the newest game in the lineup: Rhythm Heaven Megamix, as a downloadable title on the 3DS eShop in the US!\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Gameplay is simple enough.\u00a0 You must press buttons in time with the beat in rhythm mini-games that last about 1 to 2 minutes long.\u00a0 In the games, you\u2019ll be doing a variety of crazy things, like marching with a flock of birds, shooting space aliens, chopping wood, or even interviewing a professional wrestler!\u00a0 The premise is very quirky and weird, and may remind you of another crazy Nintendo game series: WarioWare.\u00a0 In fact, both Rhythm Heaven and WarioWare were made by the same folks, so they appear very similar.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The newest game in the series adds a few new handy features.\u00a0 Megamix is the first title in the lineup to have a story mode, although it really doesn\u2019t matter too much.\u00a0 They make great use of the bottom screen in this one, as you can tell if you press the button too early, too late, or just right with the rhythm.\u00a0 As with the other games, before you start each mini-challenge, you\u2019ll be able to practice the rhythm cues first.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t get the hang of it, the bottom screen will also show you a grid to let you know exactly when to press the buttons (except it stops doing this way later in the game, unfortunately).\u00a0 And finally, this game is really a collection of past Rhythm Heaven games, hence the name Megamix.\u00a0 But don\u2019t worry, many of the songs have been changed to make them easier (depending on where you are in the game), and some have harder modes for later on.\u00a0 And since the GBA game was never released in the US, that means more of the games here are new to players outside of Japan.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, Rhythm Heaven experts, there are plenty of chances to try Perfect Challenges and other tougher games, too!<\/span><\/p>\n

As you complete mini-games, you\u2019ll earn coins.\u00a0 Coins are used to help you progress at first, but later once you unlock the caf\u00e9, you\u2019ll be able to use them to buy all sorts of unlockables and goodies.\u00a0 You get more coins the better you score, and you can earn extra coins if you complete a song without missing a beat, or by getting a skill star where you hit the button perfectly during a certain part of the song.\u00a0 The caf\u00e9 also has a few extra mini-games, a two-player StreetPass feature, and a museum where you can view which game console each song challenge is from, among other things.\u00a0 One last mode is the Challenge Train, where one to four players can compete via local wireless at the same time in a stream of music mini-games with a variety of rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rhythm Heaven Megamix has a few small problems hardly worth mentioning, but I\u2019ll do so anyway.\u00a0 As said earlier, the game gets REALLY hard later on, and you have to be extremely good at keeping the beat if you want to finish the game.\u00a0 While you can use coins to skip some of the games that you fail a bunch of times, it doesn\u2019t feel very rewarding.\u00a0 Also, in order to unlock everything, you\u2019ll have to play the games tons of times in order to get enough coins and \u2018flow balls\u2019 to buy all the goodies, so it almost feels like \u2018grinding.\u2019\u00a0 And it isn\u2019t clear sometimes what you\u2019ve unlocked and what the goodies might do.\u00a0 And sometimes you might unlock something and go to it, only to have the game say, \u201cOh you can\u2019t go here yet.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

And finally, the biggest problem I had with the game is that it\u2019s a downloadable title only.\u00a0 I know they probably did this since the other games in the series didn\u2019t sell as well here in the US (don\u2019t blame me, I bought them all).\u00a0 But the price you pay to download it is the same price as a cartridge.\u00a0 And while this is the most robust and biggest Rhythm Heaven game ever, I\u2019d be more inclined to buy it if it were a cartridge (I\u2019m not 100 percent sure, but a believe it was a cartridge release in Japan).\u00a0 However, I will say that you\u2019ll certainly get what you pay for with this game, as it contains over 70 music mini-games and challenges (I\u2019ve counted almost 100 myself).\u00a0 And it\u2019ll definitely keep Rhythm Heaven fans happy.\u00a0 It\u2019s quirky and weird and cheerful and colorful and the kind of game I really live for.\u00a0 I wish more companies would make games like this nowadays.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"RHYTHM_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rhythm Heaven Megamix is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 Some of the mini-games have you chopping monsters in two as a samurai, among other things, but everything is very cartoony, slapstick, and unrealistic.\u00a0 Reading skill is a must for all the text.\u00a0 Younger gamers and players without a good sense of rhythm may get frustrated at the later stages of difficulty.\u00a0 This game could be considered educational as it teaches and reinforces rhythm and tempo concepts.\u00a0 Good for kids taking piano or other music instrument lessons, or if they are in a school band.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a little-known series of music games by Nintendo called Rhythm Heaven, yet they have a cult following.\u00a0 The series first appeared on the Game Boy Advance in Japan only, but also globally on the DS and Wii.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago during E3, Nintendo surprised everyone by releasing the newest game in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15166,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions\/15166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}