Rhythm Heaven is like the Warioware of rhythm games - it’s developed by the same Nintendo internal team that made that series, actually. There’s a bunch of short songs in every game, each with its own set of graphics and unique hook on a simple core premise: pressing (mostly) the A button in time with certain rhythmic cues. The fun is mastering each hook quickly and seeing all the colourful backdrops and quirky characters along the way.
Megamix has 20 new stages all its own, but it’s got 50 or so more from past games in the series. That includes several from Rhythm Tengoku, the GBA original that never released outside of Japan. Tengoku was the very first game I imported, and it’s great to see some of its best and most memorable moments remastered here. That includes Spaceball, wherein a baseball player stands in a three-walled room in outer space and socks dingers into the void to a salsa rhythm. Hole-in-One has a monkey and mandrill pitching you golf balls, and it’s a great example of how this series can take a few simple cues and stretch them into something tricky and satisfying - particularly its tougher second variant. Or how about the original Karateman stage, including that song with the friendly lady singing?
Many of the stages are entertaining…but that’s mostly because they were entertaining in their respective GBA, DS or Wii releases. If you’ve played those games before, there’s not a lot of new stuff to dig into. The new stages are mostly OK - the straightforward but briskly-paced Animal Acrobat stands out as a solid entry - but a lot of them don’t hold much of a candle to the old stuff. So while there’s a good amount of content here in total, a lot of it will have little value for returning players. Playing a bunch of old favourites feels comforting but hollow, devoid of challenge or the thrill of having to perform new rhythmic mechanics just after learning them.
Even without a veteran perspective on the series, Megamix has some issues. The story mode is the worst offender. Tibby’s a cutesy bear-like creature who needs to get home to his family in Heaven World. Something’s been messing with people’s “flow,” and they need to be helped out by Tibby along the way. It can be admirable for its sheer goofiness (Donna the donut lady’s donut enthusiasm comes to mind), but too often the story blithely references its own growing tedium. You meet a character, sit through some energetic but ever-repetitious chatter about getting one’s “flow” back, clear stages. It is the absolute loosest possible connective thread for these stages, and I wanted to hammer the A button to get moving in short order. For so much silly talk about the principles of rhythm and flow, the cast of Megamix sure does break the story’s own cycle of progressing through stages quickly when you’ve got a good run going.
The sequencing of the stages themselves is a little off, too. The first run of the story is filled with short, very simple stages. After an early credits fake out, second versions of a lot of levels unlock. Those start to feel more in line with their original forms. But again, if you’ve played a bunch of this series before, it’s likely you’ll blaze through a lot of the game anyway, even after that first ending. There’s a challenge mode that lets you take on little clusters of stages under tougher circumstances, like speeding the tempo way up. Challenges still pop up to clear a specific stage without missing any cues, too. It just doesn’t feel like it adds up to much when - again - lots of fans of the series have sunk time in the last three game’s near-identical challenge modes.
Some of Megamix’s new features are great though, like how the game offers universal button or touch control schemes for all stages. During a stage, the 3DS’ bottom screen is used to show how accurate your button presses are. Perfect hits erupt a rainbow-coloured ring from the centre of the touchscreen. If you’re too early or too late, a yellow or red ring appears to the left or right of centre, respectively. It’s a simple but amazingly effective way to communicate some of the trickier timing required in the later stages. Also of note: you can quickly switch the game audio from English to Japanese with a button in the game’s cafe menu! That’s pretty cool.
Those quality of life changes augment what’s already a solid rhythm game through and through; the songs are still catchy, the the wacky rhythm gameplay feels tight as ever. But Rhythm Heaven Megamix treads so little ground of its own that it’s tough to get too excited about it. It’ll hold the most appeal for newcomers to the series or diehards that crave a bunch of existing games from the series in a single, remastered package. The challenge mode and some unlockable trinkets extend your possible time with Megamix a little bit, but the fan in me can’t help but feel a little let down by its mostly remodelled package.
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