It’s a real challenge not to bob your head along to the beat in Rhythm Paradise Groove (AKA Rhythm Heaven Groove in North America). Nintendo first struck up its flair for this irresistible, toe-tapping madness with the Japan-only Rhythm Tengoku way back in 2006, and, twenty years on, it’s back to encourage us to get our groove on once again.
Having kept us entertained from the days of the 32-bit Game Boy Advance, the series has gone on to become a firm fan favourite, making its absence since 2016’s Rhythm Paradise Megamix on Nintendo 3DS all the more surprising. That wait, as with Star Fox, is now over at least, and, having recently had the chance to put my rhythmic accuracy to the test, I can say that it’s shaping up to be everything I could have ever hoped it would be.
It quickly became apparent that Rhythm Paradise Groove is harder than it looks. Take Hoop Trundling. Simply pressing one button to jump through a ring sounds easy, right? Well, it is to some extent. The real challenge lies in timing your button press to exactly when the peculiar two-legged creatures reach “po” in their somewhat hypnotic “pa pi pu pe po” chant that they utter to themselves while marching along the screen like they’re in some surreal parade.
From ravenously munching plants in Feed The Beast to methodically counting to seven before signalling for a dog to leap up and catch a frisbee in Disc Dog, Nintendo proves that, with music as your guide, you can hammer out a rhythm in even the craziest of scenarios. Much like Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream, this is a game that thrives on absurdity in the best way imaginable.
Brolly Good Show is in the running as an early favourite, where, on a rainy street corner, you must open and close your umbrella to the beat. With other umbrellas on-screen as cues to perform in a sequence alongside, this required me to either open mine by hitting the A Button after a “pa” command or pressing the down Directional Button after hearing “cho” to close it. I loved it.
The trickiest minigame I was confronted with was Hop, Stop N Roll, where, as unsurprisingly as it sounds, you’re challenged to help a roly-poly cat doll jump and roll in time to the music. Hopping to the right alongside three other “doll pals,” I had to listen to audio cues to know when to end my timed button presses to stop moving or end up bouncing into the back of the doll in front of me. I was then taught to press the right Directional Button to perform a forward roll, but then the real confusion hit me in the minigame where you have to swap increasingly between both inputs to do each action. It isn’t impossible, but it will certainly require more practice than the others.
You’re rated for accuracy across each minigame, which, in my short time with the game, saw me either score an encouraging “Really Good” or a smile-inducing “Amazing,” which also came with a Medal as a reward for my prowess.
Rhythm Paradise Groove delivered its greatest surprise in Beatspell, an RPG-inspired single-player mode in which a kingdom’s everlasting peace rests upon your shoulders. After monsters emerge from a nearby cave to threaten a castle, you play as an amnesia-struck wizard in training who must eliminate these menacing creatures that lurk deep in the cave under the guidance of the Magicians’ Guild leader.
Broken down into Chapters, you are first taught how to cast spells, which require you to perform moves (B Button) and cast magic (A Button) timed to staying on the beat. The first spell that you can cast is Flame, which inflicts 30 fire damage to whittle down the health bars of your unsuspecting foes. If you move and cast with perfect timing, your magic can even land a Critical Hit.
Your success throughout a Chapter will level you up and present the chance to strengthen your spells, but taking damage is a constant risk, too. If your health reaches zero and you take one more hit, you lose a heart. If all your hearts disappear, it’s game over. Beatspell’s second chapter introduces healing magic to alleviate this concern, with Cure letting you recover 30 health. You won’t be casting this while frazzling the regular grunts, but it is needed to endure the longer-lasting boss encounters against the Four Fears that await you at the end of each Chapter. I didn’t have enough time with Beatspell to gauge how long, deep or engaging it will be throughout its entirety. Still, I am excited that they’re introducing something new into Rhythm Paradise’s otherwise flawlessly addictive formula.
If anyone was ever at risk of failing to understand Rhythm Paradise Groove’s immediate appeal, the experience really came alive in multiplayer. I was able to try this in both its co-operative and competitive forms in the Ninja Bodyguards and Cake Wait minigames.
The game isn’t even out yet, but I will already declare Cake Wait as a newly-crowned MOAT (Minigame of all Time). The scenario here is that it’s approaching three o’clock, meaning that it’s almost afternoon-snack time. The problem is, there’s only one slice of chocolate cake between the four of you, and no one’s willing to share. It’s determined that whoever reaches for it closest to three o’clock will be rewarded with the cake. Simple. All you have to do is wait to press the A Button after 10 seconds count down and the clock strikes three, with the clock disappearing from view to make things trickier.
This was hilarious and immediately brought out everyone’s competitive side, especially when the game revealed that someone had won the round by a mere millisecond. The best of three rounds, I haven’t laughed as hard as I did for a long while when someone spotted that your character’s quiff gets longer for every round that you win.
I wasn’t as convinced by Ninja Bodyguards, a co-operative minigame that tasks you with slashing incoming arrows mid-air before they can damage the transport that you are trying to protect. The timing for the button presses felt too difficult, and my group failed at every round that we attempted. I couldn’t even slash the Heart Ninja’s arrow to recover some health. I can’t tell if we simply needed more practice, but I’m hoping that I can do better in the full game.
Rhythm Paradise Groove is shaping up to be everything I hoped it would be, and then some. It’s wonderfully quirky, laughter-packed because of its many offbeat concepts and crammed with musical earworms that’ll get stuck in your head all summer. It’s yet another game not to be missed.
Rhythm Paradise Groove will be released at retail and digitally on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo Switch worldwide on 2 July 2026.
