Welcome to Heaven!

Way back when the Game Boy Advance was losing steam to its sister handheld, the Nintendo DS, Nintendo started releasing software to try and boost popularity. The result was the Bit Generations line and Rhythm Tengoku. Though none of the games mentioned made it out of Japan, the impact it had on Japan was astonishing. The former, which is now making its way to North America via WiiWare, consisted of seven games, each taking the emphasis off of graphics and unto gameplay. The latter, which did much of the same, proved to be one of the greatest games for the Game Boy Advance, despite not being released outside of Japan.

Rhythm Tengoku’s sequel, Rhythm Tengoku Gold was released this summer in Japan, and unlike its predecessor, it is seeing an international release. Entitled Rhythm Heaven in North America, the game takes advantage of the DS’ unique abilities to give rhythm fans something to die for, literally. Welcome to heaven fans of the genre!

Let the Rhythm Guide You

Like Brain Age and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, Rhythm Heaven is played in book form, meaning you will turn the DS to get the two screens vertical. In case you are left-handed, the game asks you to switch the DS so that the touch screen is on the left and the top screen on the right. Similar to that of other book form games, Rhythm Heaven is fully controlled by using the touch screen, with a case where the R button is required. Nevertheless, the game looks just as enjoyable as it did on the Game Boy Advance.

Rhythm Heaven consists of ten sets of stages with five levels per part – four original levels, and a final remix that pulls ideas from the previous ones in that set. After the sixth set of stages, the game starts to recycle previous levels, but this time, the difficulty has gone up a notch. When attempting to hit a note, one of three things may occur – the beat may be correct, it can be a half-miss, or it could be fully miss.

At the end of each stage, the player is evaluated on his/her performance with three ranks – gold, mediocre, or redo. If the player receives one of the first two mentioned they can progress to the next level. If redo appears, they will have to repeat the stage until they successfully receive gold or mediocre. Acquiring a gold rank will put a gold border around the stage’s icon on the stage select screen, whereas the mediocre rank will result in a silver border.

After acquiring a gold border around a stage, players can challenge the level again in hopes of getting a Perfect Heart. By acquiring it, perfect will be written in under the stage. When the player returns to the stage select screen after completing a stage, a number appears and it will go up, down, or maintain itself depending on your performance.

Tapping Into Things

Each level in Rhythm Heaven revolves around tapping, holding, and flicking motions. You will either need to tap, tap and hold, or tap, hold, and flick to perform gestures on the screen. Of course, everything must be done in time with the software, so if you don’t do a very good job of keeping in beat with the game, your score won’t be too satisfying.

As you can tell, Rhythm Heaven is a quirky, yet fun, rhythm game that is one of the most unique games seen this decade. One of the many levels in the game requires you to inject a red liquid into a robot. A robot will assemble on the screen and make its way down the conveyor belt. When it is directly in under the piece of machinery that you are operating, a quick tap on the touch screen will lower the machine into its head. Be warned though, if you are not on time, the robot will pass by without being filled.

Heaven Hits America in 2009

At a press conference held by Nintendo earlier this month, it was revealed that Rhythm Heaven would be hitting North America sometime in Q2 2009. Though that may be a long time away from now, the game will surely be worth the wait. Since the game was released in Japan in late July this year, it has been at the top of the sales charts, drawing closer to the one million mark each week. Will Rhythm Heaven experience the same amount of popularity here? We will have to wait until next year to truly find out.