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GoNintendo '��End of day'�� thoughts - Great/Tolerate/Hate Review - Rhythm Tengoku Gold

by rawmeatcowboy
19 August 2008
GN 1.0 / 2.0

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And so, the never-ending flood of reviews begins. It’s going to be a long, long month of reviews. Who knows, maybe it will last longer than a month! I am trying to take it one game at a time, instead of counting up the titles that I have to go through. If I did that, I think I’d cower in the corner and cry. The good news is…one down, and a million to go! Let’s see how long I can go before I burn both you and I out on reviews! Enjoy this one while I head off to bed. I’ll see you in a few hours, gang.

P.S. - Keep an eye on IGN for a post concerning House of the Dead: Overkill. They knew about the game, and are planning a post in a few hours. I don’t know what it will feature, but I thought you’d like the heads up.

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My mind is still blown from E3. It may have been a little announcement, but it received big applause from the core crowd. Nintendo has decided to localize Rhythm Tengoku Gold, the sequel to the GBA title, Rhythm Tengoku. This title really comes a surprise, seeing how the first title never saw the light of day outside of Japan. From what I understand, the first game had a lot more in the way of licensed music loops, while the sequel steers away from that. For those that don’t know, Rhythm Tengoku was a music-based game…if you couldn’t guess from the title. When we heard that the sequel was in the works, many became worried with the soundtrack. Would the lack of more real-world music ruin the gameplay? Would the sequel be as enjoyable with Nintendo-created tunes? Well…I haven’t played the original title, but the hype from it made me want to pick up an import of the DS sequel. Little did I know that it would be getting a localization. That’s besides the point though. Even without playing the GBA title, I can already tell that I missed out on a unique and amazing experience.

Great

The first thing worth mentioning is the music. Once again, I’d say that about 95% of the songs in Rhythm Tengoku Gold are original compositions by the developers. They obviously understood the importance of music in the game, and spent a lot of time crafting some great tunes. All different types of music genres are represented, and there’s not one that I can think of that wasn’t catchy. I can’t tell you how many sessions I went through that had me humming/whistling tunes for the rest of the day.

What really impresses me with the game is the amount of minigames you get out of basically two gameplay mechanics. In every single minigame, the most complicated things you’ll do is tap the touch screen, and flick the stylus across it. I swear to you, that is all there is to the game. With such a limited moveset, you would expect things to get stale very quickly. That’s not the case at all. Time and time again, you are given unique minigames that take advantage of these methods to their fullest. Obviously, each game has different music, timing, and objectives. The combinations of all these make for a control scheme that is extremely easy to use, and always entertaining.

While music and control are important, it’s the minigames themselves that are the big standout. The team behind this game is the same group of people that do the WarioWare series…so I think they know their way around creating fun minigames. The scenarios that they’ve come up with are ridiculous, and I mean that in a good way. You’ll play the part of a dancing stork, competitive eater, space pilot, soccer player, and so much more. Not only does each game entertain through the musical gameplay, some of them tell stories as well. There’s one game in particular that involves a boy and girl scientist. It’s a simple idea, but the execution is so good that you can’t help buy smile while playing. Actually, that smile will be present as long as your playing Rhythm Tengoku Gold.

Tolerate

There’s nothing bad about a game with scalable difficultly, but it can definitely become a point of frustration. Rhythm Tengoku Gold manages to keep the difficulty building at a steady pace, but every once in awhile you’ll hit a game that really gets you. Sometimes, you’ll have to perform actions on the off-beat, or in such rapid succession that you’ll have a tough time progressing. The further you get into the game, the more difficult things become. As I got towards the later challenges, there were a few that had me scratching the hell out of my touch screen. It’s really hard to keep the beat when you are focusing so hard on not losing. The key with Rhythm Tengoku Gold is to not lose your cool. If you get angry you won’t be able to focus. Wear those headphones tightly, tap your foot to the beat, and keep an ear out for audio hints!

Hate

As with the WarioWare series, you can pretty much finish all the game has to offer in a few days. Of course, you can go back and earn extra medals in all the minigames, and perfect your scores as well…but that does get a bit tiresome. While I happen to be one of those completion freaks, even I get tired of playing a game 40 times over because I keep missing one tap. Once again, just like WarioWare, you feel like there’s a bit of artificial depth being added. I just can’t help but feel that the developers could have done much more with the time they spent doubling up on each game. Instead of a giving me harder versions of each game, why don’t you give me 10 new ones? Or even better…give me the 10, and then make all of them harder as well! There’s enough in the game to keep you interested for awhile, but a higher number of games could have given you a greater since of satisfaction by the end.

Wrap-up

I am so happy that Rhythm Tengoku Gold is coming to the rest of the world. It would be a shame if this sequel was left only to teh Japanese. The move to go with original music was one made to better facilitate a worldwide release. That’s a great thing too…this is one of the best new franchises that Nintendo has going for it. I now have to import the GBA one to see what I missed out on! While the game isn’t perfect, there’s nothing worth talking about that detracts major points. Now that I’ve spent so much time with the DS version, there’s one thing that I can’t stop thinking about. Rhythm Tengoki…Wii? Come on, Nintendo…you know you want to.

Rhythm Tengoku Gold gets a 9.0 out of 10