GameCentral finds the flow in the first Rhythm Paradise game in a decade, where you chop vegetables and open umbrellas to the beat.
Born in the aftermath of WarioWare by designer Kazuyoshi Osawa, the Rhythm Paradise series (known as Rhythm Heaven in the US) hasn’t made a big splash in the West. There are four prior entries in the series, and only three of those made it to the UK, with the last being 2015’s Rhythm Paradise Megamix on the Nintendo 3DS.
The series has always played second fiddle to WarioWare (in comparison, Wario’s microgame collection has received three new games over the past 10 years), but Rhythm Paradise, while similar in its structure and minimal presentation, is more demanding from a gameplay perspective. Instead of quickfire randomness, minigames in Rhythm Paradise are built around staying in time with the music, following visual cues, and memorising button combinations.
Between its decade long absence and the large Nintendo Switch audience, Rhythm Paradise Groove looks set to be the biggest game in the series yet – and the first for many. Based on our hands-on preview, it’s an inviting gateway filled with pleasing eccentricities, and one which might connect with those in step with Tomodachi Life’s comic sensibilities.
Strangely, we found some of the opening minigames to be more challenging than those listed with a higher difficulty. The reaction-based nature of Rhythm Paradise Groove means different people will find certain levels more difficult than others, but anecdotally, we weren’t the only ones who struggled to nail down the timing in the opener, where you hop through hoops with a single button. It’s the slightly ajar perspective that’s tricky, which makes it difficult to judge the ideal time to jump, even when the beat is trying to guide you along.
It’s an awkward entrypoint, but once you step further into the collection, the charms unfold. A coordinated dance with cutesy critters holding umbrellas, titled Brolly Good Show, has a more accessible click, as you follow the others in sequence, in opening and closing your umbrella in time with the music. Even better is Disc Dog, where you have to grab the frisbee consistently on the count of six, albeit with fading music cues and visual blackouts to test your internal tempo.
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Once you’ve run through these stages in isolation, you can challenge yourself to a remix which mashes them all together in a similar vein to WarioWare’s boss stages. It’s satisfyingly chaotic, and gratifying when you nail the timing as it flips between minigames. You’re graded at the end of each run too, so there’s an incentive to return and perfect your scores.
Nintendo is promising 80 solo minigames in total, and our personal favourites – at least in this preview – were the ones which cranked up the challenge. Slice N’ Dice Kitchen, where you’re chopping vegetables hurled at you from both sides, is an immediate standout. If not for the quickfire chops, then for the hungry cats bounding from the floor in delight whenever you mess up the timing. It was a similar case for Hop Stop ‘N’ Roll where, as a doll in a line-up of four, you time jumps and forward rolls in formation as determined by different sound cues.
For solo players, Rhythm Paradise Groove has another mode called Beatspell. This dresses up the musical gameplay with the appearance of a turn-based role-player, where you cast spells by performing different button sequences in a series of battles, assisted by a square-shaped visual aid. Two mid-tempo taps on the beat will cast a fire spell to attack an enemy, for example, whereas a faster three-button tap will restore your health.
It starts out simplistic, with just one spell at your disposal, but it becomes more involved once you unlock the cure spell – as you have to pay close attention to your own health bar and switch your rhythm accordingly in the heat of the moment. It’s unclear if Beatspell is designed to be a short-lived distraction to support the core minigame suite, or something substantial with greater complexity (you can level up your abilities albeit to a limited extent), but it’s an interesting deviation nonetheless.
The most appealing draw, in the long-term, are the multiplayer games. Nintendo is promising over 30 cooperative and competitive bitesize multiplayer games for up to four players, but we were only able to test out two. The first was a co-op effort with ninjas, where you have to defend a stronghold from archers by slicing arrows in time with the beat. Unfortunately, we completely let the side down, missing every arrow that came our way over three rounds. However, the simplicity means anyone can jump in and have a decent shot at success.
We redeemed ourselves with Cake Wait. Here, you’re watching a clock and trying to tap the button as close to 3pm as possible, with the winner triumphantly grabbing a solitary slice of cake off the table. Like the other minigames, the comedic presentation elevates the simplicity, with dramatic slaps and tumbles off chairs if you press too early. The narration in general has the same synthesised voicework seen in Tomodachi Life, and it fits what is a similarly eccentric title, that wants to tickle your funny bone and make your feet tap in equal measure.
Rhythm Paradise Groove is perhaps too low-key to ever be considered a Nintendo heavyweight, but for those clamouring for a light-hearted, cheap, absurdist cleanser to roll out at parties, this is shaping up to be a boon for the Switch’s multiplayer arsenal. We’ll have to see if there’s much longevity in the single-player portion, but for both old and new fans alike, this could be one of the unexpected surprises of the summer.
Formats: Nintendo Switch
Price: £33.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: 2nd July 2026
Age Rating: 7+
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