Rhythm Heaven/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: When the third iteration was announced for the Wii. Even more so when it was confirmed at E3 that it would be getting a Western release.
    • Then even more when it was revealed that the controls would be button-only, not only effectively bringing the series back to its roots but also putting to bed any fears that the game, being from a series that is already notoriously difficult and requires near-perfect timing, would be absolutely rage-inducing thanks to the inaccuracy issues that come with the Wii's motion controls.
    • And even more so with the reveal of two-player games! The two-player games are mostly cooperative with a small competitive element as the game does score each player separately before grading both of them by their combined scores. There's even a selection of two-player endless games!
    • The European release has both soundtracks.
  • Base Breaker: Let's just say there's quite a divide between fans of the original Japanese soundtracks and those of the localized soundtracks.
  • Breather Level:
    • Quiz in Tengoku. Despite being one of the few mini-games to have insta-fail conditions, you don't actually need any rhythm to pass. Just do as many button inputs as the host. However, it becomes slightly tougher in Megamix, where you have to follow the host's pattern to get its skill star and higher scores.
    • Karate Man in Heaven and Fever is the last main game before you hit the credits, and it usually focuses more on being memorable than being challenging, utilizing no camera trickery, basic controls and timing, and more cues than you probably need.
    • Ringside in Fever is both far easier than most of the third column (which has the notoriously irritating Air Rally, among others) and is the subject of much Memetic Mutation. Since most of the parody videos are based on a perfect run, anyone familiar with the meme has the rhythm of the song memorized, making the level even easier than it would otherwise be.
    • The first part of post-credits content in Megamix is three rhythm game sets leading up to the final encounter with the Gatekeeper Trio. Unlike the previous seven sets, there aren't any Remixes; it's just twelve basic games (three of them new to Megamix) accompanied by humorous exchanges between Tibby and his friends. With the exception of the infamous Ninja Bodyguard and Lockstep, none of them are too tricky, and the sequence is just a warm-up for the final three sets (which include both challenging sequels and the biggest Remixes in the game).
  • Crowning Music of Awesome
  • Disappointing Last Level: The last third of the Medal rewards and post-game content in Heaven are all based around a That One Level that involves a Scrappy Mechanic. After you unlock Rhythmove Dungeon, there's no real motivation to collect Medals other than 100% Completion.
  • Ear Worm: The music is mostly by Tsunku, one of Hello! Project's mainstays.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Karate Joe and the Wandering Samurai for Tengoku, the Chorus Kids for Heaven and the Wrestler and Reporter for Fever. In fact, the Chorus Kids are so popular that Marshal, a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, became the mascot of Fever. The Tap Trial girl of Tengoku, DJ Yellow of Heaven, and MC Adore of Fever are slightly lesser examples, but still incredibly popular among the fan base.
  • Fandom Rivalry: There's a bit of a rivalry between fans of the Chorus Kids, Marshal and Karate Joe on who should be considered the mascot of the series, generally correlating to who should be a hypothetical Rhythm Heaven character in Super Smash Bros..
  • Fan Dumb: The Manzai act is so ingrained in Japanese culture that it's virtually impossible to translate to an English audience,[1] this being the main reason Manzai Birds was cut from Western releases. That didn't stop some fans from complaining.
  • Funny Moments: See Rhythm Heaven/Funny.
  • Good Bad Bugs: At least in Megamix, Quiz Show is the only game where you can flunk out through the tutorial. As a result, you can score a Perfect on the game by failing the tutorial, since you haven't technically "started" yet!
  • Heartwarming Moments: See Rhythm Heaven/Heartwarming.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Screwing up while going for a Perfect. Not only because it means that you've burned one of your three chances for a Perfect, but also because it's loud. Thankfully, it's quieter in the Wii version.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The pose that the Fever Board Meeting pigs strike before they begin spinning in their chairs strongly resembles dabbing.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The first third of Megamix can be a real drag for veterans of the franchise since four of the first five groups of games consist of watered-down versions of games that return in their original form later on, with no Remixes to break up the monotony. It isn't until the sixth group (the group just before the Lush tower) that the easy-mode games permanently end.
  • Love It or Hate It: Not so much the games, but particular levels. Invariably, some players will latch on to certain mini-games as their favorites while others consider the same levels as the ones that frustrate them the most.
    • For example, in Rhythm Heaven Fever, you have Monkey Watch. Monkey Watch is the first minigame that requires the player to have a consistent rhythm throughout. Said rhythm is constantly interrupted by syncopated beats in the form of the pink monkeys. Love for this minigame seems to be split down the line between people who have a developed sense of rhythm and those or are looking to improve their rhythm. For those with a strong sense of rhythm, it is one of the first truly-involving minigames Rhythm Heaven Fever has to offer. To everybody else, it can be a complete nightmare.
  • Memetic Mutation: Certain minigames can lend themselves to this easily.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Using the R button (or L, depending on your dominant hand) in Rockers 2.
    • "Go for a Perfect!" To elaborate, getting a Perfect on a minigame not only requires a perfect run, but also that the minigame be marked for a Perfect challenge or it doesn't count. One minigame is marked at a time and you only get three chances, and quitting out of said minigame counts as using up one of those chances. Ultimately, the biggest concern isn't just playing perfectly, it's doing so under the pressure of limited opportunities. Adding to frustration is the fact that mechanic stays intact even if you already beat all the levels of the game normally, which means you have to either grind the same levels over and over again just for another opportunity for a Perfect to show up, or (in case of emulators) just abuse the savestates, which defeats the purpose of "Go for a Perfect!" feature in the first place.
    • Flicking in Heaven, due to being a motion-based input and therefore being rather inconsistent on detection. Even though there's an option for touch screen controls in Megamix, it completely removed flicking, and returning Heaven games that had flicking are reworked to use button inputs instead.
    • Buying the Extra Games in Megamix. You buy them using Flow Balls, which you gain by either clearing a Perfect chance, or clearing one of the challenges. You only get one Flow Ball when you clear a Perfect campaign, and it occurs only for each game once. Challenges can offer up to 3 Flow Balls depending on the difficulty, the catch being that Flow Balls are only awarded once, when you complete each Challenge for the first time. In addition, unless you play Mutliplayer, each challenge costs coins every time you attempt one. Counting all the perfects and challenges means there's only 184 Flow Balls you can obtain, with the combined total cost of all the extra games being 144 Flow Balls (which leaves about 40 left over). What makes it more frustrating is the challenges in the later worlds include some of the extra games, at heightened difficulty no less. So it's ironically common that the challenge will be the player's first time playing the minigame at all, and they need to pass in order to buy the minigame for themself (though they do involve practice, though there's still the issue of increased tempo in the main game).
  • Surprise Difficulty:
    • Hey, there's cute graphics and a song consisting only of do-re-mi-fa-so. All you have to do is flick to the song to get a bolt through two pieces of metal. This is going to be a piece of cake! Of course, you'll likely still be on Built to Scale after multiple tries... And even if you blaze past the first few stages, the first remix will hit you as hard as any "Wake-Up Call" Boss.
    • For an in-game example, Samurai Slice in Heaven only needs 17 Medals to unlock, but can get more complex than Battle Of The Bands.
    • Awww, the seals in Flipper-Flop are so cute! Sweet, I got a medal! It's time to go for Perfec- HOW'D I MISS? Wait, the timing window for their steps is that tight?!?
    • Donk-Donk and Shrimp Shuffle are other games with deceptively tight input windows.
    • Various minigames, especially in earlier entries of the series, require you to have a flawless run to even get a medal. Make a single slip-up, especially at a crucial point in the stage? OK at best.
    • Karate Man Senior is surprisingly difficult even by series standards. Oh sure, you're already used to the Karate Man games in the previous iterations being easy (see Breather Level above), but you'll come to find that you really shouldn't take it lightly very quickly.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: "Thrilling! Is this love?" mentioned above, and "Love Ooh Ooh Paradise".
  • That One Boss:
    • Remix 5 in the first game, Remix 8 in the second. Note that each rather prominently features parts from That One Level: Tengoku Remix 5 has Fireworks and its really difficult timing, whereas Heaven Remix 8 heavily features Rhythm Rally and also includes Fillbots (and its really difficult timing, especially at the speed said remix goes at) on two occasions. To clarify the second one, once you figure out that Rhythm Rally and Dog Ninja basically go at the exact same rhythm, the beginning turns into a matter of flicking at a constant pace. It's towards the end, when the game gradually starts to speed up, that things turn sour real quick.
    • Remix 8 in Fever. It includes a lot of tricky games, including Exhibition Match (one of the few games where you actively have to keep time yourself), Air Rally (which uses slow cues, unlike when it was in Remix 3) and others.
    • The one remix that gains a lot of flak for its difficulty in Megamix is the Machine Remix. The "Rhythm Tweezers" sections near the end are very tricky, and require fast memory and reflexes.
  • That One Level: Fireworks and The Bon Dance in the first game. Fillbots, Rhythm Rally, and Big Rock Finish in the second.
    • Try to get Perfect in Rhythm Rally 2.
    • Love Lizards gets a lot of flack not only because it's repetitive, but the controls tend to be over or underresponsive (depending on which one you don't want it to be).
    • Fever has Love Rap, which ends up comprising the last two[3] medals most people get, mostly due to the rather unusual timing of the sequences (to the point where listening to the audio alone frequently produces worse results than trying to figure out the visual cues on each action). The relevant Remixes are comparably easier.
      • Also any part with the Tap Troupe. The major reason is that the rhythm you need to use to exit the triplet (the bounce-bounce section) is different based on how long the section lasted. You need to either end with another triplet or change to an eighth note. One particularly nasty change actually requires you to wait for about three-eighths before making the final step! Remix 7 has the same difficulty because of this.
      • Shrimp Shuffle is notable for two things. One is that the game counts the beats for you and it's still a pain in the crotch ("1, 2, 3! 3, 2..." *player presses button* "...1!" *miss*); the other is that when the shrimps pause, their shout of "Together!" is delayed, which doesn't actually change the rhythm - but interrupts the voice counting the beats, which makes it very easy to get confused.
  • Unfortunate Character Design: In the Japanese version of Megamix, Trey has big, pink lips as opposed to a simple line-smile and a pink nose. Considering that his skin... er, WOOD color is brown and that his hair is cut... er, LEAVES are TRIMMED roughly into a shape of an afro, it's justified why Nintendo of America removed his lips.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • So, is the second rocker a girl or a guy? The Try Again message for Rockers has the first rocker call the second "man", but for rock stars, "man" could be a gender-neutral term. Maybe the second rocker shares the player's gender?
    • Also, the kid whose pinwheel got stolen in the Fever version of Samurai Slice is called "Pinwheel Boy", but it's hard to tell. Megamix even goes and renames them to "Pinwheel Girl", furthering the confusion.
  • Woolseyism: The localizations of Fever and Megamix were fairly well-received, especially in comparison to the DS version.
  1. ↑ The closest thing you'll find to an English Manzai act is Abbott and Costello, and even then...
  2. ↑ Before Fever was localized, fans of the Japanese Love Rap would choose to interpret the lyrics as a song about wanting to kill a girl named Suki, as the main song lyric is "Daisuki!".
  3. ↑ There's also Love Rap 2.
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