Comfort food. Something you imbibe when all you want to do is feel good, feel happy. It is a very human concept to have something in your back pocket to chase away all the negativity in the world and let you just exist in a zen-like state of positivity for a little while.
While I have many comfort foods (to which my physique can attest) I also have a comfort game series, in the form of Rhythm Paradise (or Rhythm Heaven in non-PAL regions).
A brilliantly bombastic bit of fun that has you tapping your foot and counting out the beats to scratch vinyl or kick soccer balls, the games dominated my handheld era – and now Rhythm Paradise Groove is coming to bop on a new generation.
Escaping a grey Melbourne sky, I was delighted to spend an afternoon with the game at Nintendo HQ. Consoles in hand and headphones on head, we were encouraged to tap our feet or bob our heads to assist with the gameplay – because that is the correct way to play. Your thumbs can only do so much to nail a Rhythm Paradise experience, the rest of it has to come from a personified vibe.
If you have played the series before, you know the drill. Single-player will have you conquering over 80 minigames of various themes to the games beat-iful soundtrack – with “Remix” stages combining several games into a longer beat based experience. Our brief preview had us jumping a row of little blob dudes through hoops, mimicking umbrella choreography in a chorus line, tossing a frisbee to a dog, and trying to keep the beat in a dancing line of cat dolls.
To an observer, you’d immediately consider the gameplay to be a micro-game based (like a WarioWare title) but the reality is that rhythm is unsurprisingly the key to success. I have always held true the idea that a true Rhythm Paradise flow state could almost lead to you playing the game with your eyes closed – which is a pretty criminal thought when you account for the gorgeous visuals the game has – but it paints a picture for how important your timing really is.
This is deeply enforced by how Rhythm Paradise Groove cheekily messes with the visuals during your rhythm outing to make sure you are tuned in to that beat. My frisbee flinging experience would subtly zoom in on a portion of the scene to actually obscure the approaching frisbee, entirely robbing me of using proximity to gauge when to time my pupper’s catch – I had to be doing the 7-count to get it right. Later, in a multiplayer game, a slow zoooom in on the cake that we were all trying to snatch had me triple-guessing my timing as I stared at the mouth-watering strawberries. These are games with only a handful of inputs, with many of them only needing a single button press to complete the task, but they do everything in their power to make sure you don’t feel under-challenged.
It was Rhythm Paradise as I had always known it, just sexier and slicker for a new age and a new set of hardware. The toe-tapping addictiveness was as present as ever, leaving me feeling that the developers hadn’t missed a beat (heh) in this new incarnation. In a room full of people tapping and grooving, I still managed to get a couple of gold ratings on my umbrella choreography and dinosaur munching outings, leaving me satisfied that I was in for a very familiar experience when the game releases proper.
Then the Nintendo rep invited me to try something a little different, a new RPG mode known as “Beatspell”. Rather than a single flashy experience, Beatspell tasks you with using your rhythm-based inputs to cast spells and progress through dungeons, using specific inputs to cast unique spells.
Starting with a generic fire spell, I was able to damage enemies and even do critical hits if my timing was perfect, before being given a healing spell to top myself up between beats. These two unique patterns were more than single button presses, and required both on and off-beat sequences to do them properly, using half-counts to good effect. As the encounters became more involved, I was put to task to make sure I was balancing not only my damage output but my own wellbeing as mocking bosses sneered and rhythmically slapped me around.
It was distinctly Rhythm Paradise in nature, but a whole different beast in execution – feeling almost like a freestyle musical jam session where I was balancing my health bar and the enemies at the same time, while trying to keep the groove on track. For such a brief taste of the mode, it was the thing I kept thinking about long after I had surrendered my demo console.
As our preview neared its conclusion, we were shuffled over to a multiplayer station to get messy with some co-operative and competitive options. Our first briefing was to defend our ninja master from would-be assassins, with the Nintendo representatives cheekily telling us that not many people had managed to nail this one. As a crew of spectacularly coloured Shinobi, we deflected arrows and managed to protect our lord first try – cementing us as Ninja champions.
But all semblance of normalcy was lost with game two. Titled “Cake Wait”, the objective was simple – snatch the cake after ten seconds with the victor being whoever was closest to the exact second. Ten entire seconds would count down to music, with four pompadour-adorned characters leaning in and staring at the prize. All four of us players would similarly tense up, until the explosive finish showing that victory comes down to micro seconds. Joy and surprise abounded our time with it, as we started to note unique little details that crop up after consecutive plays – It was an absurdly simple premise, but the energy surrounding it had us electrified and hungry for more – so much so that a second round had to be played before our preview time ran out.
In the broader context of the series, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this new entry has to offer – yet every moment spent with it was a delightful dive into the toe-tapping, surreal charm that defines classic Rhythm Paradise. Boasting roughly 80 minigames, a revitalised multiplayer component, and the added depth of the Beatspell mode, this may well shape up to be the most robust and replayable title in the franchise to date.
So I look forward to a new era of comfort food to weather the cold Tasmanian winter. If you have never experienced Rhythm Paradise, this one comes with a hearty recommendation. Snatching cake with your mates has never been so fun.
Rhythm Paradise Groove releases in Australia on June 2, 2026 for both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
Previewed at an event hosted by Nintendo
