Lant_War
Understand, Understand
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Rhythm Heaven franchise has rarely been a consistent one. You can make an argument for each one being unique in their own right – Tengoku being the original can be considered a baseline, but then Rhythm Heaven on the DS took the same structure and applied a very unique touch control scheme, then Fever on the Wii took the series to home consoles with a simplified control scheme, and finally Megamix returned to the control scheme of the original but completely overhauled the structure of the game. And that's just looking at the main games, because once you look at side content all of them are even more different.
So after thinking about it, I think I figured out what my ideal RH game for the Switch would look like. Starting with the obvious and uncontroversial: the main game should be all new games, considering that the last one was already mostly a compilation of older ones. I'd be fine with some of the games that missed Megamix coming back as side content like how Fever handled it, but the bare minimum should be matching that game's 28 original games + remixes. Let's look now at what they should take (imo of course) from each previous RH game:
From Tengoku, they should take the structure. The core of the game should be just the rhythm games leading up to remixes without any story BS dragging the game’s pacing down. Granted, most RH games have this structure so you could probably take “this” from either DS or Fever but since it’s the original I’m giving it to it. I guess to give it something else the drumming lessons / drumming minigame is probably the most fleshed out they've ever had and would be nice to see a return of something with such depth.
From DS, I would like them to take the uniqueness of its input method. I’m not sure exactly how this could be achieved, since the game would most likely be made to be compatible with TV play so it would likely have to have some button mode regardless. Then again, there is a romhack that adds button controls to the DS game and it works just fine, so they could probably offer both as an option. Even if they were to not use the touchscreen, they can probably still make use of the sticks, the triggers, or even motion controls for the different games (maybe the side games or rhythm toys?)
From Fever, they should take the aesthetic and variety. Not sure if it’s a hot take or not to say this but I find this game absolutely beautiful and in terms of characters it probably has my favorite cast. The Remixes are almost all bangers and the concept of all the games is so creative!
Finally, from Megamix they could take a few things. The side content with the challenges, museum, perfect campaign, etc. are either really good additions or a really good way of presenting things that were already in previous games, so I would love for this game to have side content like that. Then, while I think the structure of its story mode is mostly bad, they were lowkey cooking frfr with the sections where you can choose from multiple temples instead of having to do everything in order. Maybe restrict it a little more – say, you choose between the 4 games before a remix in any order and you progress to the next group of games after the remix – but it’s a good concept I think. Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 do it so why wouldn’t you really.
Obviously, being a new game they would likely also try new things they haven't tried before, so to throw in a random feature that could maybe happen: a music + custom remix maker! Seems pretty farfetched but it would make the game even more replayable, and limiting it to music made within the program (maybe the music could be shared on its own so other people make remixes) would avoid the typical copyright issues and whatnot.
Anyways, what does your Rhythm Heaven Switch game look like?
So after thinking about it, I think I figured out what my ideal RH game for the Switch would look like. Starting with the obvious and uncontroversial: the main game should be all new games, considering that the last one was already mostly a compilation of older ones. I'd be fine with some of the games that missed Megamix coming back as side content like how Fever handled it, but the bare minimum should be matching that game's 28 original games + remixes. Let's look now at what they should take (imo of course) from each previous RH game:
From Tengoku, they should take the structure. The core of the game should be just the rhythm games leading up to remixes without any story BS dragging the game’s pacing down. Granted, most RH games have this structure so you could probably take “this” from either DS or Fever but since it’s the original I’m giving it to it. I guess to give it something else the drumming lessons / drumming minigame is probably the most fleshed out they've ever had and would be nice to see a return of something with such depth.
From DS, I would like them to take the uniqueness of its input method. I’m not sure exactly how this could be achieved, since the game would most likely be made to be compatible with TV play so it would likely have to have some button mode regardless. Then again, there is a romhack that adds button controls to the DS game and it works just fine, so they could probably offer both as an option. Even if they were to not use the touchscreen, they can probably still make use of the sticks, the triggers, or even motion controls for the different games (maybe the side games or rhythm toys?)
From Fever, they should take the aesthetic and variety. Not sure if it’s a hot take or not to say this but I find this game absolutely beautiful and in terms of characters it probably has my favorite cast. The Remixes are almost all bangers and the concept of all the games is so creative!
Finally, from Megamix they could take a few things. The side content with the challenges, museum, perfect campaign, etc. are either really good additions or a really good way of presenting things that were already in previous games, so I would love for this game to have side content like that. Then, while I think the structure of its story mode is mostly bad, they were lowkey cooking frfr with the sections where you can choose from multiple temples instead of having to do everything in order. Maybe restrict it a little more – say, you choose between the 4 games before a remix in any order and you progress to the next group of games after the remix – but it’s a good concept I think. Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 do it so why wouldn’t you really.
Obviously, being a new game they would likely also try new things they haven't tried before, so to throw in a random feature that could maybe happen: a music + custom remix maker! Seems pretty farfetched but it would make the game even more replayable, and limiting it to music made within the program (maybe the music could be shared on its own so other people make remixes) would avoid the typical copyright issues and whatnot.
Anyways, what does your Rhythm Heaven Switch game look like?
