When its divine weirdness becomes second-nature, you're addicted, but you're still smiling and singing along with it.
From the people behind the WarioWare game's comes another eclectic and inane mini-game compilation package. Rhythm Tengoku Gold (RTG) is the sequel to the GBA game Rhythm Tengoku, go figure, and it still has the same adorable charm and addictive mini-games. However, unlike WarioWare, RTG has an emphasis on rhythm, it's in the title after all, and music plays a large part.
Every mini-game has it's own music track and requires you to do really random things all to the beat of the music. One game may have you stomping on the ground to launch turnips into the air and then you'll have to uppercut them into the basket on your back. Then another has you participating in lizard mating rituals. It gets a little weird, just a tad. There are only three touch-screen commands in the whole game as well, and buttons aren't used at all, well except for the pause button. You'll either be tapping, flicking, or dragging the stylus.
Some of the games are maddeningly hard to perfect. There's one mini-game in which you must blast mines in a space ship to this sick electric guitar riff. If you miss even just three of the many mines then you will only get a 'mediocre' ranking. While that qualifies as passing and will let you continue to the next game, getting a 'superb' ranking will not only make you feel better, but it will open up 'perfect' challenges. These come at random and only for games in which you scored a 'superb'. You get three tries at getting a 'perfect' and if you mess up then the next time the opportunity comes is anyone's guess.
There are six tiers of five mini-games each, but there are four unlock-able tiers as well. The fifth game of every tier is a remix of the past four games. This cobbles the four games into one and gives them a graphical facelift and sets them to a new tune. Needless to say, the remixes are the highlight of the game. Each one is just so insane and you'll be laughing and struggling to keep up with the beat; it's just awesome. During one of the remixes the aforementioned space mine blasting level is replaced with coconut blasting goodness, complete with a tiki hut and a volcano in the background. I had to pause the game since I was laughing so hard. Also unlike WarioWare games, these games last more than four seconds. In fact some even go on for several minutes.
RTG is chock full of weird extra's from prototype mini-games that didn't make the cut to an in-game music player; there's more than just the mini-games here. On the production side RTG's graphics have that funky college-student-economic-mid-term-presentation-collage sort of vibe. That's not a bad thing; just don't expect super high-resolution art or elaborate sprite work or anything fancy. Audio wise the game is superb all around. Sound effects aren't annoying or too subtle and the music is great. Each tune is different as well, you may be thinking its all crazy J-pop stuff, but there's quite a lot of aural variety here.
Since I'm talking about the Japanese version I'll have to address the localization differences. You may have heard that some of the music tracks have terrible localization and the singers are just plain bad. I'll just remind you that not every song has lyrics though keep that in mind. That's the only difference between the versions however. While the lackluster singing may bother audiophiles, I don't think a few crappy songs is worth importing the Japanese version over whatever version your region offers. But if you're super hardcore and you're thinking the idiosyncratic Japanese appeal is lost in translation (and you may or may not have anime figurines and Pocky wrappers all over your desk) then go import it. While I haven't played Rhythm Heaven yet, I don't think it makes much difference which version you get.
Now if you do import RTG, have no fear. I can't read a smidgeon of Japanese but I navigated the menus just fine. You may have some trouble with the tutorials before each mini-game, but there's nothing like some good old fashioned southern style po-boy's to cure an appetite… wait, what? I mean, I learned how to play each mini-game through some simple trial and error, there's nothing in here you can't figure out if you don't know Japanese.
The somewhat lenient timing detection and the ease of the controls lend RTG to a more pick-up-and-play feel and when combined with the quirky appeal of the graphics and the super catchy music, you have a game that is sure to attract attention. RTG serves both the casual gamer by making an accessible simple rhythm control scheme, but the 'perfect' challenges will keep hardcore gamers engrossed as well. Import the original Japanese version or go with the localized versions, doesn't matter, just get this whacked-out game either way.