Rhythm Paradise Groove Review

Explosion Network may receive a commission when you purchase something via a link on our site

I’ve never played any of the Rhythm Paradise games before, and with Rhythm Paradise Groove as my first entry into this series, I was pleasantly surprised by how silly, simply easy to get into, and catchy the music is.

How much you’ll get out of your time with Rhythm Paradise Groove is going to depend on how much you’re willing to stick with its 80-odd mini-games, the need to improve your rank on those, and playing around in the spin-off. These side-adjacent mini-games also have a surprisingly good amount of legs to them. There’s even a multiplayer mode here if you’d like ot challenge friends to see who has the best sense of rhythm, or try and team up in co-op to equal levels of laughs and frustration. At the end of it all, the gameplay mechanics between all of these modes remain very similar, with only slight button differences, but a continued focus on pressing the correct ones to the beat and on time.

The mini-games have a wild mix of stories happening behind them, from accelerating and braking cars in time to pulling hairs from a man’s face and catching a frisbee like a dog. Some of the mini-games involve a couple of different button inputs, like an early umbrella mini-game that has you using the D-pad to open it and a face button to close it. While other mini-games have you pressing just one button at the correct time. Some others throw in some extra things like having to hold down a specific button too, while also having to tap it at other times. But it’s never remembering the correct button presses that makes being a master of Rhythm Paradise Groove tricky; it’s getting in tune and pressing the buttons at the right moment in time with the beat.

I’ve played a mix of docked, handheld, loud-room, and headphones, and by far the game is easiest with headphones on, letting your brain block out everything else and focus on the beat. I’ve also found it helps to move your head in time to the beat, or maybe that’s just me, and I need the motion of my own body to guide me.

The game’s visuals are bright, fun, and often silly, especially in the character design. It brings everything to life and is paired with some oddly catchy tunes for most of the game. Even the mini-games I found less exciting still had some silly little visuals involved. It’s also the type of game that if someone walks past and sees you playing, they’re quickly going to ask some variation of “what the hell are you playing?”

There is a campaign-type mode to work through with some very bland menus and a block system to select levels on. The UI overall is the disappointing factor of a game that otherwise has a distinct visual style. At the end of each block of mini-games, you’ll unlock a remix level that incorporates all of the previous section of levels into one mini-game to see how you’re able to play to a changing beat and tone, and each of these will keep you on your toes.

Aside from the core mini-games and the multiplayer I mentioned, there are also other things to unlock and do, including a rather simple but still fun RPG-inspired mode where you move through a fantasy story and unlock different spells. You can jump around and try different levels or mini-games at any point, which helps if you hit an annoying mini-game you’re struggling to get past.

Having not played one of these games before, I quickly got the simple but effective nature of these catchy mini-games that can take you from a quick-play session to a longer one, thanks to the addictive nature of wanting to beat a level or improve your ranking.

(Review code provided to Explosion Network.
Read about our review and ethics policy here.)