Rhythm Heaven Groove review

As Nintendo shifted most of its focus to the Switch 2, first-party releases for the original Switch have slowed down significantly. 2025 saw releases such as Pokemon Legends: ZA and Metroid Prime 4: Beyondboth of which received improved Switch 2 ports, with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream serves as one of two first-party Switch 1 games for 2026. The second, and potentially final OG Switch first-party exclusive, is Rhythm Heaven Groovethe fifth entry in Nintendo's long-running rhythm game series that started all the way back in 2006 on the Game Boy Advance. And while it may not be a big budget blockbuster, Rhythm Heaven Groove is still a lot of fun and a fitting swan song for the Switch.

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Rhythm Heaven Groovelike its predecessors, shares a lot of DNA with Nintendo's WarioWare series. Players are challenged to complete small microgames that use a cute, cartoony art style, but the twist is that Rhythm Heavens microgames are all rhythm based. Rhythm Heaven Groove does not depart from this concept, but it delivers the best version of it.

Rhythm Heaven Groove is weird, but it's good

Rhythm Heaven Grooves single player mode has a solid selection of fun rhythm games built around a variety of bizarre concepts, giving it all a touch of personality. One mini-game is about chopping vegetables, while another is about talking to an alien. One minigame has players controlling strange, sentient umbrella creatures that must open and close their heads to the beat, and another involves robots working in a pudding factory that occasionally requires them to blast bad product with their laser eyes. It's all very strange, but presented charmingly, and it's exciting to see what wild thing the developers came up with for the next minigame.

Each stage culminates in a remix of its mini-games, where players' skills are put to the test as they juggle the quirks of all the mini-games at once. These remix steps are consistently the most challenging, though Rhythm Heaven Groove players don't have to worry about the difficulty of getting out of control. It is one of those games that is easy to play, but hard to master. It's pretty lenient when it comes to the minimum scores required for players to advance to the next level, but there are valuable rewards for those who achieve high scores, and even more so for those who somehow manage to beat a stage perfectly.

The vast majority of Rhythm Heaven Groove mini-games use one or two buttons to make things easy, but each mini-game has its own tricks to consider. They start with short tutorials that ensure players know what they're doing before they're thrown to the wolves, and there's also the option to watch examples, so players can better prepare for the real deal.

I had a blast playing through Rhythm Heaven Grooves single-player content, but the downside is that it starts recycling ideas pretty quickly. After stage 6, many of the new minigames are sequels to previously completed ones. This allows for interesting stories to form, but it's also a little boring that concepts are repeated after only 24 minigames.

In addition to the central mini-games, Rhythm Heaven Groove has engaging side content, like Beatspell, a rhythm game twist on an RPG with multiple levels to conquer. There's also the Rhythm Toy Box, which is full of little gimmicks to mess around with. Unlocking new toys for the toy box is one of the driving forces behind it Rhythm Heaven Grooves replay value, as they require medals earned by achieving high scores.

Rhythm Heaven Groove Multiplayer is a blast

What gives Rhythm Heaven Groove far more replay value is its local multiplayer functionality. Rhythm Heaven Groove offers a variety of co-op and versus multiplayer mini-games that come in three difficulty levels and almost all of them are wildly entertaining, especially with the right group of friends. Co-op minigames include one that lets players shoot aliens in a spaceship and another that has them tweezing hair out of onions.

The vs minigames are small like everything else in the Rhythm Heaven Groovebut competitive enough to make them worth playing over and over again. The multiplayer also has its own Toy Box with its own unlockables, and completing all three versions of each game is a real challenge. The highlight of Rhythm Heaven Grooves PvP offering is Cake Wait, where players must mentally count down from 10 and try to get as close to the timer hitting zero as they reach for a cake. However, Memo Rising, a memory matching game, is definitely the weakest of the pack.

It's a shame there isn't more to Rhythm Heaven Grooves multiplayer. While it can take a while to beat the final stage of each minigame, it's still only a couple of hours of playtime. Rhythm Heaven Groove has a budget price of $40, but more content would have made it an even easier recommendation.

Rolls in credits Rhythm Heaven Groove can be done in a few hours, but there's a lot more to do between the unlockables, extra stages, and multiplayer.

Although a little light on content, what's here is strong enough to recommend Rhythm Heaven Groove to the majority of Switch owners, especially if they're looking for a new local multiplayer option. The music is catchy as hell, the art style is adorable, and the mini-games are pretty much all winners. If Rhythm Heaven Groove is really the last first-party Nintendo game to be released for the Switch, it's definitely not a bad game to go out on.