I Fix Rhythm Heaven

It's fair to say that Rhythm Heaven struck its gameplay balance on the wrong side of user-friendly. Feedback is meager, apparently learning little from rhythm games that have come before it. I can't count the number of times I really could have used some guidance as to whether I was striking a missed beat early or late, but it wasn't forthcoming. The game lets you know if you "hit," "half-hit," or "miss," which just isn't enough.

I know why this is; they wanted to keep the interface clean, rather than constantly flashing "excellent!" and "too slow" and "speed up, bro!" like a surfer spirit guide, so they thought they'd let the visuals do the work. But the visuals move as fast as the rhythm, and if I can't hear what I'm doing wrong, there's no reason to assume I can see it.


This is about as much information as Rhythm Heaven will ever give you.

One thing Rhythm Heaven does right, and a lot of rhythm games do infuriatingly wrong, is letting you play through the whole song every time you play. Elite Beat Agents fails you mid-song, which only ensures that you learn each song in five-second chunks as you progress bit by bit through the song. What Rhythm Heaven doesn't do is tell you whether you're getting a winning score or you're already doomed to fail. It knows what it's doing, too, and milks the tension at the end of the level, but come on, guys, not cool. Let me ragequit when I'm screwed.

What everyone mentions about Rhythm Heaven is the difficulty, but not everyone talks about whether or not it's well implemented. It is, mostly; Rhythm Heaven is a game that could have still been incredibly challenging if it had given the user all the feedback he could have wanted. It's still a great game, I just wish the developers had realized they didn't need this coy little interface to make something awesome.