9 Rhythm Heaven Groove Games That Made Me Want To Scream

As I wrote in my review of the game, the hallmark of a good Rhythm Heaven game is that I can’t stop tapping my foot to it when I’m not playing, and also that it makes me very, very angry.

Here, I’ve compiled a list of the nine Rhythm Heaven Groove games that infuriated me the most. By that definition, you might also consider these to be some of the best ones. Your own mileage, and meter, may vary.

I did briefly consider using this same headline and just making this a list of every single Rhythm Heaven Groove game available, because trying to improve my scores on every one of these is an exercise in frustration, but I thought that would be a little unfair to the Brolly Good Show boys, who have never done anything wrong in their lives.

Anyway here are the nine worst/best ones:

High-Five Fever

This game actually isn’t that bad. You have to keep pressing A and <- on the beat to high-five the guys on either side of you, interrupted occasionally by a rapid double high-five when prompted. The sequel adds a third move where you do a quick right-left-right high-five before continuing. It’s difficult in the way that good ol’ Lockstep is difficult, and the stock photos are hilariously distracting, but it’s ultimately nowhere near the worst that Rhythm Heaven Groove has to offer.

I include it here, though, because this game makes me PANIC for some reason. Every time the guy yells at me to do one of the fancy high-fives, I just freak out, lose my mind, and fall off the beat for like four or five high-fives until I find it again. This happens most often in the remixes that include this game. I don’t know why I do this. The key is calm. High-fives are happy occasions and I cannot let them get to me.

Can Do

Another one that’s not actually that bad, but for some reason I can never nail the timing of the blue cans. The red cans are fine. A quick beep-beep, ee-yea! No problem. But the slower blue cans beep, beep, ee-yea! is harder, especially when they appear in the remixes. The sequel is worse, when the beeps show up on the off beats. I’m sorry to the cat foreman or whatever watching me, but I am a person fit only for a desk job who cannot smash cans with accuracy.

Flutter Speed

A cute pair of games about a parent bug entymologist and his young daughter, who both grow older in the sequel until the daughter takes over the bug catching. I don’t know what it is but there’s something about the rhythm of both bugs in the first game (grasshopper and butterfly) that messes with my head. Weirdly, the dragonfly they add in the sequel is the easiest, since it usually requires hitting A on the final beat of the measure. This is another one that kills me especially when it shows up in remixes, because the rhythm feels so counter-intuitive to whatever else is going on.

Sneezy Moon 2

I want to be clear, I actually don’t think Sneezy Moon 1 is that bad. When I first started it, my partner nudged me and told me he had seen people getting really pissed off at this one online. After playing the initial version, I didn’t understand why. Sure, the moon was a little tricksy, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Then we got to the sequel. With the trains. And the tricks. And the rats. And the wonderfully ominous “Beware surprise sneezes!” message midway through that you can totally miss if you’re locked in, thereby receiving no warning of the horrors to come.

Frick the moon, man. This game is mean for no reason.

Stop N Go N Stop

I am so sorry to the poor silver and blue car drivers, but I just can’t manage this one. I don’t know why. I understand, intellectually, exactly where the beat goes on both the gas and the brakes. But every single time I do either version of this game, I’m always sliiiightly off on both, especially the braking. Just enough to piss off the other cars. I’ve never been given side-eye by a car before but I guess that’s where we’re at now.

Yum-Bot Simulator

Okay, I was mostly being silly about the other games infuriating me, but we’re now into the territory of games that actually do make me want to scream. I have to close my eyes to play this one, because the motion of the robot’s hand is so misleading. When done right, the robot just guides the pudding gently down to the belt, but it looks like you should be just snappily catching it, and that messes me up. I am also easily distracted and don’t always catch when the puddings are bad and I have to zap them with my lazer eyes. The sudden tempo change in the sequel is just flat-out mean.

Hop N Slide

In the same way that the visuals are super misleading in Yum-Bot Simulator, Hop N Slide 2 is great at tricking you into jumping/ducking off the beat because you’ve played platformers before and want the moves to be in a different place than the music puts them. I play this one with my eyes closed, but also like Yum-Bot Simulator, the middle section where it suddenly speeds up completely destroys me. My brain can’t process the sounds that quickly with no visual feedback…though given how fast it’s moving, I’m not sure opening my eyes would help much. A big middle finger to Miho for this one.

Spirit Slasher

Aaafhewiuhegbi;lwunbvo;erngpg I hate this one. Who does this samurai think he is, anyway? I swear to you, I am hitting the A button on the correct beat every time. Somehow, I am not slashing through any ghosts. They are, at best, bouncing off my sword. Most of the time they are attacking me. Then when I screw one up, it throws all the rest off, the whole thing cascades, and my samurai probably dies of ectoplasm or something. I never had issues with this game’s clear inspirations in past Rhythm Heavens, so I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.

Disc Dog

My editor won’t let me write the expletives I want to use to describe this one.

Inexplicably, though, I think Remix 11, where this game is featured prominently, is the best one in the entire game and I medaled it easily.

I would love to hear which Rhythm Heaven Groove games are driving you all nuts. Please tell me in the comments. It will make me feel better about myself. If you have Rainbow Perfected any of the games above, do not speak to me.