Rhythm Heaven Groove Review

With Nintendo shifting most of its focus to the Switch 2, first-party releases for the original Switch have slowed down significantly. 2025 saw releases like Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, both of which received enhanced Switch 2 ports, with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream serving as one of two first-party Switch 1 games for 2026. The other, and potentially the final OG Switch first-party exclusive, is Rhythm Heaven Groove, the fifth entry in Nintendo’s long-running rhythm game franchise 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 Groove, like its predecessors, shares a lot of DNA with Nintendo’s WarioWare series. Players are challenged to complete bite-sized micro-games that use a cutesy, cartoony art style, but the twist is that Rhythm Heaven‘s micro-games are all rhythm-based. Rhythm Heaven Groove doesn’t stray away from this concept, but it delivers the best version of it.

Rhythm Heaven Groove is Weird, But That’s a Good Thing

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

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 stages are consistently the most challenging, but Rhythm Heaven Groove players don’t have to worry about the difficulty getting out of control. It’s one of those games that’s easy to play, but tough to master. It’s fairly lenient when it comes to the minimum points necessary for players to progress to the next level, but there are worthwhile rewards for those who achieve high scores, and even more for those who somehow manage to beat a stage perfectly.

The vast majority of Rhythm Heaven Groove mini-games utilize one or two buttons to keep things simple, but every mini-game has its own gimmicks to keep in mind. They start with short tutorials that ensure players know what they’re doing before they’re thrown to the wolves, and there’s even the option to see examples, so players can better prepare for the real deal.

I had a blast playing through Rhythm Heaven Groove‘s single-player content, but the downside is that it starts recycling ideas pretty quickly. After Stage 6, many of the new mini-games are sequels to previously completed ones. This allows for interesting narratives to form, but it is also a little disappointing that concepts are repeated after just 24 mini-games.

Beyond the core mini-games, Rhythm Heaven Groove features 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 Rhythm Heaven Groove‘s replay value, as they require medals earned by achieving high scores.

Rhythm Heaven Groove Multiplayer is a Blast

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

The versus mini-games are bite-sized like everything else in Rhythm Heaven Groove, but 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 genuine challenge. The highlight of Rhythm Heaven Groove‘s PvP offerings is Cake Wait, where players have to mentally count down from 10 and try to get closest to the timer hitting zero when they reach for a piece of cake. Memo Rising, a memory matching game, is definitely the weakest of the package, though.

It’s a shame that there isn’t more to Rhythm Heaven Groove‘s multiplayer. While it may take a while to beat the final stage in each mini-game, it’s still only a couple of hours of playtime. Rhythm Heaven Groove has a budget price of $40, but more content would have gone a long way in making it an even easier recommendation.

Rolling credits in 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.

Even though it is 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 are looking for a new local multiplayer option. The music is catchy as hell, the art style is adorable, and the mini-games are almost all winners. If Rhythm Heaven Groove is indeed the last first-party Nintendo game to be released for the Switch, it’s definitely not a bad game to go out on.