I was extremely excited to see the Rhythm Heaven: Wii tech demo as we walked through Nintendo’s booth. Though I hadn’t read much about the game, I was prepared to play hardcore rhythm based gameplay as well as get a catchy tune stuck in my head for the rest of the evening. If you’re familiar with Rhythm Heaven for the DS, then you’ll know exactly what to expect from its Wii counterpart.
There were 3 demos available for the game but I only had the time to attempt two. The first of the two demos featured the samurai that appeared in the previous game. The session involved slicing enemies as they jumped at you by pressing A and annihilating hordes by pressing and holding down A. Similar to the DS version, the game begins with a few practice beats and then moves on to the real thing. As the song progressed, it relied fully on rhythm by showing other pictures on the screen that covered up the action. However, despite being a difficult beat, I managed to score a perfect run on my first try (I told you I loved the DS version 😉
As for the second demo it featured two characters playing badminton atop airplanes. Just like the ping pong rally from Rhythm Heaven: DS, this round was a fast paced match that required me to press the button to a rapid beat. I wasn’t as successful as with the previous demo but ended up getting the song stuck in my head for a few hours in the process. And, as the game almost requires you to play songs multiple times to perfect them, had I had another few stabs at it, I would have done much better.
I don’t know if there are any Wii specific controls that will be added to the game but I must say that I was very pleased by the fact that the game didn’t focus on them. The push towards responsive controls will only lead to success in my opinion as opposed to trying to add the unique controls into the game and causing it to suffer like with other franchises (I felt that WarioWare Touched! put too much emphasis on touch controls and the game resulted in being my least favorite of the WarioWare series because of it). I’m extremely excited about the game and will surely have an in-depth review once the game arrives (so stay tuned!)