Rhythm Heaven Groove review: A grand gaggle of groovy games

Rhythm Heaven Groove is jam-packed full of earworms that put your rhythmic button-tapping to the test in a wide variety of ways.

Rhythm Heaven is a silly place. I’d argue it’s as silly as WarioWare, but Rhythm Heaven has always stayed with me a little bit more because it’s all about music and matching your actions to catchy beats. That concept has provided a wealth of delightful memories on relatively simple mechanics. I’m happy to report that Rhythm Heaven Groove is a wonderful new collection of that same fun. Oddly enough, this is also one of the few Nintendo Switch games I’d wholeheartedly recommend playing Handheld over playing in Docked Mode, but Rhythm Heaven Groove is still a wonderful return full of all sorts of catchy minigames for players to test their rhythm against solo or with friends.

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Keep the rhythm… Beep!

Rhythm Heaven is a deceptively simple series. From the beginning, the idea behind it was always that you play through a variety of minigames that take the form of rhythmic jingles with one or a few interaction points. You might have help a woman catch flying veggies to chop up for dinner or have a little fellow open and close their umbrella in time with a group. You might pop bubbles on a conveyer belt or sneak some folks by a fence while avoiding the gaze of an angry moon. Rhythm Heaven Groove follows this formula with a new collection of around 80 games in its single-player mode. The whole thing is narrated by a funny little fairy girl who explains everything as much or as little as you want her to before ending every comment with a happy little “beep!”

You initially start bare bones. The single-player minigames are broken up into levels of four games apiece with only one unlocked until you clear it to unlock the next. Each level ends with a Remix level of the games you’ve played, and then you move onto the next stage of games. Passing a minigame in any fashion unlocks the next, but you’re also graded on your overall performance, and if you do particularly well, you get an Amazing Medal. Accumulating Medals unlocks bonus content in Groove. I love the collection of games in single-player. They are colorful, catchy, and sometimes downright funny.

It doesn’t stop at single-player, though. Rhythm Heaven Groove also has multiplayer games and bonus games that don’t play into the main single-player path. As mentioned prior, if you do well at a minigame, then you get a Medal. When you collect certain amounts of Medals, you unlock various extra games, features, chapters of a side game called Beatspell, and more. The side rhythm games are little amusements like a by-touch guessing game utilizing the vibration function of your controller, a music-and-beat mixer, and more. These games are kind of bare, but they’re there nonetheless. Beatspell is a light RPG adventure in which you cast spells on beat to defeat monsters in a gauntlet. I enjoyed unlocking parts of Beatspell quite a bit. It’s not a hefty side game, but it reminded me of similarly styled rhythm RPGs like Puuba’s 2016 title The Metronomicon and it’s fun to unlock layers of it as you play through the main game.

The multiplayer games are a decent collection, too, with a variety of ways for you and your friends to play. Some of them are co-op minigames, like picking the hairs off an onion or defeating monsters with the power of rhythm and tennis. Others have you trying to outplay each other in versus fashion. By doing well in them, you unlock more multiplayer games the same way you do with single-player, so there’s incentive to stick in there and get good so you can unlock more games and features.

Better in handheld?... Beep!

Rhythm Heaven Groove is a purely unique Switch for me, because after extensive time in both Docked Mode and Handheld mode, it’s the first time I’ve ever decided Handheld is better. The whole point of Rhythm Heaven Groove is playing the games on beat, and the timing of some of these games is very tight. To that end, every time you start up Rhythm Heaven Groove on a new TV, you must configure your button-press timing to the TV. It’s supposed to help the game adjust to any latency issues so hopefully your experience will be pin-point accurate.

That’s fine and all, but I had two problems with it. Firstly, you have to do this calibration every time you connect your Switch to a fresh TV. And by that, I mean if you disconnect your Switch or Switch 2 dock from the TV, travel with it, come back, and hook it up to the same TV, Groove will have you calibrate again. It’s a little annoying that it can recognize when you’ve connected to a TV for the first time, but it can’t tell if it’s the same TV you’ve been using. My second issue is that, even with calibration, I don’t think Docked Play is as accurate as Handheld Mode. Both my spouse and I agreed when we played the games in Handheld, it was almost always easier than playing in Docked Mode, no matter how we calibrated the system.

Get in the groove… Beep!

Rhythm Heaven Groove is great. Its little games are simple, yet addictive, its imagery is silly and light-hearted, and there is undoubtedly music that will stay with players well after they clear any given round. I’m not crazy about how simplistic some of the bonuses are, but I did like the parallel progress through co-op games with their own unlocks. Where I feel most iffy about Rhythm Heaven Groove is in the calibration on Docked Mode. I think depending on how accurate you can get this on your TV, it could make a good or frustrating time out of the same experience. To that end, I’d recommend playing Rhythm Heaven Groove in Handheld for the best time. Either way, this is a groove that will get inside your bones and get you bouncing to the beat.

This review is based on a Nintendo Switch 2 digital copy provided by the publisher. Rhythm Heaven Groove comes out on July 2, 2026 on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. There is a demo available now.

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Review for
Rhythm Heaven Groove
8
Pros

• Over 80 new single-player games to explore
• Great soundtrack for the games
• Fun minigame concepts throughout
• Solid progression in single- and multiplayer
• Beatspell is a fun diversion that unlocks alongside gameplay

Cons

• The side games in single-player are sometimes too bare
• You have to calibrate anytime you disconnect and reconnect to a TV
• Handheld is easier to play in any form than Docked