No, no I can’t. You can’t either and neither can the Japanese who are notoriously good at these rhythm based games. (I’m kidding) But that should give you an idea of how hard and unforgiving this game is.

‘What is this game,’ I hear you ask (through the mysteries of the Internet) out loud? It’s one of the strangest mix-ups of genres I’ve seen to date – Part WarioWare, part Elite Beat Agents, all frustration on your Nintendo DS. Rhythm Heaven brings to the plate over 30 mini-games that are all rhythm based, everything from helping a little cartoon monkey clap along with the beat to a cutesy j-pop (’Japanese Pop’, for those who are unaware) singer to a platoon of dancing ducks following the orders of their ducky drill sergeant. Not that all the games are dancing based, one game has you filling up robots on a factory line who will fly off to do who-knows-what (attack John Conner I assume) and another has you flipping dumplings into a monk’s mouth.

Yeah, I had the same puzzled look on my face too.

However, strange as they may be, they are also incredibly endearing and fun.

To help you through, each level comes with a tutorial teaching you the basic mechanics and whats expected of you for each stage, which have 3 grade levels. Failing a song will get you a little snappy comment about how you did and you’ll be told to try-over. Doing alright will award you a silver-mark for passing (’Just OK’ as they put it) which enables you to move on to the next game and lastly a ‘Superb’ rating on a track gets you a gold-mark and a medal. The number of medals you have unlock additional mini-games inside the in-game ‘cafe’, where you can hang out between levels. Inside you can chat with the waitress (who will compliment you on your perfects) or listen to music you’ve unlocked from the main stages.

The mini-games are lumped into groups of four, where at the end of the four levels you are presented with the ‘Rhythm League’, a mini-game that is a bit of each of the past four you have completed. These levels are a bit harder and really get you on your toes – switching back and forth between the mini-games you’ve just played through in about a 2 minute span gets kind of confusing unless you’re very alert.

A whimsical game for any age as long as you aren’t the type to jam your stylus through your DS, Rhythm Heaven will definitely give you hours of entertainment (at least if you’re the perfectionist type who wants a medal on each song.) If you could care less about the medals (and extra mini-game unlockables,) you’ll blow through this in six hours, maybe seven tops.

A word of warning though, you will want to jam your stylus through the screen on the frog-level.

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