Ironically this game is at its worst when you have played all of the previous entries like I have. I thought I was setting myself up to have the most fun, and be able to pick out the most references etc by playing the games that came before this one. Unbeknownst to me, the remasters of the old games take up 75% of this game, and are completely in their original forms, with the same music and same button timings. For some of these games it was my 8th time playing the same game across different platforms, and it did start to drag.

I liked most of the new additions, though with the format of this game there wasn't much space for their full depth to be explored, which was a shame.
I don't know how I feel about the new scoring and skill star system. On the one hand, it gets rid of any ambiguity that was present with the old system, and where you needed to avoid mistakes. Taking away the requirement to perform well on a section left a void that was filled by the skill star, where you have to have absolutely perfect timing - compared to the usual close enough - on one specific input. It did become quite frustrating when the skill star was placed right at the end of a couple-minute long level, on a pattern that only shows up once or twice on the whole level so you can't really practice the timing.

In the end I picked up all the skill stars and all superbs in the main story, completing my sweep of the Rhythm Heaven series. I didn't end up going for all of the challenges levels, but these and the perfects will make for a fine challenge when I inevitably return to this fantastic series of games.