In concept, Rhythm Heaven Megamix should've been an incredible entry in the franchise. Taking over 70 minigames from the past entries, with even a few brand new ones makes it the most packed Rhythm Heaven game yet, and that's not even counting all the extra content and fluff they've added into the formula. The thing is, while you're undoubtably getting more content for the asking price... the way they've implemented it has messed up the pick up and play nature of the older games.
The main change resides in how the minigames are presented. In previous games, the structure was very simple: you are presented a stage, you beat it, you unlock the next one, repeat this several times, until you reach the final minigame; and all of them are selected from a menu so jumping between them takes basically no time. In Megamix, they have added a story and cutscenes between minigame unlocks, as well as separated the games between "rooms" that you have to "travel" through - they are glorified sub-menus with different aesthetics, but they make revisiting previous stages way more annoying that it should be. For example, if you have the final stage selected in Rhythm Heaven Fever, starting the first one would take you the second it'd take you to move the pointer from one end of the screen to another. In Megamix? You first have to exit the submenu where the final stage is located, travel through the rooms until you find a load screen because for some reason the stages are also separated between two worlds, once that finishes scroll through several other rooms until you finally make it to the first one. It's not that it takes long - this really only takes like 30 seconds at worst - but they've just needlessly complicated a process that was easy and intuitive before. Besides that, towards the end of the campaign I just found myself mashing the A button to skip through the text because while the dialogue and characters are cute, it gets grating when the game interrupts you with it every single time you beat a minigame. I don't think it's a poor addition per-se, but only one cutscene at the start of an area and once you finish the 4 minigames within it would've sufficed.
The good news at least are that Megamix is still Rhythm Heaven. While the game has a bit of a weird start with very short and cut-down versions of some of the games present, it promptly picks up with the rhythm game goodness we all know and love. The new additions are all solid, if maybe not particularly memorable, and a lot of fan favorites from previous games have returned with updated art and in the case of the DS games, now supporting button controls. The extra content is also expanded with a new challenge mode, a museum where you can read fluff text about the minigames and even unlock a few extra ones not present in the main campaign, and a couple other small things.
The issue for me personally, is that in the search of content they have removed a lot of the simplicity that already worked so well and made the previous games so addictive. I had no interest in going back and getting all the medals, because moving back and forwards from game to game is just way more tedious than it has any right to be. I do think the base is here, however, for them to iterate upon this structure while bringing back the pick up and play nature of the other entries without sacrificing all the charm the campaign has.
The main change resides in how the minigames are presented. In previous games, the structure was very simple: you are presented a stage, you beat it, you unlock the next one, repeat this several times, until you reach the final minigame; and all of them are selected from a menu so jumping between them takes basically no time. In Megamix, they have added a story and cutscenes between minigame unlocks, as well as separated the games between "rooms" that you have to "travel" through - they are glorified sub-menus with different aesthetics, but they make revisiting previous stages way more annoying that it should be. For example, if you have the final stage selected in Rhythm Heaven Fever, starting the first one would take you the second it'd take you to move the pointer from one end of the screen to another. In Megamix? You first have to exit the submenu where the final stage is located, travel through the rooms until you find a load screen because for some reason the stages are also separated between two worlds, once that finishes scroll through several other rooms until you finally make it to the first one. It's not that it takes long - this really only takes like 30 seconds at worst - but they've just needlessly complicated a process that was easy and intuitive before. Besides that, towards the end of the campaign I just found myself mashing the A button to skip through the text because while the dialogue and characters are cute, it gets grating when the game interrupts you with it every single time you beat a minigame. I don't think it's a poor addition per-se, but only one cutscene at the start of an area and once you finish the 4 minigames within it would've sufficed.
The good news at least are that Megamix is still Rhythm Heaven. While the game has a bit of a weird start with very short and cut-down versions of some of the games present, it promptly picks up with the rhythm game goodness we all know and love. The new additions are all solid, if maybe not particularly memorable, and a lot of fan favorites from previous games have returned with updated art and in the case of the DS games, now supporting button controls. The extra content is also expanded with a new challenge mode, a museum where you can read fluff text about the minigames and even unlock a few extra ones not present in the main campaign, and a couple other small things.
The issue for me personally, is that in the search of content they have removed a lot of the simplicity that already worked so well and made the previous games so addictive. I had no interest in going back and getting all the medals, because moving back and forwards from game to game is just way more tedious than it has any right to be. I do think the base is here, however, for them to iterate upon this structure while bringing back the pick up and play nature of the other entries without sacrificing all the charm the campaign has.