Minigames and music conglomerate in one blissful union of addictiveness. Seriously.

Nintendo seems to be the pioneers of the concept of “microgaming”. Take the WarioWare games for instance: string in a bunch of minigames, tie it together so that you only play each game for 5 seconds, impress a bunch of people for a few hours, trade it off on EBGames/ Gamestop the next few days. You can’t blame the gamers, WarioWare proved the theory that short-term ADD minigames strung up in a row can get old fast if the games themselves pose little to no challenge.

Ever wonder what would happen if said series was directed by a real life Japanese music producer with a penchant for experimentation in the fine arts of music? And if those games actually goads you into getting a perfect score? You get a delicious aural-induced hybrid known as Rhythm Tengoku, a 2006 Gameboy Advance title. At first glance, you might be thinking “Ouendan” or “Elite Beat Agents“, but this gem here is a beast of its own.

Basically, you play 5 minigames in a tier to get a feel of what it’s like, then get thrown into one final stage of the tier which mixes up all the 5 minigames in a random order. The kicker? All the games are rhythm-based. Your buttons are the D-pad, the B and the A button. You follow the background music to get the flow of the rhythm, and you press the corresponding button to add in the predetermined beats. This rather strangely-mixed concept is accompanied with a bitchin’ original soundtrack, composed in-house and has an infectiously-catchy feel to it.

Speaking of weird, the actual games itself consist of:

a) A Karate master punching flying objects.

b) A baseball player batting softballs according to the beat, with the background zooming in back & forth to force gamers not to rely too much on the visual cues.

c) A ninja warrior deflecting arrows in feudal Japan

d) A trio of cats in afros doing a clapping performance.

e) A four-man space dancing squad.

Believe me, it gets random as you progress. Shoot grinning dopey ghosts with arrows, help a kimono-wearing schoolgirl clap her way through an Enka melody, assist a trio of rats get to a hunk of cheese; no traces of staleness here, friends. As I mentioned above, this game is not a cakewalk, despite its deceptively simple presentation. In most instances, you have to count the rhythm set to the background music by heart. The game beats into your head the fact that you have to be your own metronome in order to get even a decent rating in the game.

And then there’s the art style. Simplicity is the keyword here: the cartoon art style has its charm and would win over any gamer in a heartbeat, hardcore or not. Graphical feedback is striking, particularly if your performance is lacking. The aforementioned trio of cats glare at you if you screw up the clapping motions, and your character on the right gets hit in the beanbag if you screw up the space dancing squad minigame. Despite its Japanese roots and obvious language barrier, it really is that simple to get into the game. Its graphics and simple game mechanics make it accessible to many who might not know their “Halos” to their “Final Fantasies”. These days, people fear what is different, so I urge these dunderheads to take a chance in an import.

Yep, this bad boy got me hooked when I first got it at the Pink Godzilla booth at PAX 07. If you got a DS or Gameboy Advance and in the mood for something way beyond the norm, you definitely can’t go wrong with Rhythm Tengoku.

p.s: Yes, I am aware that the “A Look Back @” series focuses on old games I’ve purchased from a long time ago. Despite recently purchasing this game, it was made last year, and since ‘last year’ is associated with the past tense, that counts as “A Look Back @” article, so bleh to specifics.

Technorati : gameboy advance, microgames, rhythm, warioware clone, weird