{"id":137558,"date":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-202495"},"modified":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","slug":"round-up-the-previews-are-in-for-rhythm-heaven-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/06\/11\/round-up-the-previews-are-in-for-rhythm-heaven-groove\/","title":{"rendered":"Round Up: The Previews Are In For Rhythm Heaven Groove"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/716e301164435\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/716e301164435\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"716e301164435\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Rhythm Heaven Groove\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/716e301164435\/rhythm-heaven-groove.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/716e301164435\/rhythm-heaven-groove.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"504\" alt=\"Rhythm Heaven Groove\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Nintendo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you watched this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/guides\/nintendo-direct-june-2026-every-announcement-game-reveal-and-trailer\">Nintendo Direct<\/a> right from the very start, you will have seen a whopping two-minute-fifty-five-second trailer for next month&#8217;s first-party offering, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/rhythm_heaven_groove\">Rhythm Heaven Groove<\/a>. We&#8217;re rapidly closing in on that 2nd July release date, and today, the first previews have appeared online.<\/p>\n<p>A bunch of outlets (including us) have had hands-on time with the long-awaited return of the rhythm series, so we can start to gauge what it has in store for us.<\/p>\n<p>Here at Nintendo Life, we admitted that Groove is little more than <em>more Rhythm Heaven<\/em>, but that&#8217;s no bad thing. Here&#8217;s a snippet of our early thoughts, followed by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/previews\/yep-rhythm-paradise-groove-is-another-rhythm-heaven-game-good\">full preview<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There\u2019s something oddly intoxicating about the sound design and visuals, coupled with the primal feel-good sensations that come from successfully adhering to a rhythm.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/nintendo-switch\/related-articles:202416 @ 1781201775 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n<p>But what do other outlets have to say, eh? Below, we&#8217;ve rounded up a handful of them, so you can get an idea of the early consensus at a glance.<\/p>\n<p>Over at <a href=\"https:\/\/gameinformer.com\/preview\/2026\/06\/11\/toe-tapping-along-with-minigames-and-an-all-new-rhythm-based-rpg-mode\">Game Informer<\/a>, the preview was optimistic about pretty much everything Groove has to offer:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019m excited to see how the single-player offerings play out as you get deeper into them, and I look forward to busting this game out at future friend gatherings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pockettactics.com\/rhythm-heaven-groove\/preview\">Pocket Tactics<\/a> shared much of the same love, even to the new RPG &#8216;Beatspell&#8217; mode \u2014 which, it admits, feels a little out of place despite its quality.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t the most cohesive and did feel like I was playing a mostly separate game, but I like the ambition of it, and think that longtime fans of the series need crumbs of something else to chew on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/gaming\/nintendo\/rhythm-heaven-groove-is-on-track-to-become-my-favorite-nintendo-switch-release-of-2026\">TechRadar<\/a>&#8216;s preview said that Groove is &#8220;on track to become my favourite Nintendo Switch release of 2026&#8221;. High praise indeed!<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I can already see myself nipping back into its incredibly moreish beat-based minigames whenever I have a spare few minutes once it\u2019s out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The multiplayer mode got a particular shoutout in <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2026\/06\/11\/rhythm-paradise-groove-hands-on-preview-dont-stop-minigame-music-28727458\/\">Metro<\/a>&#8216;s early thoughts:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Rhythm Paradise Groove is perhaps too low-key to ever be considered a Nintendo heavyweight, but for those clamouring for a light-hearted, cheap, absurdist cleanser to roll out at parties, this is shaping up to be a boon for the Switch\u2019s multiplayer arsenal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And finally, <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.pcmag.com\/nintendo-games\/165524\/rhythm-heaven-groove-is-a-fun-music-game-that-had-me-chopping-veggies-while-bopping-to-the-beat\">PC Mag<\/a> praised the Beatspell mode&#8217;s uniqueness, hoping it&#8217;s enough to mix up the gameplay in the long run:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Since this was all rhythm-based, making those input choices in the moment while staying on beat felt like freestyling, a nice bit of creativity in a game otherwise about precisely following instructions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr>\n<p><em>So, just a small taste of the early impressions, but they seem rather positive! We&#8217;ll see what the full release holds when Rhythm Heaven Groove launches on Switch next month.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/nintendo-switch\/related-articles:202416,202389,200400 @ 1781201775 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Nintendo If you watched this week&#8217;s Nintendo Direct right from the very start, you will have seen a whopping two-minute-fifty-five-second trailer for next month&#8217;s first-party offering, Rhythm Heaven Groove. We&#8217;re rapidly closing in on that 2nd July release date, and today, the first previews have appeared online. A bunch of outlets (including us) have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}