The genre of rhythm games has an established audience and can be considered a niche, including having a good audience in streams and among content producers focused in games like the classic “Guitar Hero”, a great flagship of this segment and that generates a lot of modified versions until today; the consolidated “Taiko no Tatsujin” and the indies “Muse Dash” and “Crypt of The Necrodancer”.

Each one of these and many other games of this segment have their own innovations and styles, besides the rhythm and soundtrack being crucial in the goal of keeping the player and streamer entertained, tuned, and, consequently, his audience as well.

“Rhythm Sprout”: Charismatic and different

“Rhythm Sprout” is a game published by tinyBuild that identifies itself with this lineage of indie rhythm games by focusing more on the differentiated experience and its charisma, the story, and its characters.

The game’s soundtrack is simple but very fun, as it speaks to the game’s cartoonish and sympathetic identity. But don’t think that, because of this, it will be an easy game. Despite using only a few buttons, represented in the stages by three colors, two to advance in the stage and hit enemies and one to dodge hits, the intensity and difficulty curve of the game is insane and, unfortunately, unbalanced, especially if you think about chasing the game’s achievements, extra stages, highest scores, or doing everything the game offers.

Its difficulty curve can be a problem for streamers

Escaping from what is expected of the genre, but still pleasing to those who already like rhythm games, “Rhythm Sprout” adds and can also attract streaming audience for being different from the usual, having charismatic characters and a fun story, perfectly translated and localized into many languages!

To finish the main campaign it is possible to take about 3 hours of gameplay without major difficulties, but with some frustrations due to the variability of the difficulty curve found in the game, going from very easy to very difficult without warnings or a constancy.

As such, the game flirts with an audience that is not used to rhythm games, being neither unfair nor extremely complex in mechanics, but, at the same time, it displeases both the less experienced in this type of game and the more experienced players of the rhythm game genre by bringing a difficulty that can be considered unpredictably unfair when trying to achieve the highest scores and collect all the stars per level, which is the way of measuring “perfection” chosen by the game.

The game has considerable content, especially for those who like the genre, but it forces the player to have an excellent performance in most stages to unlock everything that is available, which can be a barrier for some players, even the most experienced in this type of game.

In terms of performance, the game runs smoothly on computers with simpler configurations and will not be a great difficulty to play it or bring it in a stream.

Rhythm Sprout

PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch (2023)

Performance

Streamability

Audience Engagement

Replayability

Summary

Rhythm Sprout is a charismatic game, true to its own ideas and with interesting mechanics, but it gets a little lost because of the difficulty shift, from easy to hard, and that can catch even the rhythm game old-players off guard. Despite this, the game is not unfair and the main campaign can be finished with considerable ease, but some parts frustrate more than amuse. Its strengths are the settings, the charisma of the characters, the story, the localization to several countries in several languages, and the soundtrack, which matches the concept of the game itself.

Ludovicoluka

I have 25 years, I produce content to internet for 4 years and I like retro games, indies and I’m an enthusiast for new launches. I have as my favorite games Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario World, Hollow Knight and Red Dead Redemption II, per example. I like to experiment everything and the more, the better, but I never get sick of my comfort games!