The Rhythm Heaven titles on GBA and Nintendo DS are amazing games that demand the utmost in exacting precision. When Rhythm Heaven for Wii was announced there was concern that Nintendo would try to insert motion controls and damage the game's precision. Instead they opted for a traditional "NES Style" control scheme, and from the limited demo playable at E3 it feels like Rhythm Heaven. That is a good thing.

The E3 2011 demo only features three mini-games, each with a different level of challenge. The first requires the player to catch beans, flicked at you from far away, using their fork. A simple game, all that is required is to know how long the time between being flicked and it being at the fork is and a press of the 1 button.

Got forked

The second mini-game, which looks like a living piece of traditional Japanese art, is a bit more complicated. It features a samurai slicing demons that appear from within a cave. Two different types of demons show up, as indicated by both the sound they make and the glow of their eyes just prior to their attack. Each requires a different button press and different timing. As the level progresses the game begins to cover the visuals with different pieces of Japanese-style art, taking away the visual clues and rendering the now audio-only challenge significantly more difficult. When mistakes are made the art changes in humorous ways.

Slice 'em, and dice 'em

The final demo has the player engaging in a game of tennis between two airplanes. It starts simple enough, the computer launches the ball at you and you hit it back. It becomes increasingly complex as the game starts to hit high-arcing shots, requiring recognition from sound alone what kind of hit is coming up and what the correct timing for it is. The opposing plane begins moving in and out of the horizon, making visual timing more difficult, and finally it is made completely audio-only once the two planes fly through clouds.

Not an FAA approved in-flight activity

Rhythm Heaven seems to have kept the series' difficulty intact. The third demo was especially difficult. The visuals are stylized and unique as is the Rhythm Heaven way, and the music was weird and catchy. Rhythm Heaven titles are delightfully strange, addictive, games and this one looks to be shaping up no differently.