Review: Rhythm Spirit for iPhone

Rhythm Spirit from Monad Games is a rhythm action game with a fantastic sense of style and a great concept, combining classic rhythm gameplay with kung fu ninja action. While both the rhythm and action elements have minor flaws, the game brings them together with enough panache to make this $1.99 game worth a serious look.

The story is centered around Toshi, a ninja who is visited by a strange spirit that imbues his ninja skills with the power of rhythm. Over 10 varied levels with increasingly challenging beats, you’ll tap to the music to command Toshi as he fends off pursuing assassins and faces off against magical beasts. Between levels, you’ll be treated to some lovely cutscenes that flesh out Toshi’s story.

The first thing you’ll notice when you start the game is the production values. Rhythm Spirit has excellent art direction, with a clean, cartoony style, smooth animation, and beautiful character designs. Unfortunately, you may not get much chance to enjoy it. The game forces the player to focus on the scrolling icons at the top of the screen in order to hit the beats. In doing so, you end up missing all of the action going on below.

The rhythm gameplay itself is like most rhythm games: Icons representing beats scroll toward the center of the screen, and the player taps the corresponding on-screen buttons when they reach the hit point in the center. It takes a bit of practice to train your brain to remember where the buttons are without looking, but it becomes second nature quickly enough, and is a fun system once it clicks.

The biggest flaw in the rhythm element is that there is no representation of the beat amongst the quickly scrolling notes. In games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the scrolling gems are separated by thin lines indicating where the beat is, making it a simple matter to determine whether the next note is on the beat or somewhere in between it. Not so in Rhythm Spirit. Here, you’ll often not know where on the beat a note lies until it’s too late, especially on your first playthrough of a song.

This is an especially big problem when combined with the (very impressive!) soundtrack. Most of the tracks are a juxtaposition of eastern sounds with modern western synth beats. The exception is one level that consists of a single long and disarmingly beautiful flute solo. The soundtrack is a lot of fun to listen to, but the nature of techno means a lot of the notes you’ll need to hit are off the main beat, making the game harder to play in the absence of a visual beat indicator.

At the end of each level, the game tallies up your performance and assigns you a letter grade. Earn a C or better, and you’ll unlock a Hard difficulty for that level, and for an A, you get a trophy as proof of your accomplishment. You’ll already want to play through the levels multiple times, but these additions give you even more incentive to do so.

An especially smart move on the developer’s part was to orient the game in Landscape Right (i.e. with the device turned clockwise) rather than Landscape Left. This keeps the headphone cord from interfering with your grip, a vital feature for a game that requires headphones as much as this one. I wish more developers would do this.

Rhythm Spirit is a marvelous game that makes some simple mistakes. I’d like to see beat indicators added in a future update, but apart from that, if you enjoy rhythm, action, and ninjas, you can’t go wrong with this game.

Rhythm Spirit is available on the App Store for $1.99.

Rhythm Spirit was provided by developer Monad Games for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site ‘s review policies, please see the ‘About ‘ page.