I dug the demo, and I'll probably buy this at launch as well. Good to see Game Freak branching out. This is their first non-Pokemon game since 2005.

Game Freak in general needs to seriously quit it with the tutorials. They kind of ruined Drill Dozer for me, and Harmo Knight has a tutorial level for jumping. JUMPING. All you do is tap the button. It's on or off: you either jump fully or you don't. No holding down the button to control the height, no nothing.

@Guillaume
Drill dozer I understand, but there are only two tutorial levels here. Deal with it?

Nice demo, although I agree about the tutorials. It's a little too long and wordy, although the art style is fun and the game itself works nicely once you get to the action.

I may pick it up...anyone know the price?

$14.99 - a little pricey for a DL game but remember, this started as a retail DS game.

I think I may just hold off on the demo and buy the final product. I like coming in fresh.

I liked the demo, but I may not have the budget for it if it comes out soon. All my spending will be towards Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate this month, and organizing meets in my city around it.

anon_mastermind said:

$14.99 - a little pricey for a DL game but remember, this started as a retail DS game.

I don't know what to say about this. I consider anything from Free to 19.99 a straight-up impulse purchase.

I wasn't expecting to be into this one, but I tried it and it is very endearing. Trish heard me playing and went "Rhythm Heaven?!" I think she'd like this too.

I can't figure out the timing to jumping and hitting the tall percussiplants (instrument plants), is there a trick to doing it?

@roykoopa64 I seemed to have success jumping a half-beat early, then attacking on the beat.

The game's not too tough, in general, but man, what a huge jump in difficulty with this stage called 'The Final Fight' on World 7, Baroque Volcano. The battle is quite long, and the patterns are pretty fast and complex. Even with the 5 hearts I can't manage to finish it off. A checkpoint on this stage would have been nice, but I suppose it's only fair to make this stage so difficult.

I'll get it eventually.

@nate38

Cool, I seem to be getting the hang of it.

I finished World 1 last night. I like how you can play a double-speed version of each stage in the Level Select menu. Just really liking this game overall.

Got to World 3. If there's one thing I don't love about the game, it may actually be the music. I wish there was more variation between each of the songs in a World. They all sort of have a similar melody or theme going on. It's not bad, but it's not especially catchy for a rhythm game. I guess that makes sense, with more intricate notation and stuff than, say, Rhythm Heaven.

But yeah, game's still pretty great overall.

@nate38

Yeah, I really enjoyed the game overall. I beat the main story, and it's a lot of fun doing the stages in Fast Mode, as well as the unlockable challenge stages. I hope to have a review up some time in the next few days or so.

The last stage on the unlocked World 8 is pretty tough! (EDIT: um, it's not just tough, it's pretty insane. The one section where you're jumping off the small rock platforms with enemies in the air and the annoying ghosts popping up out of the ground makes this one stage I may not ever finish...). The music here on 'Final Trial' is pretty awesome though, I just need to find a way to survive until the end.

Oh, and I've been going back to the previous stages and getting more gold Victory Blossoms on regular and Fast Mode. I... don't think I will 100% that aspect of the game though. A gold on boss battles requires you to get a perfect! I've never been good at getting perfects in rhythm games.

@roykoopa64 Yeah I just finished the final trial. I don't like the way the game forces you to memorize parts of some of the later songs, with intentionally poor camera angles and surprise enemies spawning from barely-visible shadows and such. Still, it was a good song and a fun stage for the most part, so I didn't mind playing it over and over for almost half an hour.

And yeah, as forgiving as the game is with health and everything, I don't know if I could get all Great ranks on the Fast mode stages without going crazy. I've only tried the Pokemon world on Fast, and I can't seem to get the timing consistent enough on the fourth and fifth songs.

I'm sure I'll come back to the game now and then to try, but even if I don't, the four hours of rhythm fun I got out of it was worth $15.

@nate38

Congrats on finishing the final trial! It really does seem like you've got to rely on memorization on the later part of the stage, right? You're given almost no time to react when those enemies suddenly appear, and either I'm not hearing any audio clues or they simply aren't there; I'm not sure.

I really want to finish it, I mean it's just one stage left apparently, then I can say I finished it (even though I already saw the credits after beating the final boss in the prior world).

I'll play a little bit every day so I don't get too frustrated with myself.

@roykoopa64 Yeah, as far as I can tell the shadow pop-up enemies and the blue dudes who fly down at you have no audio clue. You just have to power through that final section (and watch out for a couple obstacles once you hit solid ground again). If you can, get to that part with full health and just concentrate on making the jumps and hitting the enemies right before the jumps, as they all have the same rhythm (the sixteenth before the jump). Don't worry too much if you get hit by the two (three?) mid-air guys once you get to the terrible camera angle.

But you can do it man. I believe in you. ROY'S OUR BOY. ROY'S OUR BOY.

Ah, such encouragement!

One thing I find that helps is that you can carry over your accumulated heart max increase to the next stage. Which means I can jump into the very first stage using Stage Selector, max out my hearts, then jump back into the hard stage and have all that precious health at the ready. Of course, if I screw up and fall down a pit, there goes my max heart count...

OK. Let's do this!