Think rhythm-based WarioWare, and you’ll have a good picture of this game. It’s a genius idea and it’s a wonder it’s never been done before. The idea has been perfectly executed in this little game and it’s an absolute joy to play. Of course, this much fun can only be had in Japan because Nintendo of Europe and America have pretty much given up on the GBA, so it’s a Japanese import title. But don’t let that stop you from getting it.

When you first start it up the game does a rhythm test to see how good your sense of rhythm is. This has three parts to it - the first requires you to press the A button on the beat. The second part has you pressing the A button on the first beat of an eight beat bar. In this one the beats are slowly removed so as to test your inner sense of timing. The third one once again has you pressing A on every beat, but this time the drum beats that are playing while you’re doing it are different, so it’s kind of testing how easily your rhythm is put off. Each of these parts produce an accuracy graph, and at the end you’re given a score out of 100 for how accurate you were. And, while all the text is in Japanese, it’s very obvious what you need to do.

In fact, when in doubt of what to do in the game, ever, just press A on the beat. If you think that sounds like fun, you really should just purchase this.

Now that the rhythm test is over, the first mini-game is available. As I said before, this is a sort of rhythm based WarioWare, so the main game is made up of 25 different mini-games, each requiring you to press buttons to a rhythm. The first one has a guy in a karate pose waiting to punch various items that get thrown his way. There’s music playing so it’s not too hard to keep in time, and if you press A at the correct times he punches the items successfully. There are three levels of success in these games - failure, pass and medal. If you get a Pass a new mini-game will be unlocked, and medals unlock various side-games and activities. Once you’ve passed the five mini-games in a section a “remix” game becomes available. These are brilliant - they’re a mix of all five of the games in that section done to a song. They flip back and forth between the various mini-games so you have to be quick at adjusting between the various different timings of the games. If you pass the remix you unlock the next section of mini-games (starting with just the first one being available). There are also harder versions of most of the mini-games available once you’ve unlocked all the games, and the remix games of the later sections are longer and include games from everywhere in the game, not just that section.