Rhythm Sprout Review: A Fresh Spinach On An Old Recipe

So for today’s recipe, we’ll be taking some classic rhythm formula (trim off some of the fat), adding in a splash of zaniness, and finishing up by throwing a bunch of random CDs into the cauldron. What you get is Rhythm Sprout, a well-seasoned rhythm/action adventure that reminded me a lot of games like Muse Dash. It’s simpler than most rhythm games, but with lots of heart and charm, featuring one track suit-wearing onion knight tasked to ward off invading sweets. While the end result does have a couple odd aftertastes, this is still one sweet dish.

Lettuce Tell You A Little Story…

Not quite a Knight of Catarina yet, but bless his heart, he’s tryin’!

So you might be wondering just why you’re on the hunt for nefarious sweets? It’s simple really. They’re encroaching on vegetable turf. Oh, and Princess Cauliflower is missing and suspected to be kidnapped by King Sugar Daddy (yes, really, that’s his name). You are the trusted onion knight of the kingdom, so off you go! What entails is absolutely wild, and it takes no steps towards anything elaborately cohesive. You really don’t want to go into this with expectations for a character and story-driven masterpiece, this is silly as all hell and thrives on randomness and screwing with the player. Turn your brain off for this one, be a slave to the beat, and don’t hesitate to wear a goofy grin while you’re watching the shenanigans at play.

So how does this bad little onion get to grooving? It’s a shockingly simple recipe, just five buttons in total (okay, technically six if you count the button for moving through the dialogue and menus). You’ll have your veggie hero just next to the hitbox. There’s four things that can come at you: lefts, rights, dodges, and bombs. Don’t hit the bombs or they’ll obscure the hitbox. There’s also a six-bar health meter that will restore if you keep from making mistakes for a bit, and you can use something called Sugar Rush to give yourself HP regen and make all incoming notes accept any button input for a bit. That’s pretty much it, simple does it. As for game types, you have your Story (it even comes with a prequel story!) and Bonus Levels, with each individual level letting you turn on things like Turbo, Mirror, and Randomizer, if you’re game for a little extra challenge.

Beet ‘Em Up

Don’t suppose ya’ll got something called a Lockseed?

Probably one of my favorite features of Rhythm Sprout is how it handles enemy and boss encounters. While this is a rhythm game, you are still an onion on a mission, so enemies are bound to get in your way. You’ll be jamming along to a tune and then all of a sudden you’re face to face with someone wanting a piece of the onion. The music will then seamlessly change up, becoming more complicated or switching around instruments or their melodies. It goes from verse to chorus and in a way that’s so fluid that there were some songs I couldn’t even notice when it had changed over, but it was still rockin’ fine without a beat skipped. It takes some clever composition to pull that off mid-stage!

I think the only real detractor I came across with the gameplay itself is the usage of bombs and dodges. They work fine as mechanics, but I feel like they were in the wrong places. It seemed kind of silly that in the middle of just walking down a hallway or on a beach, despite there being no threat, the notes have you dodging like crazy. I think it would’ve felt a bit more meaningful if the dodges only appeared during the enemies and bosses, while spending more time with the bombs during normal, non-combat gameplay, to get players used to them, then getting prepped for dodging during enemy and boss encounters. It feels like progression and natural skill-building would be just a touch more cohesive. It still works as it is right now, but this is just one of the little areas Rhythm Sprout could improve. Maybe add some traps and triggers along the way, or even some environment changes depending on how well you do. Rhythm Sprout has plenty of room to grow, and I do hope that we see a sequel, spinoff, or even some DLC along the way that might help it flourish even more.

A Couple Leeks Here and There

Wubs Intensify

But for all the emphasis on its gameplay, I’m sure you’re wondering how the tunes are for this rhythm romp. Rhythm Sprout is in an interesting spot musically. I can honestly say it includes some damn good music, and I sincerely hope that the OST shows up on Spotify because there’s some tunes on there I absolutely would jam to. Everything checks out just fine except for one minor but noticeable issue – pacing. See, once you work your way past the first boss, the tunes start going full-throttle. Complex layering and drum patterns, higher BPMs, it all comes off as a lot going on at once. I would’ve liked to see some more slower songs in the mix to help change up the pacing, as there’s really a bunch of different genres at play here that would’ve been ripe for the picking. For example, the Winter Woods is a really nice, chill beat, not unlike chill-out or stuff you’d see marked as Lo-Fi (it reminded me a bit of the artist Snail’s House). It made sense, fit the theme with its soft guitar and slow beat, and, most importantly, I was vibing with it. Then you get to a beachside resort, expecting maybe some tropical house or more Lo-Fi, but nope! It goes into a sort of high-energy bitpop tune.

Another example is just after you get done with a club level, you go to this beanstalk-in-the-sky highway level that, while the song is still absolutely a bop, I was expecting things to drop in tempo at least a bit seeing that we just got done with a high energy level. The beanstalk highway or even the kingdom in the clouds would’ve benefitted more from something like dream trance or even some low-tempo bitpop (maybe something like George & Jonathan). Normally you’d probably expect a few higher-paced encounters for boss battles, but Rhythm Sprout gets it in its mind that it has to be pushing full-force from here on out. Again, it’s not bad music by any stretch, but it can get exhausting if it’s too much for too long. Is this ultimately just a subjective nitpick? It really is, and just mild suggestion from me as I can still say it’s great stuff regardless. But as a warning to the players, be ready for a ride with this one, it ain’t slowing down and neither should you.

Something I don’t think I got to enjoy enough of was the colorful stylings of all these diverse biomes. There’s quite a bit of pop to the coloring, and from what I could see when not fighting to the beat, it’s all well-styled and graphically holds up quite well for a simple ol’ rhythm game. Parts of the environment will have other NPCs pop up, some parts of the environment will pulse or groove with the music. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it does fit the mood well, and the atmosphere created for the differing biomes, from lighting to props, really helps it stand out. I greatly enjoy colorful stylings, as they help me see all the neat flourishes and details hiding around the environment.

Shallot Amuse You?

Rhythm Sprout is a seriously fresh serving of beats. It’s definitely recommended, on the understanding that you know what you’re in for. The music doesn’t stop often to rest, meaning neither will you, and while the gameplay seems barebones, it knows how to make itself just as involved as a more complex rhythm game. There’s absolutely something to simpler rhythm games as a fun romp for a couple minutes here and there, and I think that’s a precedent that was pushed well with Rhythm Sprout.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PC (Reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5; Publisher: tinyBuild; Developer: SURT; Number of players: 1; Released: February 1st, 2023; MSRP: $14.99

Full Disclosure: A copy of Rhythm Sprout was provided to Hey Poor Player by the publisher