These days, it's impossible to talk about rhythm games without bringing up Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band. Nintendo's Rhythm Heaven, to use the nomenclature, could be described as Soccer Ball Bounce Hero, Love Potion Mixing Hero, Race Car Photography Hero, Lizard Mating Dance Hero (that's right) and about 50 other things. But it's not really about any of those things. By making you do all kinds of different stuff rhythmically, it becomes a game less about simulating any one thing and more about pure rhythm. The fact that it's incredibly adorable doesn't hurt.

Amazon has updated their listing for Rhythm Heaven with some new boxart, along with a terrible new release date and terrible new price: November 30 and $40, respectively. We are hoping against hope that these are both just placeholders, because while we will wait that long and pay that much, we really, really don't want to. The game is out in Japan! It was shown off at E3 2008! It's done!

All we know for sure is that Rhythm Heaven is not coming out in the first quarter of this year. Nintendo's press site still has it scheduled for "1st half 2009." However, the fact that Gamestop has no listing at all for it does suggest that it's fairly far off.


[Via GoNintendo]

Can't get enough of those wacky Rhythm Heaven commercials? There's a new dose of quick and quirky spots, fresh for Friday, featuring footage of some different mini-games with the same players we've seen before. They've also swapped some games from the last batch of commercials (which are also included in the second half of this video, if you missed them). Considering the way Toshihiko Takamizawa is dressed, the other players should be grateful that's all they're trading. We're not so sure we'd want to raid that guy's closet.

Check out the new (and old) commercials after the break, but be warned that, while the video plays just fine, the frame will display oddly here in some browsers. You can always go check it out at the source ... or at the real source, which is the Rhythm Heaven site. Or, uh, on Japanese televisions.

Not a great deal out for DS owners in the U.S. or Europe this week, but a lot of options if you're willing to look to Japanese releases for your fix. Steal Princess, Windy x Windam, Rhythm Tengoku Gold, the larger of Koei's Nobunaga games, and everyone's favorite witch-touching game sees a sequel. In fact, you know what? If you need us, we'll be on a plane to Japan, since most of these aren't yet slated for release outside their mother country.

• Air Traffic Chaos
• Suzuki Super-Bikes

Slog sadly past the break to see the rest of the major markets this week.

Those of you interested in Rhythm Heaven have probably already read JC's impressions jealously -- though if you're neither interested in the game nor spent the time to read about it, shame on you.

All you sane-minded folks don't have to be too jealous of "Lucky Dog Fletcher" anymore, though. The video above shows the exact demo that he got to try during E3, only it's in Japanese. Sure, that's not quite the equivalent of playing the game, but it's enough to make us squeal all the same. (We rhymed, so it must be true.)

Go on now and watch the video above to see extended play of the Assembly Line, Robot Gallery, and Chorus musical microgames.


[Via NeoGAF]

We didn't have to wait long for footage of more of Rhythm Tengoku Gold's games after the three-game E3 demo. Nintendo has posted seven short commercials demonstrating gameplay. The YouTube video above collects six of the commercials; to see the other one, you can check the website, although (spoilers!) it's just footage of a metronome anyway.

The celebrities in the videos are almost as interesting as the gameplay videos themselves -- the Japanese Steven Tyler in the pink suit (actually Toshihiko Takamizawa from the venerable Japanese rock band The Alfee) is quite a departure from the indistinguishable idols these companies normally use in game commercials.

If that's not enough Rhythm Heaven for you (it isn't), the Japanese site has also been updated with new screens and control diagrams.

In its second year as a diminished behemoth, E3 still manages to be packed full with news, media, and more. While there wasn't much from Nintendo themselves for the DS this year, third parties are still incredibly strong and we're faced with more games than we can possibly handle. We're also pretty sure we saw almost all of them at E3 this year. Relive the entire experience right from the convenience of this post!

Check out our choices for show highlights right here, or hit the break for the full rundown of our E3 coverage. Of course, we're still adding things, and will be over the next few days; keep up by clicking the E3 graphic in the sidebar.

GTA: Chinatown Wars shooting up the DS in winter!		Transfer data from Animal Crossing: Wild World to new Wii game
Highlights from Nintendo's keynote		Rhythm Heaven bumped by Cammie Dunaway's wrist
Konami booth tour		DS Fanboy reacts to the Nintendo keynote
Three DS news items you may have missed		Chrono Trigger's controls explained (and hands-on)
DS Fanboy enters the Retro Game Challenge		Rhythm Heaven is the best musical microgame collection at the show

While apparently not worthy of mention among juggernauts like Cooking Nanny Navi and Chinatown Wars during Nintendo's E3 2008 keynote, Rhythm Heaven was quietly announced on Nintendo's E3 press site today. Rhythm Heaven is, of course, the localized version of Rhythm Tengoku Gold, itself a sequel to one of Nintendo's last and greatest efforts on GBA, which was sadly never released outside of Japan. Today's confirmation (need not import!) included a fact sheet with these few tidbits:

• Players hold the Nintendo DS system sideways like a book and tap their stylus on the touch screen to the rhythm of the music. Players tap, slide or flick the stylus to hit the right beat.
• Rhythm Heaven features catchy tunes, charming characters and a wide variety of rhythm games.
• Well-known Japanese music producer TSUNKU? (pretentious, ain't he?) helped direct Rhythm Heaven and composed the music for it.

Rhythm Heaven's release date is currently TBA.

Forget the keynote! (Well, maybe not Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars). Nintendo just announced on its press site that Rhythm Tengoku is coming to North America! Only, here it will be called Rhythm Heaven instead. As cheesy as the title is, it's only fitting.

We suggest now that you hold on those imports. Even though Nintendo didn't give us the satisfaction of a release date, we can't imagine the game taking all that long to head to our shores.

To play, you hold the DS sideways and use the stylus to tap, flick, or slide. You can expect Rhythm Heaven to include quirky and charming characters, as well as music from the Japanese composer TSUNKU. Also, make sure to check out new screenshots in our gallery.


[Via press kit]

So between following things like massive survey leaks and price drop rumors and generally preparing for next week's big trade show, we've been a little preoccupied here at Joystiq's massive, 50-story headquarters. So preoccupied, in fact, that we haven't really been keeping up with the recently-announced sequel to one of our favorite crazy Japanese imports, Rhythm Tengoku.

Luckily, our friends over in the DS Fanboy shack have been keeping up with Rhythm Tengoku Gold, which hits Japan in just a few short weeks on July 31. Like the Game Boy Advance original, Gold takes WarioWare style minimalist graphics and simple mini-game-fueled play and adds a much needed sense of rhythm to the proceedings. 1UP has some more details on the new title's 50 toe-tapping tasks, which include "keep[ing] a ping-pong rally going, taking pictures as a cameraman, running a choir by opening and closing your mouth at the right time, dancing with birds, attracting a lizard mate by using your maracas-like tail to shake to the beat," and more. Really, how can you not love a game that includes lizard mating?

The chances for a domestic release for this quirky title are probably somewhere between slim and none, so if you're looking for some more rhythm-infused craziness, hit up your favorite importer. You do that while we go back to our reguarly-scheduled pre-E3 madness.

It won't be long before you'll have to break open your piggy bank -- Rhythm Tengoku Gold will be out in Japan as soon as July 31st! If you never had a chance to play the original critically-acclaimed rhythm game for the GBA, consider it your mission to import this DS remake later this month.

Hit our gallery below for a handful of screenshots from Rhythm Tengoku Gold! They're mostly larger versions of the images shown on Nintendo's fact sheet, but they're still a good preview of how the touchscreen-enabled title will play on the system, book-style. Besides, as this upcoming release shows, the world needs more Rhythm Tengoku.


[Thanks, Peter!]

Nintendo of Japan has rolled out its schedule for the summer session, dropping a few surprises along the way. First, Wario Land will graduate from handheld to console with Wario Land Shake for Wii on July 24. No further details have been given, so it's up to each of us to pray, dance, sacrifice some virgins (or whatever!) so that "Shake" doesn't end up an inept deviation from the mostly excellent Game Boy predecessors. Thankfully, DS owners will be served a far more promising sequel in Rhythm Tengoku Gold, arriving July 31 from the capable hands of Nintendo R&D1 (you know, the WarioWare team). Here are some highlights from the release date calendar:

• June 19: Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
• June 26: Band Brothers DX (DS)
• July 10: Resident Evil Zero (Wii)
• July 24: Wario Land Shake (Wii)
• July 31: Fatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Wii)
  
• July 31: Rhythm Tengoku Gold (DS)
  
• August 7: Fire Emblem DS (DS)
  

[Via NeoGAF & DS Fanboy]

Source - Nintendo June Calendar (Japanese)
Source - Nintendo July Calendar (Japanese)
Source - Rhythm Tengoku Gold announcement (Japanese)
Source - Fire Emblem game page (Japanese)