In the past, rhythm games always left me with the impression that they were really tough, with a gameplay loop that didn’t seem all that fun for me personally. I did play some hybrid games – platformers (Mad Rat Dead), twin-stick shooters (Soundfall), or hack ’n slash titles with rhythm elements (Hi-Fi Rush) – but never really pure rhythm games. I’m no stranger to complex rhythms, though. I’ve been playing the drums for many years, and music is an integral part of my life. And yet, despite all that, I had never played a pure rhythm game.
That changed a few months ago, when I decided to finally give the genre a try. My game of choice wasn’t Rhythm Sprout though… we’ll get back to that game in a moment. Instead, it was Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session.
Maybe not the most beginner-friendly game to jump into, but during my journey from 0% to the platinum trophy, I had an absolute blast.
So much so, in fact, that while I was still playing Taiko, I started thinking about which rhythm games I could tackle next once I was finished. And that’s when this colorful little game called Rhythm Sprout was brought to my attention.
I feel like this preface is important for context. I haven’t played many entries in the genre, nor do I have a huge pool of games to compare Rhythm Sprout to. All I can really say is that, despite being a bit rough around the edges, and despite its brevity (It took me roughly 10 hours to earn the platinum trophy) I had a fantastic time with this game.
Rhythm Sprout is the debut game by the Norwegian dev trio SURT, and as the title suggests, it is a rhythm game at its core. But unlike many other games in the genre, Rhythm Sprout also comes with a story.
You play as the titular Sprout, an Onion Knight, the chosen hero by King Brock of the Vegetable Kingdom. Your mission is to save the kingdom from an invasion of evil sweets and candy, as well as to find and rescue the King’s missing daughter, Princess Cauliflower. The story isn’t deep, but it doesn’t want or need to be. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, instead fully embracing its absurdity. Conversations are packed with clichées and heavy on pop culture references, and they made me chuckle more than once.
The story unfolds at the start of missions, most of which are prefaced with some dialogue. There are branching dialogue paths as well, though most conversations eventually loop back to the same outcome regardless of your choices (and those choices don’t affect anything else, either). What’s baffling is the inclusion of two trophies: one for answering “YES” to every possible question, and another for answering “NO”. Thankfully, you can replay each mission’s story segment in isolation, making this grind quick, albeit still completely unnecessary.
Throughout their journey, the Onion Knight encounters all kinds of quirky characters. There’s a cool Mushroom gang that, after some banter, jokingly invites you to join their trio. Count Arelle, who might just be the world’s biggest Gilmore Girls fan, plans to watch every single episode of the show with you – should he defeat you in combat. A bouncer guarding the entrance to King Sugar Daddy’s party won’t shut up about The Lord of the Rings, and will actually let you sneak inside just because you are a fan, too. The entire journey is filled with characters like these and genuinely humorous conversations. None of it is narrated, but the game uses font effects to great effect: dancing words, vibrating all-caps, rainbow-colored text, … silly stuff, but it works.
I have to specifically mention Stage 16 – King Sugar Daddy. A 10/10 difficulty-rated stage, and the big showdown with the villain. After a long journey filled with fallen foes and countless obstacles to overcome, you are finally here, ready for an epic battle. King Sugar Daddy dares you to fight him: “Come at me BRO”… What followed genuinely made me laugh out loud. So good.
While the narrative is presented masterfully, some elements of the game do look kind of ugly – though that must be intentional. The gameplay elements are simple and easy to read, which is an important aspect of any VSRG. Backgrounds and stages look fine, if not overly detailed. But some of the characters… they often reminded me of Mr. Potato Head. Crude shapes, thick strokes, and elements that feel almost “glued on”. It adds to the silliness of the narrative, but personally, I found some of the character designs to be too rough.
That said, Rhythm Sprout isn’t really about the narrative, so let’s talk about the core of the experience: the gameplay.
Rhythm Sprout is a three-button VSRG. You play through music charts where notes of three different colors scroll down a lane toward a judgement line. Your goal is to hit the correct notes with the most precise timing possible.
It’s a simple premise, but the word precision is key here. Depending on how well-timed your input is, notes are graded OK, Good or Perfect, with Perfect scoring the most points. Each track values two performance metrics: your overall score (based on timing accuracy), and your maximum combo – the number of notes you can hit consecutively without missing.
Even with such a simple setup, games like this can be very complex to play. Let’s briefly go back to Taiko no Tatsujin. In Taiko, there are only two note types – red and blue – but higher difficulty charts force you to alternate hands even for same-colored notes, simply because the songs are too fast to rely on a single hand per color.
In Rhythm Sprout, alternating hands isn’t even an option. Pink notes are always hit with the right hand, Yellow notes with the left. This makes the game very beginner-friendly, since learning to alternate hands is often the biggest hurdle for new players – assuming they can read rhythms at all. (And if rhythm itself is the issue, then even reading the chart can be just as challenging as executing it.)
There is a third type of notes: Blue “dodge” notes, which can be hit by either hand using the triggers. These notes are interesting in the sense that they don’t score any points, but they do inflict damage if you miss them. If you run out of HP, you fail the track – and HP can be healed by hitting notes. This is the only way to fail a track, too, unlike other rhythm games where missing too many notes in overall leads to a game over. Once again, this is a design choice that makes the game more forgiving and accessible, allowing beginners to finish tracks even if their scores aren’t great.
Not having to alternate hands doesn’t mean that tracks are boring or overly simple. They start out that way, but gradually ramp up in difficulty as you progress, becoming rhythmically more involved and interesting. With the exception of the very final level (and, to some extent, two bonus levels), the game remains approachable all the way through. And even those tougher tracks can still be beaten by less experienced players, since failure is tied exclusively to missing too many blue notes.
Another interesting deviation from genre norms is that tracks aren’t fixed in length. Instead, each successful note causes the Onion Knight to take a step forward, with the goal being to reach the finish line. Along the way, Sprout might encounter enemies and must battle them before progressing. Each enemy has its own health bar that must be depleted by hitting yellow and pink notes. That is how the handful of bosses work as well. While it’s a minor twist, this design choice neatly ties the gameplay and the narrative together; Sprout isn’t just journeying through story scenes before and after tracks, but during the tracks themselves.
In total, there are 30 tracks to complete: 20 tracks in the main story, five in the side story, and five bonus levels that are entirely detached from the narrative. Once a track is beaten, various modifiers can be enabled, such as Mirror, Turbo and Randomizer mode. The names are self-explanatory.
In terms of achieving the platinum trophy, the one task that could be considered somewhat challenging is achieving a CD on 25 out of 29 tracks (one main story track does not have a CD). To earn a CD, you need to reach both the score target and the combo target, though these do not need to be achieved in the same run. Since not all levels are required, this is not a too daunting task. On some levels, earning the CD also unlocks a costume for Sprout, and unlocking all costumes (and reaching a finish line with each of them) is also a trophy requirement. As a result, earning a CD on certain tracks is mandatory for the platinum. With that in mind, the most challenging track required for the platinum is 19 – K-Flow. If you are interested, these are the 25 songs I personally earned a CD on. While I did earn both the score and combo target in the same run, that is not required to earn the CD.
Collector – 25 CDs
And this is where we need to talk about note timing.
In a rhythm game where scoring is entirely dependent on timing, proper calibration is crucial. Different players with different setups – Bluetooth versus wired headphones, monitor settings, and so on – might experience various degrees of visual or audio delay. Rhythm Sprout includes an auto-calibration tool, but unfortunately, it simply does not work properly. Using it consistently gave me absurd values, making the game almost unplayable with the recommended settings – especially at higher tempos. Thankfully, delay can also be set manually, but it does make you wonder why the auto-calibration exists at all, given how unreliable it is.
