Rhythm Tengoku

Rhythm Tengoku
Japanese GBA box art
Developer(s)Nintendo SPD
J.P.Room
Sega (arcade)
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Sega (arcade)
Director(s)Kazuyoshi Osawa
Producer(s)Tsunku
Yoshio Sakamoto
Designer(s)Tsunku
Kazuyoshi Osawa
Yoshio Sakamoto
Programmer(s)Kazuyoshi Ozawa
Artist(s)Ko Takeuchi
Composer(s)Tsunku
Masami Yone
SeriesRhythm Heaven
Platform(s)Game Boy Advance
Arcade
ReleaseGame Boy Advance
  • JP: August 3, 2006
Arcade
  • JP: September 20, 2007
Genre(s)Rhythm
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer (Arcade)
Arcade systemSega NAOMI

Rhythm Tengoku is a 2006 rhythm video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It was originally released on August 3, 2006 as the last first-party game to be released for the console. An arcade version of the game was reprogrammed and published by Sega on September 20, 2007. Both versions were released in Japan exclusively. The game was the first in the Rhythm Heaven series which spawned three international sequels; Rhythm Heaven, Rhythm Heaven Fever, and Rhythm Heaven Megamix, with a fourth sequel, Rhythm Heaven Groove, set for release in 2026. It began as an idea created by its composer and supervisor Tsunku, who proposed it to Nintendo due to his belief that they could do a better job with it than he could.

Rhythm Tengoku's gameplay focuses on audio cues rather than visual cues to convey information to players. It features a number of unique stages which have their own type of rhythm and gameplay. Players follow the rhythm (in some rhythm games as a character) until the end where they are given a score based on their performance. The gameplay and music were both well received by critics and consumers. Parallels have been drawn between it and the developer's previous work on the WarioWare series.