Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Stage 2 turns up the heat a bit, assuming you have already picked up the basics of this game. It introduces faster cues, more complex cues, tempo changes, and the first “call-and-response” level. (The name of this type of level, a fan term, comes from the musical terminology of the same name in which different instruments take turns as if it was a conversation.)
This will also cover the first material in this game not part of the demo, so sit tight! This was actually the first portion of the full game I played, as the save data from the demo carried over to it.
00:00 - Ribbit Rocket
Type: Cue
Set in a swamp with a lot of frogs, you play as a medium-sized frog holding up a lilypad that doubles as a launchpad: frogs will jump from the lilypads on the left, one beat at a time, and you must launch them as they land on your lilypad. The green frogs bounce on the onbeats, and the red frogs bounce on offbeats. The frogs also don’t always come in from offscreen from the left, but can fall onto one of the later lilypads, including the one right next to the launchpad one, skipping some of the beats compared to if they came from the left. This is also the first level where the cues don’t wait for you to take an action before the next cue comes in.
03:38 - Stop N Go N Stop
Type: Cue
The premise for this one is that you are a car known as the Revlino, and you are performing for a commercial. There are two possible cues: the gray car in front might honk twice to the beat, after which you press down on the D-pad to brake one beat after the second honk. The other cue has the blue car in the back give two chime-like signals, one beat after the other, followed by four chimes half a beat apart, and you press A right on the fourth of those chimes to accelerate. You must do it with good timing because the three cars are moving very closely to each other, and you don’t want a crash. This is also the first stage to have multiple controls that don’t always alternate. Something to keep in mind is that if the acceleration cue begins on an onbeat, the input will be on an offbeat, and vice versa.
08:31 - Hop N Slide
Type: Cue
This level represents the first big step up in difficulty, despite its innocent look, due to its deceptive appearances, tight input windows, a tempo change, and an extended period where you cannot see clearly: you are playing a game programming student Miho has made, and as she’s still learning about game development, a glitch turns up about two-thirds through that drastically increases the tempo and stretches out the road Hurdler is on, rendering (no pun intended) you unable to see the hurdles up ahead, forcing you to rely on the sound cues. I don’t know what Hurdler is saying specifically, but he precedes the short brown hurdles with a sound like “Up and down,” where you press A on the “down,” and he precedes the tall blue hurdles with a sound like “Baby-chu,” where you press Down on the “chu.”
This level may be inspired by the minigame Google Chrome allows you to play when a site doesn’t load, involving a dinosaur jumping over hurdles.
12:56 - Pop, Don’t Drop
Type: Call and Response
This is, I think, one of only two levels in this game with a punctuation mark in it. You are a researcher in a laboratory waiting for small colored bubbles to travel down a glass conveyor belt. A Bunsen burner below the conveyor belt heats up the surface there, causing the colored bubbles to expand. You catch them, squeezing them until they pop, as they fall off the belt’s edge. Pink ones can be popped immediately upon squeezing them, while blue ones need to be squeezed for at least one beat to pop them. The presentation for this stage has a mostly monochrome look to make it resemble a scientific diagram. This is the first level in the game that is neither a pure cue level or a remix level: it is what fans call “call and response,” where the game establishes a short four- or eight-beat sequence of sounds, and you must replicate that sequence with that same timing.
17:10 - Remix 2
Type: Remix
Song: “Soon be a lady” by Hotzmic and Tsunku♂
For the first 60% of the game or so, each stage will have one level with vocal music, and Rhythm Heaven Groove is a first in that it is natively in many languages. Feeding the Beast had a song in Japanese, “My Telepathy! Watashi No Atsui Kosen,” sung by Yui Sakurai of FRUITS ZIPPER, while this one is sung by Tsunku♂’s daughter Hotzmic, who is fluent in English and sings in English. Hotzmic previously sung “I’m a Lady Now” in Rhythm Heaven Megamix, used in the Honeybee Remix. This is also the first remix in the game to take on a different theme, though I am unsure of what that theme is: Ribbit Rocket is now set at night in heavier rain, Stop N Go N Stop is now set at what appears to be sunrise, Step N Go is set in autumn with falling leaves, and I don’t notice any difference in Pop, Don’t Drop.
Stage 2 turns up the heat a bit, assuming you have already picked up the basics of this game. It introduces faster cues, more complex cues, tempo changes, and the first “call-and-response” level. (The name of this type of level, a fan term, comes from the musical terminology of the same name in which different instruments take turns as if it was a conversation.)
This will also cover the first material in this game not part of the demo, so sit tight! This was actually the first portion of the full game I played, as the save data from the demo carried over to it.
00:00 - Ribbit Rocket
Type: Cue
Set in a swamp with a lot of frogs, you play as a medium-sized frog holding up a lilypad that doubles as a launchpad: frogs will jump from the lilypads on the left, one beat at a time, and you must launch them as they land on your lilypad. The green frogs bounce on the onbeats, and the red frogs bounce on offbeats. The frogs also don’t always come in from offscreen from the left, but can fall onto one of the later lilypads, including the one right next to the launchpad one, skipping some of the beats compared to if they came from the left. This is also the first level where the cues don’t wait for you to take an action before the next cue comes in.
03:38 - Stop N Go N Stop
Type: Cue
The premise for this one is that you are a car known as the Revlino, and you are performing for a commercial. There are two possible cues: the gray car in front might honk twice to the beat, after which you press down on the D-pad to brake one beat after the second honk. The other cue has the blue car in the back give two chime-like signals, one beat after the other, followed by four chimes half a beat apart, and you press A right on the fourth of those chimes to accelerate. You must do it with good timing because the three cars are moving very closely to each other, and you don’t want a crash. This is also the first stage to have multiple controls that don’t always alternate. Something to keep in mind is that if the acceleration cue begins on an onbeat, the input will be on an offbeat, and vice versa.
08:31 - Hop N Slide
Type: Cue
This level represents the first big step up in difficulty, despite its innocent look, due to its deceptive appearances, tight input windows, a tempo change, and an extended period where you cannot see clearly: you are playing a game programming student Miho has made, and as she’s still learning about game development, a glitch turns up about two-thirds through that drastically increases the tempo and stretches out the road Hurdler is on, rendering (no pun intended) you unable to see the hurdles up ahead, forcing you to rely on the sound cues. I don’t know what Hurdler is saying specifically, but he precedes the short brown hurdles with a sound like “Up and down,” where you press A on the “down,” and he precedes the tall blue hurdles with a sound like “Baby-chu,” where you press Down on the “chu.”
This level may be inspired by the minigame Google Chrome allows you to play when a site doesn’t load, involving a dinosaur jumping over hurdles.
12:56 - Pop, Don’t Drop
Type: Call and Response
This is, I think, one of only two levels in this game with a punctuation mark in it. You are a researcher in a laboratory waiting for small colored bubbles to travel down a glass conveyor belt. A Bunsen burner below the conveyor belt heats up the surface there, causing the colored bubbles to expand. You catch them, squeezing them until they pop, as they fall off the belt’s edge. Pink ones can be popped immediately upon squeezing them, while blue ones need to be squeezed for at least one beat to pop them. The presentation for this stage has a mostly monochrome look to make it resemble a scientific diagram. This is the first level in the game that is neither a pure cue level or a remix level: it is what fans call “call and response,” where the game establishes a short four- or eight-beat sequence of sounds, and you must replicate that sequence with that same timing.
17:10 - Remix 2
Type: Remix
Song: “Soon be a lady” by Hotzmic and Tsunku♂
For the first 60% of the game or so, each stage will have one level with vocal music, and Rhythm Heaven Groove is a first in that it is natively in many languages. Feeding the Beast had a song in Japanese, “My Telepathy! Watashi No Atsui Kosen,” sung by Yui Sakurai of FRUITS ZIPPER, while this one is sung by Tsunku♂’s daughter Hotzmic, who is fluent in English and sings in English. Hotzmic previously sung “I’m a Lady Now” in Rhythm Heaven Megamix, used in the Honeybee Remix. This is also the first remix in the game to take on a different theme, though I am unsure of what that theme is: Ribbit Rocket is now set at night in heavier rain, Stop N Go N Stop is now set at what appears to be sunrise, Step N Go is set in autumn with falling leaves, and I don’t notice any difference in Pop, Don’t Drop.
