Rhythm Tengoku is a rhythm game similar to the WarioWare series of video games due in part to its simplistic controls and art style. Parallels have been drawn between it and the developer's previous work on the WarioWare series. The gameplay and music were both well received by critics and consumers. Players follow the rhythm (in some rhythm games as a character) until the end where they are given a score based on their performance.

It features a number of unique stages which have their own type of rhythm and gameplay. Rhythm Tengoku 's gameplay focuses on audio cues rather than visual cues to convey information to players. 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. The game has spawned three international sequels Rhythm Heaven, Rhythm Heaven Fever, and Rhythm Heaven Megamix. Both versions were released in Japan exclusively.

An arcade version of the game was reprogrammed and published by Sega (later named Sega Corporation) on September 20, 2007. It was released in Japan on August 3, 2006, and was the last game developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. Rhythm Tengoku is a Japanese rhythm game developed by Nintendo SPD and published by Nintendo.

Rhythm heaven arcade