At night, I dream of being in rhythm heaven.
Melatonin has done a great job creating a lo-fi, pastel-hued version of rhythm game beloved Rhythm Heaven, and it’s been critically acclaimed. The Nintendo version of WarioWare, but the Rhythm Heaven series with music was clearly lacking on the Switch. Luckily, developer Half Asleep has come up with a venerable replacement with a presentation that stands out from its predecessor.
The premise of Melatonin is that each night a man falls asleep on his couch and dreams of all sorts of fantastic situations and vivid memories. It’s a feature. If you’re a fan of lo-fi his beats you’ll delve into the music here but if you’re not don’t expect too much aural diversity it’s kind of a shame there’s no real story but luckily the game Play and presentation are exceptional.
To roll back the melatonin credits, you must complete 4 nights and 21 stages in the finale. Each night has 5 stages, the 5th being a mashup of the previous 4. All five are connected by a loose theme. This makes sense considering they’re all part of the same Night’s Dream.You can earn up to 3 stars each on normal difficulty and 3 rings each on hard mode. is unique, it begins with a tutorial explaining how that stage’s mechanics work, and also gives you the chance to practice with it before diving into the scored version of the level. You must earn a total of 8 stars before you start, and at least 2 stars on that final stage to advance to the next night. The experience may only last a few hours, but considering how fun and engaging the game is, it’s worth playing all the levels on hard mode (increased speed) or achieving a perfect score on a completed stage. Returning to do things is a worthwhile incentive in itself.
By default, the tutorial runs in the timing circle in the middle of the screen to help you press the buttons. Only three buttons are used during gameplay: A, L and R, making it easy to pick up the Switch and play the game. Several accessibility options allow players, for example, to keep practice circles outside of tutorials or to make early, late, or missed notes with less penalty to their scores. Most of the time, you’ll be relying on Sound Her Cue to act as a prompt to press a button. Visual cues are also presented, but the stage has clever ways of distorting what you see so that you are forced to rely on what you hear. Overall, melatonin seems like a great entry point for newcomers to the rhythm genre, but the difficulty ramps up nicely as you progress from one night to the next.
In terms of what it looks and sounds like, Melatonin embraces a cartoon aesthetic with hand-drawn visuals and fits for what it is. Being able to choose which of the four stages to play each night is satisfying. The background music is quiet and soothing, and being a fairly lo-fi listener, I loved the variety of tracks that accompanied each stage. It helps enhance your experience.
Whether you’re watering the flowers of your dreams, eating a burger at La La Land, or eating a few dingers in the middle of your snooze, melatonin creates and leaves a warm and inviting impression. You can also edit levels to create your own customized version. From both a gameplay and presentation standpoint, what’s here is nearly unassailable, and the game shows just how spoiled by Switch’s wealth of indie titles, and how far it’s come on Nintendo’s latest console. A flattering facsimile of Rhythm Heaven. Playing this late at night may not raise your brain’s melatonin levels, but it will definitely make you smile before you go to bed.
