Rhythm Hell

I am a huge fan of odd games, and still am. This is odd, considering what happened to me last week. One day I was browsing YouTube when I came across a game called Rhythm Heaven Fever. The video was of a mini game where a lady was interviewing a wrestler. This game looked amazing, but my Gamestop did not have a copy of it, probably because the Wii's lifespan was over. When I got home, I decided to look on amazon for a copy. I found a fairly new copy for only 5 dollars, which, believe it or not, was not odd considering not many people know of it. I ordered it. Over the next 3 days waiting, I watched many Rhythm Heaven perfect plays to get a feel of the game, and I loved it even more. So the day I got home from school and saw the package, I filled with delight like a child on Christmas. I ran downstairs to my Wii, opened the almost in pristine condition case, and popped it in, I looked at the colorful intro with the rhythm girl on it, created my file and started it up. It went normal and I had a bl ast playing, that is until Samurai Slice. I did not notice the subtle change because I was too focused o the rhythm. It was not until I went back to go for a perfect when I noticed the change. Normally, when you slice the ghosts, the just get sliced in half, no blood or guts, but when I went to go back for a perfect, I noticed the little black ghosts each had a slightly frightened look on them, looking terrified knowing their fate will be that they will be sliced in a rhythmic fashion by the Wandering Samurai. I thought it was intentional, but was too focused on the rhythm to notice. It went back to normal, but I still kept thinking about the issue.

The next day, I decided to play Rhythm Heaven again. I played up to remix 7, and this is when it really got creepy. One of the games in this remix, called karate man has the most reoccurring character- Karate Joe, punching cups. In the remix, toward the end and the and  last time his game appears, he is not punching cups, but is seen watching TV. However, when I played, the image was different. there was still a person watching t.v, but it was not the awesome karate man, it looked almost like a zombie mixed with an alien, but it was hard to tell because you could not see the face. On the t.v, there was a picture of a bloody corpse. at the end of the remix when the Cheer Readers made the picture with the books, it was the same corpse. I finished the remix quickly, not wanting to break my streak of superbs, but when I finished, I turned it off right away. I KNEW this was not supposed to happen. I have watched many perfects plays, and not once was there a bloody corpse. I did not play for a whole month. The only reason why I played was because I wanted too see what else was changed. To my surprise, remix 8 and my favorite remix 9 played normal. No corpses, no blood, no guts. That is until I got to the first game in the last set- Packing pests 2. Instead of catching candy, it looked like you were catching some piece of flesh. Not hyper realistic, but still not something you would see in a rhythm heaven game. The last 3 games were relatively normal, but there was a bloody thing here and there. Instead of microbes, micro row 2 had red blood cells, figure fighter 2 was punching a hung body, and karate Joe was punching the same pieces of flesh from packing pests 2. Next was remix 10...

I was hesitant to not go, but I had to, or else curiosity would have gotten the be. The music was the same amazing tracks from the original game, and the visuals were the same, but that was not enough to keep me from getting creeped out. All the characters looked like they had a look of fear. Even M.c adore, who almost never makes a face, and the normally fearless Wandering samurai and Karate Joe. I felt like something could pop out any moment. WARNING, SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED BY THE ENDING DO NOT READ ON! At the end of the remix, there is a huge fake out ending. The screen fades to black, and soon the the character comes out for a final "double up". The screen did fade out normally, but when I expected a final double up, I screamed louder than anything. All the characters, even the strongest ones like Karate Joe and the Wrestler were hung. Their clothes were stained in blood. After they showed all the characters- even the fork and widget, which are inanimate, they showed the same bloody corpse. He appeared on the screen and at the bottom, there was a caption that said "Lleh mhtyhr ot emoclew" As soon as that ended, I ejected the CD, and not giving a second thought about my medal streak, I broke the disc. I got a normal copy of Rhythm Heaven and eventually caught up to my progress, but after that, but I still can not stop thinking about that bloody corpse.