Groove Coaster Future Performers

Genre: Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

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Review:

Groove Coaster Future Performers, released in 2025 on Nintendo Switch, is the 13th game in the Groove Coaster series of Music-Rhythm games, though only the second game to release on consoles, with the previous console release being 2019’s Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party. Future Performers plays much the same as that game, though there are a few additions that set this apart.

However, before getting to that, let’s talk about the core gameplay of the series. In this game, players follow an icon riding on a rail and must tap buttons in time with notes along that rail. The game seems to be trying to throw players off by moving the rail around erratically, having distracting visuals, or even changing your perspective of the rail in 2D or 3D space, but your button presses will always be times when your character icon overlaps a note, in time with the music.

This time around, in addition to standard notes that can be pressed using any face button or D-Pad direction, and held notes that work the same but require the player to keep the button pressed down, now there are also green square notes that require the player to tap any of the shoulder buttons or trigger buttons, and notes can overlap held notes, requiring you to multitask. There’s also an advanced mode with more note types, for those seeking a challenge. I think these additions are good ones that work well with the hectic gameplay of this franchise, giving players more things to juggle while still keeping the gameplay itself relatively simple.

There’s another new addition here in the form of a story mode that follows Kakeru, a delivery boy who gets roped into joining a local school’s Groove Coaster club (which in the game’s story is like a sports club), and Aria, a young woman who is the club’s resident prodigy, with the two aiming to keep the club afloat using their skill at doing the Groove Coaster thing. It’s a cute story and the characters are likeable enough, though I don’t know that people are going to be especially interested in this when they could be playing the Music-Rhythm gameplay they really came for instead.

The soundtrack here contains a variety of J-Pop, anime-style music and vocaloid music, with a total of 53 songs with additional songs available as a paid download. I personally found the quality of these songs varied quite a bit, but there’s a decent variety… well, at least for players who enjoy Japanese pop and electronic music. This is all joined by a visual presentation that’s not technically impressive, but is still visually-distracting in a way that seems typical for this series, with a mix of 3D and mostly 2D elements, and with some good anime-style character portraits in the game’s story mode.

I do think the gameplay additions here make Groove Coaster Future Performers an improvement over Wai Wai Coaster. Due to this game’s distracting visual style and J-Pop-heavy soundtrack I don’t think this will be for everyone, but I think most Music-Rhythm fans will find this game worth a look.

tl;dr – Groove Coaster Future Performers takes the distracting visuals of the prior game and pairs them with Music-Rhythm gameplay that features a few nice additions, making for a better game overall, though still one that’s not going to appeal to everyone. Still, if you enjoy Music-Rhythm, this is definitely worth a look.

Grade: B

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