Harmony Hustle

Harmony Hustle, at Peach's Castle

Harmony Hustle is a party game in Mario Sports Mix where the sport of this game is volleyball. This game can be played with up to four players, in three different courts: Peach's Castle, Bowser Jr. Blvd., and DK Dock.

The objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Players can score points by hitting balls of their respective color. A colored circle will show where the ball will land; the player of that specific color must hit that ball. Player 1 gets the blue balls; player 2 gets the red balls; player 3 gets the green balls; player 4 gets the yellow balls.

Players earn 10 points each by hitting a colored ball. Multi-colored balls give 50 points regardless of which player gets them. It is possible to hit other players' balls to preserve the current combo, but this temporarily distorts the music and does not award points; in addition, characters prefer to dive for their own or multi-colored balls nearby than to hit another player's ball directly overhead. All balls are placed in such a way that they can always be reached; even multi-colored balls are aimed towards a particular player, though picking up a multi-colored ball aimed at another player may result in a player being unable to get to one of their own balls afterwards. Two balls in quick succession may often only be gotten by doing a small hop before hitting the ball.

For some songs, coins can appear which give players 10 points per coin picked up. Unlike the balls, not picking them up will not end the combo.

Black and blue spiked balls may appear depending on the song, when hit players will lose 50 points and the combo will be lost. The blue spiked balls bounce when landing while the black ones stick on the ground; both quickly disappear after landing. Other obstacles such as Banana Peels and Mini Mushrooms do not cause a loss of points or end a combo, but hinder the player by making them slip and shrinking them respectively, which may cause players to miss balls.

CPU players do not contribute points when they hit their own-colored balls, and they do not cause the loss of points or combo if they hit a spiked ball, but they must still hit their balls to continue the combo. Any ball for a CPU player is also not fully colored like the regular players but are instead mostly white with a thin, colored line around them. CPU players do contribute points from multi-colored balls and coins.

If players manage not to miss any balls or get hit, they earn bonus points for every ten combos (50 for ten, 100 for twenty, and so on). Additionally, if the combo is kept throughout the entire song, a "PERFECT!" will appear at the end. The game has a sense of rhythm to it, as depicted by the music that is played during the stage, which differs, depending on the court being played on. Just like in a volleyball game, there is no time limit, but the game will end when the music ends.

Songs

There are three songs which are unlocked at the start. Each song has three difficulties: easy, normal and hard; each visualized using a single blue note for easy, two yellow notes for normal and three red notes for hard. Higher difficulties are unlocked when reaching the target score of a song or by clearing certain alternative paths during a tournament.

Along with those songs are the Mix Medley songs, which combine the three basic songs into one. To unlock these Mix Medleys, players have to play each of the three songs 6 times in their respective difficulty. Alternatively, they can also be unlocked through clearing alternative paths in a tournament.

Clearing the songs on their highest difficulty does not unlock anything. Clearing the Mix Medleys also does not unlock anything, not even a higher difficulty medley, they have to be unlocked separately.

Level		Court	Target score
			1 player	2 players	3 players	4 players
Classic Ocean		Peach's Castle	1000	1200	1400	1500
Chocobo Rhythm		Bowser Jr. Blvd.	1000	1200	1400	1500
Mario Athletic		DK Dock	1500	1700	1900	2000
Mushroom Mix Medley		Peach's Castle	2500	2800	3000	3200
Bloocheep Ocean		Peach's Castle	1500	1700	1900	2000
Chocobo Pop		Bowser Jr. Blvd.	2000	2300	2600	2800
Punk Athletic		DK Dock	2500	2800	3000	3200
	Flower Mix Medley (NTSC) Blossom Mix Medley (PAL)	DK Dock	3000	3300	3600	3800
Punk Ocean		Peach's Castle	2500	2800	3000	3200
Chocobo Beat		Bowser Jr. Blvd.	2500	2800	3000	3200
Island Athletic		DK Dock	2500	2800	3000	3200
Star Mix Medley		Bowser Jr. Blvd.	4500	4800	5000	5200

Gallery

• 

  Harmony Hustle at Bowser Jr. Blvd.

• 

  Harmony Hustle at DK Dock

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Note(s)	Ref.
Japanese	リズムレシーブ Rizumu reshību	Rhythm Receive		[?]
French	Tirs Musicaux	Musical Shots		[?]
Italian	Bagher-music	Bagher music		[?]
Spanish	Voleibaile	Volleydance		[?]

Notes

• The "Chocobo" songs are remixes of Chocobo's Theme, a famous and recurring music track in the Final Fantasy series.