Reviews from

in the past


Since Steam reviews and the gaming press are just ceaselessly repeating the same already tired jokes and sharing videos of people playing the game poorly, allow me to offer a modicum of actual thought about this game.

Trombone Champ is a mechanically fine rhythm game. As every other reviewer feels the need to qualify it, yes, I too played trombone for a brief moment in time in juniour high band. The trombone sounds silly, its exacerbation of glissando especially so. Trombone Champ leans hard into the comedy of slide instruments, where being slightly off can make a recorder sound sophisticated in comparison. That's probably the only aspect in which the game's humour lands successfully. The gameplay itself works surprisingly well, kind of like an evolution of Wii Music's instruments which utilised the gyroscope. Hold the notes, slide as needed, it's nothing groundbreaking if you've played osu! or any rhythm game really. The controls defaulting to the mouse inversely matching pitch is novel but I turned it off quickly. There's a breath mechanic that literally does not come into play unless you play the game incorrectly.

And that's the gameplay! Everything else is separate from the actual meat of the game and its twenty-ish songs. The tracks available are fitting to the trombone but it means a predominance of pre-twentieth century tunes. I don't find that to be a problem, but part of me feels if there isn't a need to pay for licensing most of the music, there could be a hell of a lot more. As the tracks are usually accompanied by busy visuals, that would certainly prohibit a massive amount of content but when some of these amount to a static image with some fading pictures of beavers, that effort argument falls a little flat. The eyecandy is stellar at times, and I particularly love the use of old woodblock prints and magazine cartoons which are almost never seen in games. At times it's like playing John Tenniel's cartoons for Punch.

The rest of Trombone Champ is where I take umbrage. When you fill your Champ metre during a song, you hear airhorns. Some tracks have MLG frag video style effects, you get to see sunglasses on Mozart, your character has the same flat sausage-ish vibrant aesthetic as a Mount Your Friends or Human Fall Flat avatar, the way they move as you play has the vague physics silliness of QWOP or Surgeon Simulator. The collectible cards you can unpack come in a loot box style bag, emblazoned with faux-truths about trombonists all ending with how many hot dogs they can eat in one sitting. The loading screen 'tips' state similar falsehoods about things like the world record holder for most trombones owned has two whole trombones. There are baboons scattered about because baboons are funny? It all feels so temporally separated from the year it came out in, and the year it was announced. I guess comedy equals tragedy plus time but to me this just feels old and tired, maybe lacking enough separation for an ironic enjoyment. And it's a shame because its all superfluous! The game is fine without any of it. It's a misstep akin to The Stanley Parable Deluxe, it's like a Frog Fractions without the shock value. I hesitate to use the phrase 'flavour of the week' but I see no timeline where this is remembered, much less thought of fondly, in a few months. But who's to say, I mean, we all still love Goat Simulator and Fall Guys and I Am Bread and GIRP and What the Golf and Happy Wheels and...

25 Charts, almost entirely consisting of royalty free music, occasionally with MLG horns slapped on top whilst PNGs fade in and out of transparency in the background. There are beatmania games on the game boy with song lists less sparse, and they even have Rydeen.

I get this is a meme game for kicks, but it's £12 and the joke will probably be old by the time you buy it, which is inevitably after your favourite streamer has butchered "lets all go to the ball game", and it just becomes increasingly annoying.

It's a shame because the music game portion at least has potential here. It's not good, but things like running out of breath, the wavy notes and the way it psuedo-mimics a trombone is cute. Truly, if it had any worthwhile content, it could maybe be the donkey konga of our day. Add 20 songs, increase the variety (some Jazz would have gone a really long way) and give each song 3 charts for various difficulty and it's a product that could at least entertain for a few hours.

Alas, Trombone Champ is as throwaway as they come. I just feel sorry for the steam support reps that have to process all the refund requests for this game.


Kinda funny, but loses a lot of points for lacking custom tracks, being flavor-of-the-week twitchcore garbage, making me dizzy, and also for not having Neutral Milk Hotel's sophomore album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in its entirety as one of the playable tracks.

God crafted this game for us, and you should not ignore him. It's a very short rhythm game where the main battle is fighting through all the peepee poopoo jokes.

There is a very dedicated group of modders that help make the game even better by constantly updating it with custom music to play. Consider trying those out if you're not into the pre-selected music.

I do however have a fear of baboons, so this game turned me a bit feral.

(7-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

I've gotten an A on Martians Killbots, that's my favorite. I've done nothing with my turds.


I bought this game as a joke. I saw the videos and it looked funny. And you know what? It was funny. What I did not expect was for it to be a genuinely fun rhythm game that I loved playing so much that I would put in the time to 100% it.

I got the game on PC first when all the funny videos were circulating, but it wasn’t until the Switch version came out that I really got into it. I busted it out when we had friends over and the four of us were in stitches playing the 4-player local multiplayer. Some of the most fun I’ve had playing couch co-op with friends. After we had our fun, I found myself coming back to it for a few hours a day wanting to “just play one more song” until suddenly I was trying to collect every card and unlock every item in my pursuit of the secret ending.

I can’t believe I loved the funny trombone meme game so much that I 100%’d it.

+ Funny tootin’
+ Good rhythm game actually?
+ Great local multiplayer
+ Plenty to unlock

Trombone Champ é um jogo que acabou ficando com um gosto meio contraditório pra mim.

De um lado, ele é um jogo rítmico com bastante desafio por causa de seus controles analógicos e que demanda bastante treino para a maestria. Dito isso, não tem tantas personalizações que não sejam cosméticas e toda a parte de conteúdo feito por usuários é por mods (ou seja, não nativo).

Por outro lado, ele sabe que é um meme e se esforça pra isso. Mesmo ir mal numa música é engraçado, pelo menos nas três primeiras vezes. Se você viu no Twitter um vídeo do jogo e quis experimentar a loucura, realmente ela esta lá e o jogo sabe disso. Uma pena que 90% das piadas está por trás de muitas horas de jogatina (ou de um desempenho fantástico, que afasta quem tá só pelo meme).

Pra mim, foi uma experiência até que legal, mas consigo ver ele decepcionar ambos os públicos por não saber muito bem quem quer agradar.

I really felt like I WAS a trombone.

This was a fun experience. Surprised by the amount of effort that was put into this game. Looking at it you would expect this was made in like an hour, but the UI and options were actually pretty nice.

My thoughts:
(+ = (mostly) positive; - = (mostly) negative)
+- Gameplay;
It's a fun rhythm game to play once. Liked that the songs kept going till the end even when you were missing everything. Usually that's not the case for rhythm games.
Also it has somewhat of a story and reason to keep playing. Sadly it doesn't have enough songs as of now, so the variation is gone after a bit.

+ Music;
Fun songs you'll recognise without a doubt. The effect of the trombone only makes them better!

+ Graphics;
Extremely surprised by the UI and background while playing a song. Only ugly thing is the tromebone player, but that's on purpose without a doubt.

+- Story/Characters;
There isn't really a story to begin with, but was surprised they added unique characters to the game.

Recommend?
Yea it's a fun game to play in VC with some friends. Or if you find fart jokes funny, I'd recommend it as well.

Goofy as shit, but as someone who played the Trombone and eats lots of hot dogs, this is my kind of game!

Went in full knowing this game was gonna be a meme, In return, I was blessed with a surprisingly fun game. This shit is still fun to play. I recommend it to any rhythm game players

Fun gameplay, great jokes, but a disappointing song selection. This is of course fixable by modding, but as of now there is not an integrated way to get custom songs and I don't care enough to bother.

This is just like Shin Megami Tensei

It has the Spider-Man 2's High Silk Hat theme song, so it's good.

An authentic middle school band experience.



what if there were monkeys(!) and they said tromBONER and everyone ate hot dogs!!!!11! what if they played music........ badly!!

in the land of the meme game, comedy lives in exile.

"It [this game] also contains minor jumpscares." do you mean the burger?? that flies at you at the end of Star Spangled Banner??

don't have anything to add to what people have already said here, but get custom charts they always carry rhythm games and if I were to account them into my rating this would be a high 7 and not hovering between 7 and 6. either way I ultimately think this is a pretty fun concept and game probably because I'm quite disconnected from the main like. big streamer base and so I end up liking it :) hoping the maingame gets improvements later too!


also I play the trumpet so uh actually everything I said is false this game SUCKS!!! should have been trumpet champ.

one more addition thank u to my gf for buying this for me you have made an awful mistake and I will now annoy you with buddy holly trombone champ forever

Funny fun rhythm game that loses it's novelty once it stops becoming funny. Not hating or anything, this is a really well made game. But the only staying power it really has compared to other rhythm games is the modding scene. The gameplay alone isn't as satisfying as other rhythm games. It has a unique premise though so I will commend the devs for coming up with something original. Only get this if you wanna see cool modded in versions of your favourite songs, with a trombone twist. Having said that, I only recommend the PC version for the mods.

Playing a trombone slightly off tempo and largely out of tune remained funny for longer than I thought. Having the majority of tracks being public domain ditties really helped as you know what they're meant to sound like and really has more of an impact that getting licensed tracks or having a ton of made-for-the-game pieces

Unfortunately the games humour is a lot more hit and miss - things like the collectible card descriptions were fun but the turds in the menu (and sounds) got old pretty fast.

ASSOPRE, ASSOPRE O TROMBONE IMEDIATAMENTE

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Honestly, I came ony for the memes and custom songs, but its absurd and hilarant story made me play all the songs and beat the secret ending ( tho it gets grindy in the end). A really lovable and fun time, extremely recommended.

Toot out of ten

me diverti TREMENDAMENTE por 8.8 horas

10/10 who even needs wrists anyway

A hilarious game to break out with a few friends, and a respectable, if simple, rhythm game in its own right. The scoring system focuses on your pitch more than your actual rhythm, which complements the comedic gameplay pretty well and is pretty unique, even if ultimately I find more timing-based rhythm games to be more compelling.

I didn't care much for the "story" elements, but among a bit of lame humor there are some funny bits.

When I was a kid, I always wanted a theramin for some reason. Playing this game is kinda how I imagined it would be like to play a theramin. I think that's worth something!


It was fun, probably not my thing, the replayability is short for me but maybe I just need to give it a little time to replay it and I'll be fine. It's goofy and fun but I only played it like twice.

honestly wish it was better as an actual rhythm game, it can be fun as one except when there's a bunch of impossible to hit small notes. still i had a fun time with it.

toot

This was a great time for about 2 minuets

Nada nesse jogo atinge seu potencial:
-As seções de ritmo falham porque notas curtas são praticamente impossíveis de serem tocadas, o jogo só registra um "toque" caso o botão for pressionado por um tempo específico, e isso é muito difícil de ser alcançado, especialmente nas músicas mais rápidas.
-A forma como o "final verdadeiro" do jogo funciona é, às vezes, críptica, e em outras apenas chata, requerendo um monte de moedas in-game que só podem ser alcançadas depois de repetir cada música um monte de vezes.
-São apenas 24 músicas, nenhuma delas particularmente interessante, preferi as músicas clássicas que eu já conhecia por serem agradáveis, mas nem elas se destacam tanto no meio de um repertório tão limitado. Espero que haja suporte para mods no futuro.
-O humor não me cativou em momento algum, a narrativa toda parece ter sido desenvolvida com o mindset "escolhamos um animal aleatório e uma comida aleatória e repitamos comentários que envolvam estes até o fim do jogo".

Só que é divertidinho, achei um jogo de ritmo decente de se jogar, mesmo que com muitos problemas. Se fosse um clarinete em vez de um trombone talvez eu desse uma nota maior.