Reviews from

in the past


They will never make a better rhythm game than Gitaroo Man

INFINITY==================
Not in a hundred-million years!
===============IMPOSSIBLE

When I've been away from Gitaroo Man, I always have a tentative worry. Does it still hold its power? Have I lost it? By the end of Flyin' To Your Heart, I'm back in. I am the True Gitaroo Man. "We've forgotten this sound for so long!"

Gitaroo Man seems self-aware in a way that its contemporaries don't. I don't just mean in its fun, jokey tone. It knows how to be an hour-long game. Each level presents a new storybeat, and a distinctive musical genre in this shonen anime fairytale musical, introducing enough to keep each idea fun and peppy without ever detailing anything too deeply. It's bright, exciting and fantastical, and that brief running time is the key to so much of that.

The thing that draws you in is how good the music is. It's proper game music. So often, I'll play a music game, and feel let down over how little thought was put into the music. They're often either not very musical, or negligent of how they'll feel to play. Gitaroo Man's music is brilliantly structured for gameplay, with distinct phrases for the moments they're complementing, and the whole thing's so inherently videogamey. Levels are split up into CHARGE, ATTACK, DEFEND and ENDING phases, with the music working so well to convey. Charge sequences have you building your life bar, calmly gaining strength through long, sustained notes. Defend stages have you dodging vicious staccato attacks, that come in the form of rapid button prompts that zoom in from each side of the screen. Attack and Ending phases are the catharsis, with you taking revenge, sustaining long notes to do maximum damage, but if you miss any entirely, that's a knock against you. You've got big Street Fighter life bars at the top of the screen. I don't think there's any piece of imagery you could conjure that could so effectively illustrate the nature of a battle to videogame players. The gameplay mainly takes the form of following "trace lines", which are big bendy lines that converge onto the centre of the screen. You have to react to each one, right on the beat, and follow their bends with the direction of the analogue stick. Bending guitar notes swoop and curve around the screen, in synchronisation with the music, and when you're playing well, you feel like you're nailing a solo, trying your best to resist making Steve Vai faces. It's a similar system to Keiichi Yano's later Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents games, but it feels so much more aggressive with all of the prompts zooming into the middle of the screen. It's combat, it's war!

There's a crucial hook to the game, and something that's deeply undervalued in it. Gitaroo Man adapts to how well you play. It has about a million alternate music bars up its sleeve, determining which would be the best to throw at a player of your skill level. In most levels, you'll very rarely hear the same song twice. I've been returning to Gitaroo Man over and over again for around 20 years, and I still don't think I've heard every bit of Bee Jam Blues hidden on the disc. It's exciting every time, and really encourages multiple playthroughs. This stuff rarely gets talked about, but it's a real feat of both game design and musical composition. You never feel like a phrase is being pulled out from a list of suitable candidates and loaded in. It's all seamless, and given its response to your skill level, it feels both rewarding and emotional. It's the feeling of getting lost in a solo. I have little doubt that the lukewarm response to Project Rap Rabbit's failed Kickstarter pitch was on the fault of the public's ignorance towards this aspect of Gitaroo Man.

It's clear that the game never would have been made without the precedent set by PaRappa the Rapper, and back when PS2 games were all at the same RRP, I can see why so few would have been willing to take a chance on something they'd already dismissed as a flash-in-the-pan novelty, but Gitaroo Man is so much more thoughtfully designed and satisfying to play. 326's artwork doesn't have the broad appeal of Rodney Greenblat's funny animal people. Ignoring the wild rendering techniques of PaRappa and just focusing on what the artists drew, Gitaroo Man's designs are weirder, and pulls more from eccentric 70s robot toys and gag manga. Everything's covered in colourful dials and buttons, and all the faces are bizarre. The visual style is both geekier and cooler than PaRappa, and I've really grown affection for it over the years, but who doesn't love Puma?

The game is so aware of its length. It knows how to use ten levels to tell a Hero's Journey. It never gets too full of itself, or takes itself too seriously, but that doesn't prevent it from doing something beautiful. The story is broad, silly and simplistic, but that's great for a short, E for Everyone game that you'll come back to again and again. The adventure takes the form of one of those Wizard of Oz-style dream scenarios, only a little more ambiguous, where we're returned to the status quo at the end, but one where the hero has learned their lesson. For me, the real ambiguity is in whether or not we're supposed to think U-1 punched Kazuya in the face.

The downsides? Uh... the compression in the FMV cutscenes is a little much. The game makes a great argument for concave analogue sticks, as you might find your thumb sliding a lot on an official Dualshock 2. I don't like that you have to navigate to the Options menu each time you want to load a save... Look - not only is this a 2001 PS2 game, it's a fucking KOEI game. It's amazing that the game came out nearly as slick as it did, drowning out developer talk from the Kessen offices next door.

Gitaroo Man was lightning in a bottle. I don't think we'll ever get a better collaboration of game designers, concept artists and musicians again, and if we do, it won't be with this budget or freedom. I mean, unless the Splatoon team decided it was time to do a narrative-focused Squid Sisters rhythm action spin-off. I don't know. Maybe Nintendo don't have the guts to become the hero.

woah lol i really got swept off my feet by how charming this game is
amazing art direction, amazing music, amazing rhythm game, incredible replay value

This game is cute, funny and wholesome exactly when it needs to be. The legendary theme (acoustic) is just an adorable moment in the story and a great track on its own. The only problem with the game is the abrupt difficulty spikes at some point (for me, parts of stage 8) . I recommend this game to anyone who can handle some difficulty. If you’re willing to see this to the end, it’s a great game that I think you’ll see was worth your time.

Gitaroo Man seems like a simple rhythm game, but it has a surprising amount of story for the time and genre, rivalled by games like Parappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5, and iNiS's later works, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents. While Gitaroo Man lacks some of the polish of those games, it makes up for it with heart and soul. It delves into teen angst, overcoming the odds, and finding the courage to embrace your individuality, in the messy and chaotic ways that a shonen writer would. It helps that its eclectic soundtrack is full of bangers, and to this day, The Legendary Theme is one of my favorite themes ever used in a video game.

Koei did an okay job at localizing the game in English, but its quality is still questionable. Part of me wishes there were subtitles as the audio balancing is all over the place, and some dialogue is near impossible to make out during levels. The game can also be chaotic during the actual rhythm sections, with way too much going on in the background while you're trying to focus on hitting notes. If you plan on playing this, I would also add a photosensitivity warning as the game regularly employs flashing lights that can worsen depending on the in-game camera.

On one hand this game is a truly epic (in the sense that word was meant to describe things before the internet) adventure, filled with crazy ass scenarios, designs and music, the cover here in backloggd alone tells the potential player what awaits for them there. Charisma is a word that we tend to overuse as a non descriptor of sorts when we’re out of words and want to describe something fun, and confident, and electric, but damn it, it does apply here. It’s all harmless and self conscious adolescent angst, always vibrant and absurd.

On the other hand is this sadist whiplash simulator that hates you and wants to see you suffer and fail. The mechanics are either poorly calibrated or purposeful spiteful; every time you miss a note, if there’s another one close to that, you’ll miss a second time, because you lose control of the… controller for a fraction of a second and your rhythm thingy in the middle of the screen returns to its default position, and also the notes that attack you when you’re on the defense mode seem to accelerate slightly and erratically when they’re near you. It’s all very frustrating! And that’s not so bad, I guess, games can be frustrating and good, even if for some moments (for example THE SHARK) this resembles more to those “unfair platformers” that were popular for a second fifteen years ago than what you think when you hear “tough but fair!”

The thing is, I don’t know if these two facets can reconcile with one another. Some people would even go as far as to call it ludonarrative dissonance because a game that’s all about becoming more confident with oneself and it’s all funny and cute feels like it shouldn’t be this fucking hard. If you are good at this game I envy you, for real, the vibes are immaculate.


Criativo, belo, emocionante, usa perfeitamente a mídia que está inserido além de mensagens incriveis. Mal podia esperar que esse joguinho de ritmo fosse uma aula de como fazer arte.

The legendary theme and all its variations alone gets this game 4 stars

The other star comes from how charming it all is, U-1 is a stupid idiot child but i love him, goes on this little non sensical journey to idk build confidence and it's all just really sweet to watch despite the very obvious glaring issues of for example, a super cheesy dub and bare bones plot etc, I don't really care though as they just kinda add to my enjoyment I love u-1 having a forever cold. and also the plot is just kinda sweet and I somehow end up liking the charcters, though that's almost defintley due to how amazing the music is, like when the legendary theme comes back I somehow end up caring about U1 and this random girl. Oh and also the gameplay is just super fun, and I'm not the biggest rhythm game fan.

Overall just a super fun game to just sit down and replay at any times + it has one of my favourite osts.
so
Play it, it's like the best rhythm game

My childhood. Filled with good song. Also unique rythm gameplay. 10/10 will wait for sequel!

What a delight to discover this now !

This might've been one of the toughest rhythm games I ever played, mostly in terms of how it just slaps you in the face right at the start and doesn't let up.

My fingers hurt now that I've finished it, and that feeling of mashing your controller frenetically really fit it with the idea of «musical combat» in the game.

I felt like my life was on the line.

And then there's the visual style (which is lovely) and the music (which kicks ass) that totally make this great little game.

Although it's a bit short and simplistic story-wise, it has a distinct personality as a rhythm game which I can't say I've seen before. I love it for that.

Haven't played this in over a decade but it rips, gotta play it again.

Five stars carried purely by how good Legendary Theme is

La necesidad imperiosa, apremiante, innegable e indispensable de jugar este juego cada año

Badass Rhythm game. I love how every song is a dynamic battle in structure. It really feels u gotta go head-to-head with the enemy character, before u seal the deal with a final guitar rift attack. Wiggling the stick while tapping buttons takes adjustment, but the game sold itself to me in just two levels. Playing this is like an underground discovery

bwah nah nah nahhh nahhhh nahhhhhhhhhhhh

A rhythm game with some of the most fun and creative direction I've seen in a game. The music is also amazing and there's a lot of little details that make up the game that I love like the transition cards in between each stage. Sadly though, there's not a lot of songs and the main story excluding the master difficulty runs around under 2 hours. If there were maybe like 3-4 more songs I think it would be perfect. Another problem with the game is that when playing on PCSX2 there's a lot of input delay which I only noticed after finishing the game. I read that playing the game on PPSSPP might be better or you could try to find a physical copy but those are very hard to come by.

why is the title screen announcer sooo freaky !?

during the tutorial i got the impression this was gonna be an easy baby game. i was so wrong

Bu oyuna 5 yıldız verebilecek kadar zevk alabilmem için sağ başparmağımı bu uğurda feda etmem gerektiğini fark ettim. O yüzden 4.5 veriyorum.

Ayrıca o 10. bölümdeki zibidinin yapacağı besteye tüküreyim. Kontrolcüm ağladı şerefsiz.

really cool but i absolutely suck at rhythm games

Genuinely earth-shattering. It drips with style, the renders for cutscenes are unique and mystifying, the songs are emotionally impactful, and the bare-bones narrative does amazing work with very little, letting the music and stage design say what the game itself doesn't. I adore it more than I thought I would, and I already had pretty high hopes. Just be warned it can be HARD.

and at what point...does mid.......become peak........

i would still have no idea this game existed if i didn't accidentally stumble across the legendary theme in a vgm bracket. that song had me creaming!

Loved this a lot!! Way more difficult than I expected, but super fun and engaging. One of the first rhythm games where it really felt like a battle. I had a slight annoyance with the controls (especially with those damn wiggly lines, fuck them) but other than that it was tons of fun!


Varied and fun music and charts. Cute little story with a few awesome emotional beats. Really only takes 2 hours to beat on normal mode, max. Please give it a try!

The best kind of B- experience. The reticle you control gets stuck in place every time you point it toward the correct direction, and it feels unresponsive. A few songs are achingly slow with annoying difficulty bumps.

But dangit, it's just loaded with good vibes. A relentlessly charming aesthetic, bangin' soundtrack, and a genuinely moving story all make it worth playing. The last few bosses are incredible.

it doesn't take much to turn impossible into i'm possible