Recommended by T0M196 as part of this list.

[Apologies in advance for not playing the PS2 version like you requested, it didn't emulate well on my machine, but I heard the PSP port is pretty 1:1 all things considered.]

"The dreams I've abandoned couldn't have come true. I have other dreams I haven't given up on. They still shine bright. They still light my way."

Perpetual loser U-1 has it rough: the girl he likes won't give him the time of day, his bully is always taking opportunities to dunk on U-1 and remind him how worthless he is, and U-1's only friend through all of this is his faithful dog Puma. But all of this changes when U-1 discovers his status as the legendary Gitaroo Man, and is drawn into the interplanetary conflict between Planet Gitaroo and the Gravillian Empire, who's leader Zowie is vying for domination of the universe. Armed with the mysterious and powerful Gitaroo, U-1 has to learn to shed his cowardly ways and become the hero that will save the universe through the power of sick-ass guitar solos.

Throughout the game, each stage pits U-1 against a brand-new, colorful and charming foe utilizing some kind of new music genre to duel U-1 with. While each of these stages could stand out as the highlight of the game all on their own, I want to draw attention to Stage 6. Crash-landed on the shores of Planet Gitaroo, U-1 is sitting underneath the shade of a dying tree, guitar in hand as the gentle cackling of the campfire serves as accoutrement to the ebb and flow of the ocean's waves crashing against the shore. The world is bathed in the warm hue of the evening sun, sinking into the ocean and ushering in twilight. A girl in the spitting image of U-1's crush back on Earth walks up to U-1, and she sits next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, few words spoken as U-1 serenades her with the gentle sounds of his guitar. It's the only stage in the game where U-1 isn't engaging in a duel, but rather playing his guitar for the sake of someone else, and the track that's playing in this moment, "The Legendary Theme", is such a beautiful and moving piece of music that it genuinely brought tears to my eyes. This moment, this lull between the wacky character designs, the fun and energetic music battles and off-the-wall plot, is such a memorable and poignant scene compared to what preceded it that it may seem out of place at first, until you reach the climax and realize how much Stage 6 embodies the core tenets of Gitaroo Man.

U-1 is a loser, a grade-A wimp who gets no respect from anyone and is always told by others how he'll never be anything but a grade-A wimp; but on Planet Gitaroo, where he's the Gitaroo Man, he's kicking ass and taking names. He's a hero to the people, an indomitable warrior of legend who will stop Zowie, and by the final stage, U-1 has learned to harness the power of the Gitaroo for the sake of love, gaining the self-confidence needed to save the universe. When he must return home, not as Gitaroo Man but as little ol' U-1, Stage 6 showed that U-1 never needed the power of the Gitaroo to be loved. He just needed to believe in himself and show the world not what Gitaroo Man could do, but what U-1 could do. It's that self-love and confidence that U-1 obtained back on Planet Gitaroo that turns out to be what made Gitaroo Man Gitaroo Man in the first place.

Even if Gitaroo Man isn't the most difficult or in-depth rhythm game out there, it's the greatest rhythm game of all time in my heart. Gitaroo Man is bursting at the seams with charm, overflowing with charisma and creative energy: From its wonderful character designs, to its charmingly goofy dub, to its absolutely phenomenal soundtrack full of heart and experimentation, Gitaroo Man has firmly cemented itself in my heart as an all-timer.

that little tune became a lullaby.

and why?

the singer's voice was honey-love.

KEIICHI YANO ON THE STUDIO B LIKE:
"HEY WHAT IF WE MADE THE MOST EPIC AND SHOEGAZE-ESQUE SONG FOR A KIDS GAME, YEAH DROP IT"
https://youtu.be/0CiwoHS725w

ngnggnhwhwhss why i can't found the soundtrack on .flac im going to cry

This is a very weird game to try and rate my experience with. I started a couple of days ago with the PS2 version, and got pretty far in before running into a stage that was just impossible. I thought at first I was just bad at the game and it was a large difficulty spike, then got more frustrated at the inconsistencies in the mechanics, then started looking into if there was something else going on. Turns out there was a glitch that I'm fairly sure was caused by the emulator, though it may just be an issue with the game's input processing. I spent hours bashing my head against that stage, much longer than the rest of the game combined, and in most cases would have just dropped the game.

Gitaroo Man, however, stuck in my head. The style and music here is something really special, it feels almost like an unofficial FLCL video game. Not just with the similarities in the music, but also in the story, as silly as it is here. It's a special kind of nostalgic feeling for growing up that this game (and that show) captures really well, and that made me come back and keep trying to beat it, as infuriating as the gameplay was for most of my playtime.

After figuring out that the bug I ran into was causing me to get way less health and do way less damage than videos I was watching of other people playing the game, I eventually tried playing through it again on an earlier version of PCSX2, which also didn't work (what a piece of shit emulator). Then finally tried the PSP port and beat the game in one sitting. There's a lot here that alleviates my problems with the original. There's a visual indicator for how close you are to losing your lock-on with the track, and timings are more lenient across the board. It's not as far as I'd like compared to the things modern rhythm games have learned about game feel, but it's much more playable. It unfortunately comes with the downside of worse graphics and framerate, and being changed to 16:9 for the PSP's screen which unfortunately really does not work well with how this game was designed. It's still a superior version overall, but I wish there was a definitive way to play this game I could point to.

I'm very conflicted on this overall, starting out I would have probably rated this higher, and the ending was pretty cool and worth playing through again to see. A lot of my time with the game was very frustrating though, and it's hard to say how much of that blame lies with the game itself. I will say that it's maybe too short, and some of the songs not hitting as hard for others is a notable negative for a game this length even if some of them are fantastic. Even with all that said, it's still an easy recommendation for how unique it is.

Be careful, spoilers, play the game before you read this

Gitaroo Man has a point system that awards more points (and health) based on how precise you press each note, that allows the game to measure by difficulty how attached are you to the rhythm and melodies of the song, every note counts, but in rhythm games where there are combo multipliers and the priority is making long combos, they play more like a glorified Geometry Dash with various live hits per attempt.

I'm gonna jam way more playing this song on beatmania IIDX https://youtu.be/BRBiyYbPxRw but this is natural, I've already played that game for a long time and I've paid a lot for a good controller, and on top of that IIDX is stupid good, it is the predecessor of the precision system Gitaroo Man comes with, and a lot of other things that allows it to have an understanding and feeling of the songs greater that anything I have ever played... when investing hundreds and thousands of hours to master it... Gitaroo Man is only like 1-3 hours long to complete the story for the first time, and it delivers sooo much of that feel I have with IIDX in only few hours, why?

For example let's talk about the simplest and clearest track in the game, "The Legendary (Acoustic)", not only you make the strings each time you press and hold Circle, small turns when holding circle means changes in the middle of the strings (https://youtu.be/TcRn-V0I3po&t=60), and of course if one string is facing one direction and the next one is a big change, that's also a reflection of the song itself, so having an A or an S is really satisfying, and you know what else is awesome about this song? now lets talk about cool of a turn point that song was to the story and characters.

Boy getting it's own confidence back, to face the bully and get the girl. After some "PUMA WHAT DO I DO??", a hard as balls level where you escape a space shark, all GUARD, face buttons, and a non expected reggae level, which was easy but you can fuck it up if you are not focused; you are sitting in a campfire, wet and getting a cold, but here comes the reflection of the girl you like, who heard you playing the guitar and sits by your side, under the stars, ATTACK, an easy song to nail, the complete opposite of the shark, captivate the girl and start getting your confidence back, like we can see right on the next level with the skeletons, OH YEAH, this is easily one of my favorite levels of any videogame I've ever played, how the elements of gameplay, song, story, characters and presentation are all so good and important.

There are also other fantastic parts like the one right before the final level, where U-1 and the bad guy exchange words and it's full of quick shots "I CAN DO IT BECAUSE IM GITAROO MAN", Flyin' to Your Heart in Japanese slaps hard and of course, The Legendary Theme.

if i have to nitpick something is the fight with Gregorio III on the cathedral, if you die you have to wait for Gregorio to make the same comment, press the restart button and do an entire section, which is 1:45 minutes long (an entire fucking IIDX song), and consists of 2 easy charge stages right at the start of the level, where in almost all your attempts you are leaving with full health, aka, useless filler; I wouldn't have a problem if leaving those charge stages with full health meant that I had to be really precise and nail that part, but it wasn't the case, I didn't need to get better at that first section, so It was just 1:45 minutes of waiting for the actual difficult and interesting parts where I was struggling. For example in Resurrection, the final song, there are charge stages for more than half of the song and right before the start of the 2 last sections, and in no way you are gonna leave the last charge stage at full health in your first playthrough of the game, no way, so even if i'm failing at the end of the song, those parts before the end can help me deal with the hard parts because I can approach them with more health if i get better at the initial sections.

Either way, this is a fantastic, fantastic game.

Sorry for talking so much about IIDX but that's basically the only rhythm game I've ever truly enjoyed (until now) and I honestly couldn't imagine that some of its perks could be translated so well into a way shorter, more story based game; of course IIDX (or any other game) isn't "my gold standard" or anything like that, simply because every individual game in existence wants to achieve its own set of experiences and objectives within its own format, I wont criticize a game for not being like another one, of course not.

This is the best goddamn rhythm game period. It's contemporaries like Parappa and Rhythm Heaven do not touch this game's touch on what makes rhythm games both sound good and be fun to play.

You see, you really feel like you're making music with the game when you do well. Of course, it's all an illusion. A credit to how hard the music in the game slaps. The shit is funky as hell. Whatever emotions it tries to convey to you through the music, you fucking feel it. You have to feel it or the vibe doesn't work. If you're rockin with this tutorial music then you can probably rock with the rest of the game.

The gameplay is very engaging. The first time you play a song, and you shift the stick up with the trail bar, then hitting a note and a higher octave riff plays -- it just activates pure joy in my brain. It helps that the music playing is likely an unforgettable banger; and you're in the mix fucking shit up either metaphorically or actually because this game is kind of hard sometimes.

The only thing I don't like about it is the volume is mixed too low on the voice actors in prerendered cutscenes. I think it might have to do with it being a PSP port.

Play it y'all. I don't have funnyman things to say about it. This game has a high percentage of making you feel some type of way.

this is probably the first time a rhythm game with original music got me listening to its ost outside of the game. the legendary theme is some heart wrenching stuff for me personally, probably because it's somewhere along the lines of semi-recent band Yuck which has wholeheartedly brought me to tears on occasion. gitaroo man cements itself into my heart and i will never forget its hard hitting tale of a boy who just wants to be accepted and the hardships that come along with accepting yourself first and foremost. the ability to overcome your own insecurity is indeed legendary. gitaroo man is a video game for the ages. he doesn't just live, he triumphs, he climbs to the top of the mountain, that is if that mountain reached into space and your evil gundam-bearing enemy was climbing that mountain alongside you. sometimes all we need is someone to believe in us to help put ourselves into perspective. gitaroo man puts its underlying themes on display and then proceeds to use the power of music itself to grab the player by the heart and drag them inside this colorful world where those underlying themes become overarching emotions. immeasurably powerful.

another member of the dying gasp of the diegetic rhythm game subgenre along with space channel 5 pt. 2, gitaroo man showcases a young keiichi yano and his team at inis ltd. stretching the concepts previously established by parappa about as far as they could reasonably go. rather than simple call-and-response, gitaroo man attempts musical dialogue between combatants, where U1 and his opponent trade twos attempting to one-up each other with increasingly stylish licks. this isn't a strict memorization game or based in player improv; rather, each phrase is chosen from a pool of possible riffs that all conform to the same chord progression. the format requires a different level of player dexterity in adapting to new rhythms compared to many games of its ilk, and remains possibly the most fascinating aspect of the game design to this day.

the actual input method swaps between two modes: attack/charge and defend. in the former mode, U1 commands his axe via a series of tube-like notes that crawl across the screen that must be followed with the analog nub while simultaneously matching the rhythm with the face buttons. while unorthodox, this system perfectly captures that feeling of bending in a particularly wailing note or leaning into the whammy bar for that wobbly pitch. the defense system is straight-forward by comparison: simply press the corresponding face button as it flies towards the center of the screen. alternating between these two styles generally occurs primarily in the aforementioned random-phrase vamp for the majority of the song where you attempt to whittle down the enemy's health, though the game is smart about mixing up their inclusion so it never gets stale. there's both a full-attack and full-defend song out of the ten-song roster, as well as nuanced twists such as U1 having to dodge attacks in his non-gitaroo man form during the sanbone trio's song or a song change in the middle of the second-to-last fight. structurally the game never rests on its laurels, and instead makes an honest effort to keep the player continually invested throughout the experience.

being of its early vintage, it's easy to spot the cracks in gitaroo man's design unfortunately. it's hard for me to discern quite what the differences between the original ps2 version and this psp port are given that the former is finicky both via emulation and ESR, but my suspicion having read threads on the matter + anecdotal evidence from friends indicates that the directional input for the attack sections can be unfortunately sensitive. on the psp version I've always found it rather forgiving, which may be a byproduct of it controlling pretty smoothly with the nub. however, given that the notes constantly curve and that there aren't visual delineations between measures, it becomes difficult to ascertain the timing of the notes in this mode as the charts become more dense. this is manageable in the main story mode, but in the master mode it becomes utterly overwhelming and lays the limits of the engine clearly bare. the defend sections are relatively lax in comparison given how large the input windows are, but the psp's 16:9 screen makes the square and circle notes appearing from the sides visible far before the vertically-oriented triangle and cross notes, which unfortunately makes their order of arrival differ from their actual rhythmic order. again, not a real issue outside of master mode once you get a handle on each of the songs.

but the mechanics alone aren't what really sells this game, right? 326's scratchy character designs with their deranged spike teeth and determined droopy-eyed stares make the concept pop just from the cover; the gitaroo man outfit and its 70s alien prog color scheme with the winged helmet look so sick. the cutscenes as well jump so desperately from rapid-fire dubbed lines to printed mantras of both despair and honey-love back to wicked character transformations and unexpected left-turn boss fights. rarely has such a soundtrack been as effortlessly eclectic as this one: expect to switch from steady-as-she-goes hard rock to eurobeat to funk to ambient dub within just the first set of stages. far from focusing just on the squalls of cock/butt rock, lead composers/performers COIL (entirely unrelated to another even more viciously experimental duo from a different set of isles) twist U1's titular guitar into a vast landscape in sounds depending on what would benefit the current track, from delay-riddled murmurs to finger-picked flamenco. one of the bands I'm in used to play legendary theme as a warmup before practices; undeniably one of the freshest leads ever written. intro soft machine should've been playable. that riff sits so tall in my mind palace of slacker-y 90s indie guitar fuzz.

Truly legendary

If there was ever a game to refresh the jaded thoughts I have about gaming as a whole, it would be playing Gitaroo Man during a rainy friday afternoon. Even though it just happened, it'll be one of those memories I'll always remember of games I've played like playing the PlayStation 3 version of Skyrim during a snow day with nothing but fritos and a big gulp of Mountain Dew from 7-11.

The soundtrack has no right being as good as it is for a game like this along with experiencing U-1's journey especially despite the early 2000's anime movie vibes (which I really dig here) also somehow having some really great emotional moments that caught me off guard completely. The gameplay is really fun but can be pretty difficult along with the carpal tunnel you'll get after the final boss. Despite being two hours, it's full of raw emotion of the positive kind that it's hard to describe. When a game has a song called Legendary Theme and lives up to its name in spades, there's something special here.

I can go on in detail like I usually do about these games but sometimes less is truly more with something you really enjoyed. It's hard having confidence in yourself from my personal experience and it's always your worst enemy to the point a character will literally barrage you with the intrusive thoughts you have when you don't believe in yourself and despite all that managing to break though is something anyone should be proud of. A musical journey through the stars becoming who you can truly be.

Thank you, I won't give up yet.

A suprisingly amazing port of one of my favourite games.

Gitaroo Man is my favourite rhythm game and I can happily play it all the way through any time (which is also why I beat it the week before playing this, I only beat this because I was testing my psp after getting one). I hadn't played the PSP port and I can happily say that it's a great way to play, I prefer the PS2 version but theres very few differences, mostly that the og 4:3 fmvs are now cut off to fit the psp screen, and just a lower texture quality, but also it's not much of a issue and I was fine with it. I do think the control nub is actually a better way to play so if you find the ps2 version too hard maybe the PSP version would be easier. I will say that I actually died to the final level a few times, which I've never actually done before on any time I've played the ps2 version, which I'm not sure if it was just because my hand wasn't used to playing on a psp or if they made it harder but it's more than likely my fault more than anything.

The 2 new songs are pretty good also, but playing this also me kinda sad realising that there isn't a offical release of the cutscene music which sucks because it has different variations of the Legendary theme. Also just as always have to say that the OST is amazing, not a bad song in the game.

Stage 7 made me cry 🥲

Seriously difficult, especially in the back half. Ashamed to admit I save scummed my way through the final level - much like Contra Hard Corps (NTSC version) it gets really unforgiving to the point where quick saves became essential. Considering that I was playing on Easy/Normal, I can't imagine what the harder modes would be like, especially on emulation.

I love the vibe and style of this game, the character designs are offbeat and fun, the humor hit for me, and the music is fantastic. It's short but sweet, a great lil summer game.

Last night I both played and beat Gitaroo Man. Specifically "Gitaroo Man Lives", the port that was released for the PSP. This is a rhythm game, so take alot of the opinions from me regarding gameplay and difficulty a side of salt.

Overall I really ended up enjoying this game, I think I fuck with the aesthetic most of all. This game originally game out on the ps2, so this was during the weird cartoonish era of rhythm games, I think I can draw comparisons from games like Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy. I just really fuck with this games art and vibe.

When It comes too gameplay, I found it pretty easy to understand. It definitely feels like the difficulty kind of spikes during the 5th stage (The first encounter with Ben K), but I think I went through that stage enough to just kind of be ok with the difficulty. Nothing felt too unfair though, which is cool

The music is probably my favorite part of the game though. Some of the best standouts were "Flyin' to Your Heart" and both versions of the "Legendary Song"

Overall a good play. Would recommend.

Oh... Gitaroo Man

Em uma jornada curta com pegada shounen, Gitaroo Man faz um show em todas as ocasiões, divertidíssimo como jogo de ritmo, e até mesmo sua historinha que, apesar de pequena, transmite uma emoçãozinha linda com personagens bem carismáticos e pouco esquecíveis.

E claro não da pra falar de um jogo de Ritmo sem citar suas músicas, MEU AMIGO eu não tava dando nada pra setlist desse jogo mas ela é muito boa, tem Jazz tem reggae tem rock tem metal TEM UMA MISTURA LINDA e muito bem misturada, que nem aquela salada de fruta que tua mãe faz no natal.

Seus controles também são muito bons e funcionam bem pra caramba, é claro que eu tive uma certa estranheza porque eu nunca joguei um jogo de ritmo nessa pegada de Gitaroo Man, em que tu move com o analógico e aperta os botões pra pressionar suas notas, eu gostei, simples demais mas funciona muito bem, mas não confunda em.. to dizendo simples.. não fácil.

Ó, joguinho muito curto tu zera ai em uma horinha ou duas jogando no normal, então é um otimo jogo pra matar o tempo ou finalizar ali na manhã de um fim de semana.