Legendary Theme.

That last level was so difficult. jesus christ

had to beat it basically three time because of the emulator.

Songs are fire. 9

this game is so incredibly soulful, so full of it. it has insane pacing, which completely helps to sell the games charm. the music in this game is insane and songs like the legendary theme have become some of my favourite video game songs immediately. especially the one i just mentioned, which is set up earlier in the game, comes back after a twist during the penultimate stage, and is then used to completely display the power of music in bringing people together, ending with the title drop the game deserves. i fucking suck at rhythm games and not once did i feel like i was struggling, even if the game needs pretty precise inputs


they dont make them like this anymore

Another part of my Obscure Games Recommendation List that is unfortunately going to go shelved for the time being.

This was recommended to me by Retyl and I appreciate the recommendation.

Gitaroo Man is a game that within just the past few weeks my friends have played and loved, but I honestly just can't get into it because of the massive difficulty spike at the beginning of the game.

I do not play rhythm games frequently, and even then they're more of your Guitar Hero/DDR adjacent type of games than Gitaroo Man's approach. The game teaches you the basics and gives you a first level that seems to fit with the level of skill a new player would have by that point, but the jump from the first level to the second is just so massive that yeah, I burned out quickly.

I am not a rhythm gamer nor am I good at this game and I'll accept that I'm not good, but I also have limits to how long I'm going to keep throwing myself at a brick wall and compared to other difficult games that I've played Gitaroo Man just isn't one I can keep justifying myself to keep playing.

It has a great aesthetic, and good vibes, but this is a rhythm gamer's rhythm game and I am a filthy casual in that regard.

I'm not gonna give it a score, I only got to Mission 4 before I got filtered. If you think you've got the skills to play Gitaroo Man, I'd say give it a shot, you'd probably make it farther than I did. I on the other hand, need to play something that doesn't raise my blood pressure.

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.

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.

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.

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