My personal 9/11 was finally playing this game on an emulator only to realize that the base game only has like 5 songs and that whole "you can play your own CDs" thing I had heard about wasn't just a cool gimmick but is, in fact, basically the whole point of the game.

Definitely gonna either buy the game on PS3 or find a way to have it work on an emulator because, of what little I did play, this game is incredibly unique and charming.

Unrelated but whenever I write a review saying I'll get back to a game later I imagine that I'll be back in like a month or 2 but more realistically I'll probably be unable to get it out of my head and just buy it on PS3 in like 3 hours (Edit: Yup!)

Hydrogen tanks or battery packs at will, C-pillars, 390 liters of cargo capacity, over five different four-cylinder engines available, 72 different sitting variations, and the pièce de résistance : the "sandwich structure", an inclined cabin floor that made the whole thing roomier and the car shorter than its competitors while providing more safety in the case of an accident.

The brand-new Mercedes-Benz A-Class W168 (first generation) only needed top-notch advertisement to go along with, and who else than Masaya Matsuura, game designer, but most importantly key member of Japanese quirky New Wave and Synthpop band PsyS was more suited to provide some ?

They had everything, from technological innovation to a racing/rhythm game from the game designer of PaRappa the Rapper, what could possibly go wrong ?

Uh...
It can't turn.

That car sucked so bad when it came to emergency maneuver NanaOn-Sha simply aborted the project and would go on turning it into Vib-Ribbon, a surreal rhythm game that unsurprisingly fits much more Masaya Matsuura's usual style, and was the bad press worth it.

Now, what might struck you at first when launching Vib-Ribbon is probably gonna be the minimalistic art direction, not only is it reminiscent of early (and most often for scientific purposes) computer graphics and provides great readability, but it also allows the game to be loaded entirely from the PlayStation's RAM, while such experimentations weren't anything new (see : the famous Banjo Tooie Stop n' Swop ), succeeding in them was much more of a rare thing,

By swapping the game disc with another music CD, the game will generate a whole stage based on the selected track.
How does it work ? Pretty easy, an obstacle is randomly generated whenever the track hits a pronounced frequency (note that this does not exclusively refer to either the drums or bass, as separating these frequencies was already a hard task for a game that had to fit in so little space, but it would also lead to very "bland" levels), which means you can play either your favorite songs or the most batshit insane stuff you could think of, making lots of rhythm games enjoyers' dream reality !

And it also works well with an emulator by simply turning your mp3 file into an iso one before switching between them, I tried it out with Ground Zero Revolutionary Pekinese Opera and Eliane Radigue's Trilogie de la Mort just to experience the full spectrum !
(I mean, there's even a video of Death Grips' Get Got, anything is possible).

Vib-Ribbon did not sell well at its release, but, unsurprisingly, quickly gained a cult following outside of Japan after it came out digitally for the PS3. Yeah, it might not have a lot going on outside of its fun gimmick, but come on, you can't tell me you're not even curious about it, at the very least for how adorable Vibri is.

Vib-Ribbon is definitely one of the simplest rhythm games ever made, but I'd say it's probably one of the most solid out there!

Its presentation is very simple. It's a black void with a vector graphics on it, but they managed to make it really charming, especially with the character you play as, Vibri.
She is a rabbit who's just having fun, and she's voiced in a similar manner to Vocaloids like Hatsune Miku, which add up to a very charming character.

Since this is a rhythm game, songs are one of the most important aspects of it, but I find it curious that there are only 6 songs, separated into 3 courses of 2.
They were composed by a band called Laugh & Peace, and they can be bizzare, but I'd say they're good songs. They were definitely made with the game's levels in mind, as there are parts where the song gets really slow or really fast.

But speaking of the gameplay, you only use 4 buttons on the controller. Each button corresponds to an obstacle on the course (i.e. R button for a loop), but there are also obstables that combine two obstacles, so you'll need to press both buttons at the same time.
It gets harder later on, but the timing for it always well made, and I had a lot of fun going through the stages!

And this brings me to, perhaps, the best aspect about this game.
Remember how I said the game only has 6 levels?
I lied.
So how many levels are there?

I N F I N I T Y.

Thanks to some great wizardy on NanaOn-Sha's part, the entire game is loaded onto the PlayStation's RAM, and with that, you can play any music CD you have, and it generates a level for you. And it's not random, too!
This provides the game with so much replay-value, and it could be considered a sort-of "physical DLC", if you will.

Overall, Vib-Ribbon is a very fun and charming rhythm game that I recommend everybody to check out!

Crumbled and bought it on PS3.

Extremely charming and likeable game and the whole playing your own CDs will never not be crazy to me, especially this early in the genre's life, but also there should really be more content in the base game and just generally wish it was a bit more polished.

I will never not love this game though like Vibri is literally the best character maybe ever