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.

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.

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 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

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

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.

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.

Gitaroo Man Lives! may be both the strangest rhythm game I have ever played and the strangest game I have ever played period. This weirdness, however, is not at all a detriment and is really just a part of the Gitaroo Man Lives! Experience.

Gitaroo Man Lives! is a 2006 port of the 2001 PS2 game Gitaroo Man. While both games follow the same plot, Gitaroo Man Lives! adds local Ad-Hoc multiplayer, a new duet mode, and more difficulty options. The main character of the game is a young boy named U-1. He is constantly picked on by his rival Kazuya and tries desperately to gain the affection of his crush Pico. One day, as U-1 is suddenly attacked by a diaper wearing demon named Panpeus, his loyal talking canine Puma sheds his skin and gives U-1 the last Gitaroo he’s been storing in his body. Upon taking the Gitaroo in his hands, U-1 is transformed into the legendary warrior Gitaroo Man and the wild ride of this game really begins.

Throughout the ten stages of the game, both U-1 and the opponent have a life bar, with the player being tasked with depleting the opponent's life bar and reaching the end of the song without dying. Nearly every level consists of four main phases; Charge, Attack, and Guard, followed by an ending phase called Final. During the Charge, Attack, and Final phases, a line containing red strum bars will curve across the screen. The player must use the PSP analog stick to follow along with the line while holding down and releasing one of the four face buttons at the start and end of each red strum bar. During the Charge phase, strumming the notes successfully restores U-1’s health, whereas in the Attack and Final phases, successfully strumming notes damages the opponent. Missing notes of course causes damage to U-1. During the Guard phase, the player must tap corresponding buttons as they reach the center of the screen to avoid the opponent’s onslaught of musical attacks. Dodging successfully will yield little to no damage to U-1, while failing will result in U-1’s health taking a hit. This control scheme can honestly take some getting used to and is a bit strange compared to other rhythm games. It also makes the game incredibly difficult to master and even beat on the Normal difficulty. I failed several times during the later stages and suffered a couple of hand cramps along the way.

Each of the ten stages in this game are an absolute trip. While normal human characters in the game can lean too hard into the uncanny valley for me personally, the bosses of each stage have fantastic designs that are all interesting and unique. You will face everything from the aforementioned diapered demon, to a mariachi band of bones, a space shark, and even the current ruler of Planet Gitaroo. There are small custcenes between each stage to tell the story of the game, but don't expect a Triple A experience here. While the animation work is fine for a port of a 2001 game, the voice acting for every character is a bit off and doesn’t sync up well to the mouth moving animations. This is only a tiny gripe and doesn't effect the gameplay or overall experience whatsoever.

Gitaroo Man Lives! is a fantastic, if not short, rhythm game for the PSP that has stood the test of time. It is both fun and challenging, while also telling a compact story that will have you smiling from start to finish. Just be warned, if you decide to play this game prepare for a difficult yet fun and wacky experience.