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.
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.