Despite my repeated assertions that I don't "get" music and that I have all the rhythm of a boulder, I again tried to play an early 2000s rhythm game. See, my good pal Larry Davis holds Gitaroo Man in pretty high regard (we met in a penal colony and have matching prison tattoos of Puma), but I've never given it much thought. That is until I picked up a PS2 and realized I could finally play this - and other games like Parappa the Rapper 2 - without emulation-induced input lag.

However, even with lag out of the equation, Gitaroo Man is an incredibly precise game that is built for more talented people than I. Following "trace lines" while tapping buttons to the beat of the song just doesn't come easy to me, and some of the late game tracks (the Sanbone Trio in particular) are challenging regardless of my own personal shortcomings. I spent a whole afternoon trying to clear that stage, and although I was too weak to clear the subsequent fight against Gregorio, I still consider this an accomplishment.

To cut myself a little slack here, I don't think all of this is on me. There are some large and very abrupt difficulty spikes that will trip up new players, even those who are more experienced with early-aughts rhythm games. I was also playing with a third-party controller that came with my PS2, and I can't pretend to know if the dead zone on the analog stick is any different from a first party pad, though the game is good about locking you onto a trace line roughly 20 degrees relative to where it appears. Still, anytime it twisted around I found myself struggling to keep the analog aligned. I feel like I need to play this game with one of those robots used for micro-surgery...

Which is why I called in a ringer. A Gitaroo Man surrogate. Larry Davis was kind enough to stream the game for me over Discord, allowing me to see everything past Gregorio III, and witness what it looks like to play Gitaroo Man competently. Did you know if you actually hit all the notes you can hear a full song? Crazy, I know!

Leaning back and watching someone else play did at least give me a better appreciation for what Gitaroo Man is going for tonally and narratively. The acoustic Legendary Theme U-1 plays for Kirah is much better when U-1 doesn't immediately start hitting every note out of time like he's never held a guitar in his entire life, and it was nice being able to drink in all the action happening behind the trace line. However, I do feel I missed out somewhat by not being able to experience the penultimate battle with Kirah, during which the Legendary Theme is reprised to a very effective degree. I am glad I at least got to see the rest of Gitaroo Man, though, and being able to see the final fight against Zowie was all the proof I ever needed that I am physically incapable of finishing the game. Lary is a wizard on the X's and O's and was able to do it on a freaking emulator. They say God gave him a gift, but I think he made a deal with the Devil...

Gitaroo Man is delightful. The music is great, it's aesthetics are beyond charming, its story has a lot of heart, and the gameplay is fun as hell despite some uneven difficulty pacing. If you aren't lame and actually know your way around a beat and did not previously suffer from tendonitis that you are still experiencing the longterm effects of, then I think you should give it a shot.

Shelved because I do see myself messing around with it some more in the future, but I also do not expect to ever beat it. That's fine. I can just play the tutorial over and over and pretend I'm a real Gitaroo Man. Got a B rank on that. Pretty impressive!

Reviewed on May 01, 2023


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