Gitaroo Man Lives!

"A space musical with giant robots and laser guitar weapons? Hell yes."

Gitaroo Man! Finally a game about saving the world with nothing more than your robot dog, laser guitars and space dance outfits. Although a port of the PS2 title, Gitaroo man makes fantastic transition to the small screen.

Gitaroo Man is a strongly narrative based, music title. This gives the game a feeling like some sort of giant space musical. We follow the story of a young boy named U-1 on his quest to win the heart of the girl he loves. It's not your ordinary story of love though, as U-1 is actually the last of the legendary Gitaroo's. Once U-1 figures this out, it becomes his job to save Earth and the planet Gitaroo from the evil Gravillian empire. All this with nothing more than a laser shooting guitar and the help of a robot dog.

It might be your usual save the universe gig, but the gameplay makes this title anything but. The idea is to align the analog stick with a roaming thread on screen. Following the thread, you need to tap any of the face buttons when prompted to help Gitaroo Man laser his way through some intense musical fighting. You'll also need to employ some defensive maneuvers, taping the face buttons in correct timing with your enemies moves to dodge them. While it may sound like the game consists of just simple button presses, the game will throw you through plenty of loops and curves to disorient you. The defensive sections are easily the hardest parts of the game, and will probably take multiple plays to memorize. Besides, if you mess up to often you'll run out of health and lose the battle. It's simple sure, but it's also really fun.

Really though, the gameplay is just an excuse to watch some seriously kick ass battles take place. While you try your best to play along to the games musical score, the game plays out an entire story in the background while you play. From fighting axe demons, to killer skeleton maraca warriors, or even giant shark robots from space, the game has huge amounts of artistic zeal. Everything is timed to the key presses and music. The game is graphically fantastic. My only gripe is that in the later levels the threads and defense become so complicated that you won't have much time to be watching these awesome videos play out.

But the music! This is a music based game after all, so obviously the game is going to live or die by its score. It doesn't disappoint. There's all sorts of flavors of tracks strewn throughout the game. All of them are admittedly heavily guitar oriented though, and three of them are pretty vocal. But really, we've got techno, blues, hard rock, soft rock, mexican stuff... it's all there and full of charge. It's nice to know these are all totally original and were created specifically for the game as well.

All in all, Gitaroo Man is a tight package. There are a couple things that let the game just slide past the mark though. There is a multi-player option that uses all the games music tracks, but it doesn't have the background show playing with you. The two extra song battles included in the PSP version are nice (and complete with their own background show), but don't do much to extend the gameplay. And I gotta say, the gameplay is short. With only 10 levels, the game doesn't last for more than a couple hours. While it's likely you'll come back to the game more than once, it's still a shame the title is so short. Also, because of the now widescreen presentation, it's actually harder to see musical keys coming from the top and bottom of the screen. Because the game was designed for a standard TV set, you'll notice the top and bottom notes fly in much quicker, while you're given plenty of warning for the left and right hand ones.

Most of that is being nit-picky though. Gitaroo Man is one of the funnest, freshest music based titles I've played. The music is fantastic, the story is funny but charming, and the artistic direction is just awesome. Don't let the strange box art throw you off. Gitaroo Man is one of the best PSP titles out there, even if it is a port. Besides, where else are you going to battle deadly, maraca wielding skeletons and terrifying techno UFO's?

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/07