Collection essentials #479: Gitaroo-Man (PS2)

In the early 2000s, rhythm games were growing in popularity. A fairly new company called iNiS was about to take a stab at making their own original rhythm game, which would be their first of many. And instead of originating in arcades and/or having some kind of peripheral resembling a musical instrument, this game would be developed strictly for the PlayStation 2 and would be played only with a standard controller. The result is this game, “Gitaroo-Man”, which hit shelves in 2001 in Japan and then 2002 in other regions. 

Gitaroo-Man is an unusual rhythm game in a lot of ways. For one thing, it is a story-based game. Normally in a rhythm game, you simply pick whatever song you like and play it trying to get the best score, and there’s no story or dialogue to be found. But you can’t do that in Gitaroo-Man. Instead, you have to progress through the game’s 10 levels in order, and only after clearing a level can you freely choose it. There are cutscenes before and after each one, and the story plays out in the middle of levels, too, so you can’t fully escape it.

So what is this story that you can’t escape? Well, first I want to note that there is plenty of “Japanese quirkiness” in this game, meaning there’s a touch of bizarre and whimsical, and things that don’t make sense and aren’t fully explained. You play as a kid named U-1 (why the odd name? Who knows?) who is a kid that seems a little uncool. He’s got a love interest, and also a much-cooler bully who never misses a chance to put him down. U-1 has a talking dog named Puma. One day, a little demon randomly attacks U-1 in his room, prompting Puma to transform into some sort of robotic form and then hurl a special guitar called a “Gitaroo” at U-1, which transforms him into a cooler-looking, older-looking hero in a cool getup. The Gitaroo is both an instrument and a weapon, and U-1 has to successfully play music to attack and defeat the demon. Later, Puma informs U-1 that he’s of the Gitaroo-Man bloodline (and no, there are no parents around to confirm or deny this). He soon learns of an evil space empire which he must, of course, thwart. The game’s pretty short, so the story isn’t really fleshed out and not something you’d play the game for. It’s more to add a little extra charm, which it does.

Many rhythm games feature already-existing music, but Gitaroo-Man’s soundtrack is entirely original, created with the assistance of a Japanese band named COIL. It’s not an especially big soundtrack, but the tracks are generally quite different from each other and don’t feel “samey” at all. There’s a high chance that at least one of this game’s songs will get stuck in your head, which is always a good thing.

The gameplay of Gitaroo-Man is designed as a sort of “versus mode”, pitting two musicians against each other with the goal of draining the other’s health bar down to zero. At the start of the match is typically a “charge phase” where you play notes in order to build up your health meter as much as you can. Then, for the main part of the song, you alternate between “attack” and “guard”. If your health goes down to zero, you lose on the spot, but that’s not true for your opponents. Instead, when their health gets down to a certain part, the “final phase” of the song triggers after the end of the current section, and you’ll have to survive the notes of that phase in order to finish them off.

There are two different ways that gameplay works; one is for charge, attack and final, while the other is only for guard. The former involves tilting the joystick in the required direction and then pressing the O button with proper timing on the notes when they reach the center of the screen. For the guard phase, the analog stick is not used, and instead, enemy notes will come towards the center of the screen from each of the four cardinal directions, and you must press the corresponding face button when it reaches the center to avoid taking damage.

There’s a really cool gameplay feature in Gitaroo-Man that may not be immediately obvious. That is, the songs are somewhat randomized each time you play. For the attack and guard portions of a song, there are a variety of verses that can appear, and they are selected somewhat randomly! Some verses are clearly more common than others, so sometimes you may be thrown off by a rare verse that you’ve possibly never seen. Perhaps this can be frustrating for some, but I like the fact that you can’t simply 100% memorize a song and win that way. It keeps you on your toes and forces you to react well, and it also adds replay value.

It won’t take the average gamer very long to finish the main story mode, as it’s pretty short. However, once you do, you’ll unlock “Master’s Play”, and this is where the game REALLY begins. Master’s Play is another run through story mode with the same cutscenes, only the songs are MUCH more challenging, with far more notes to contend with and often with little room for error. You really need to learn to rapidly push buttons effectively to have any hope this time around. It will likely take a lot of practice and a lot of losing to clear this mode. But boy, it is SO satisfying when you do, and it’s a lot of fun to play the songs once you’ve mastered the game well enough to beat them consistently.

As it should, Gitaroo-Man also features a two-player mode! This is cool because one of the players gets to play as Gitaroo-Man’s opponent, meaning they experience gameplay that’s not in the single-player portion of the game! That’s pretty neat, but unfortunately this isn’t the best multiplayer game in the world, because cutting the screen in half is pretty awkward. Suddenly notes coming in from the sides of the screen don’t show up as quickly as those from top and bottom, and that’s not ideal. Also, multiplayer doesn’t have access to the “Master’s Play” difficulty level of songs. Granted, they might have been a bit too hard with the screen cut in half. But at least having the option would have been nice. 

There are definitely criticisms to be had with Gitaroo-Man. Most notably, you can’t help but feel like there should have been more meat on the bones. 10 stages in the entire game simply isn’t enough to be considered one of the best rhythm games ever, no matter how you slice it. That’s especially rough if you’re not up for the steep challenge of Master’s Play (though if you are, the high difficulty might eat up a good amount of time due to how much practice it takes). Since the songs have a variety of randomly-selected segments, it would have been really neat to see an unlockable mode where you could choose which ones appear. I love Master’s Play, but I’m sure many gamers would find it overly frustrating and too much of a difficulty spike. I think probably a third difficulty level in between the two could have been appropriate. And as I mentioned before, multiplayer lacks the ability to select song difficulty. However, despite problems like these, Gitaroo-Man feels to me like something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a charming, addictive and memorable experience to the right gamer.

Gitaroo-Man received a remake of sorts a few years later on a handheld system that I haven’t mentioned yet, under the title “Gitaroo-Man Lives!” Initially I was excited to see Gitaroo-Man brought back, but when I tried this port….bleeeech, it leaves a lot to be desired. The game doesn’t work well on a portable screen, or in widescreen in my opinion (unless maybe you’re talking about multiplayer). Plus, they significantly toned down the difficulty of Master’s Play, which takes away a lot of the game’s appeal for me personally. The graphics are worse too. It does have a couple new songs for multiplayer, which is nice, but PS2 is definitely the way to go.

As for my history with this game, I believe I first heard about it while watching the TV channel G4techTV (a channel I was really into back then). I thought it looked pretty cool. At some point I got wind on the internet that it was a really rare game that was going for high prices on eBay, which was pretty unusual to see with a game on a current-generation console. Turns out, Gitaroo-Man received an extremely low print run in America at first. I used gamestop.com’s store locator feature to see which ones had the game in stock since they sold the game for only $20, and I think when I first checked there were two (out of very many) that had the game within 200 miles of where I lived. I would check back regularly, and eventually one popped up in Natick, Massachusetts, which was over an hour’s drive away but the closest I had seen up to that point. I was only 15 so I couldn’t drive out there myself. But luckily, my awesome dad drove out there to grab it for me! The one shown in the photo is the very same copy, which I’ve had for 20 (!!) years now. Due to demand, near the end of that year the game got a reprint, so it became more widely available and eBay prices came down. But the reprint wasn’t terribly big either, so nowadays the game is still one of the harder PS2 games to find. And sadly there hasn’t been a port to any modern platforms.

I played the heck out of Gitaroo-Man. Master’s Play kicked my butt, but I was just determined to beat it and tried over and over again. Eventually, after a great deal of death, I did it!! The seventh level (Sanbone Trio) is especially difficult, and I actually captured my first time beating it on a VHS tape, which I still have. Once I beat Master’s Play, I was able to beat all the levels very consistently, which was super satisfying. I used to replay them all the time just for the fun of it.

If you like rhythm games, Gitaroo-Man is definitely one that you ought to try, especially if you enjoy a challenge. I definitely wouldn’t call it one of the top games in the genre, but it still manages to stand out as something different and fresh after all these years, and it holds a special place in my heart. It’s definitely a standout PS2 game and a worthy essential in my collection.

“Aaaah, Gitaroo-Man! Ooooh yeeeeeah!”