Gitaroo Man is different to most other rhythm games as it features a story. Yuichi (although everyone calls him U-1) is the hero in this crazy game. He’s a young male and, like any typical young males, wants to be recognised by people, especially a girl named Pico, who he just happens to be madly in love with. Following your introduction to the character at the start of the game you'll meet a talking dog called Puma, the story then gets more interesting as the canine, teaches U-1 to play a guitar (yes people, a dog teaching a boy how to play a guitar, who'd of thought) and it’s during this training stage that you learn how to play the game. U-1 also finds out he isn’t such a worthless lad as he has one of the eight legendary Gitaroo’s (or guitar's to the rest of us) in his posession. You soon come to learn that an evil Prince, and his henchman, are seeking all the Gitaroo’s so that he can take control of the universe (Muhahaha…)!

You take control of Yuichi and combat these baddies in musical duels. Both you and your opponent have a power bar at the top of the screen during these duels, and when one bar is empty the duel is over, and the player left standing wins (simple, eh?). The duels contain different phases, the first being the Charge phase, which allows you to increase your power, by playing the Gitaroo. The main chunk of the duel is the battle phase, which contains attack and guard, where you and the enemy take it in turns to kick out a solo and decrease the others health. If you survive long enough, you may reach the Final phase, where you go all out to finish your opponent off. The distinctive gameplay of Gitaroo Man, makes it quite unlike anything else in its genre.

The Charge, Attack and Final phases are all played out in exactly the same way, in which you simply follow the trace-line with the analogue nub, by holding it in the same direction as the moving line is heading on the screen. When a thick red bar reaches the centre of the screen, you then have to press your desired button to make your Gitaroo sing, holding your button down for the length of the bar. The Battle part of duel’s, sounds even easier but is actually quite a bit harder. You have to press the right button as it hits the centre of the screen; otherwise you’ll get slapped in the face and a touch of your health meter is depleted as a result of your carelessness.

As it’s a rhythm game, music is always a key factor of Gitaroo Man Lives!. And this game is packed full of various styles of music, and fortunately it’s all very catchy. A good feature is that the game comes included with a Jukebox option, which allows you to listen to any song that your ears have previously been treated to in the game.

Another feature is Collection, where you get to view items you’ve unlocked through Single-Player mode. These are just pictures, and bios for the Prince’s Henchmen and their “Weapons”.

Gitaroo Man is full to the brim of Japanese-style graphics, this means that anime-esque characters appear throughout. At first it may appear that there’s not much detail in the simple visuals, but if you look closely you can see that there is more than you think, for example people in the background will be doing random things.

A down side of this game is its loading times, as they happen to be quite sluggish, but waiting is certainly worth it, and once a level has loaded, you won’t be interrupted with loading screens again until you finish your tune and move onto another.

Overall, Gitaroo Man Lives! is a very fun and addictive game, the music is catchy, and the gameplay just makes things all the more hypnotising. If you are an aficionado of the Rhythm Action Genre, then this game is for you, you’re almost certain to fall in love with it.

Words by Kyle Sage