Gitaroo Man Lives! (PlayStation Portable, 2006)

The good: Gitaroo Man Lives (GML) is a rather successful port of my personal favorite PS2 games to the PSP. It maintains all the songs and multiplayer features of the original and even added a few new ones. A new "Duet Mode" has been added to the multiplayer section where two players can fight together to defeat one NPC in two new songs. Both new songs are catchy and in keeping with the rest of the soundtrack. Also added is a new "Jukebox" section. The original game used the rumble feature of the PS2 controller to alert the player of mistakes as well as not playing back the missed note in the music. To compensate for the lack of rumble on the PSP the developer added two audio/video ques. When a note is missed, the screen shakes and the character yells out an ooh, ah, ugh, etc.. I found this to be a very suitable solution to the problem.

The bad: To be honest, there is little to criticize about this title (The length of this section is due to the technical nature of the issues). Still, there are a few quirks present which undoubtedly stem from the fact that GML is a port, not a game developed specifically for the PSP. The most noticeable of these is that when playing in "Attack Mode" you may notice a certain amount of screen tear. It is minor and doesn't really affect gamplay, but fans of the original title who are used to the smooth rendering of the guide line will likely take notice. In "Guard Mode" it becomes obvious that little was done to convert the game from it's original 4:3 aspect ratio to its new widescreen format on the PSP. The triangle and X button paths have simply been cut short making the time you have to see them before they reach the center is significantly shorter than the square and circle paths. This may affect your timing during complex combos but only takes a bit of time to adjust to. Also as an effect of the conversion from 4:3 to widescreen, the cutscene sequences in single player have simply been cropped to fit. This is really only noticeable during the few scenes where text is presented at the top and bottom of the screen and the very top/bottom of the letters are cut off. Not a big deal and the text is still very readable. The last thing I would like to touch on is the implementation of the multiplayer. GML uses the wifi feature on the PSP for multiplayer. This is great but the developer failed to give you the option to turn off the wifi while playing multiplayer against the computer. This is a problem because the two new songs are both only playable in multiplayer in duet mode. Not being able to turn off the wifi while in duet mode means you will use battery to power the wifi antenna even though you don't need it. Also, GML is some what of a "cult classic" in the sense that it is a great game few are likely to own, and for it not to take advantage of the game sharing feature of the PSP is definitely disappointing. This means that in order to actually play against a friend in multiplayer both players must own a copy of the game.

Other Thoughts: I should also note that the song "Flyin' to your Heart" from the Flying O level has received a translated version by the original artist for the PSP version. Whether this was a good or bad thing is up to you but as a huge fan of the original and Jpop in general I can tell you that it is a very good version and faithful to the original. All things considered, GML is a very good title and a must own for for fans of the original as well as fans of quirky Japanese games.

The graphics and animation in this game was suprising to me, its excellent. Its an easy game to pickup and learn but also has enough heft in the gameplay to become increasingly difficult. You play the guitar to beat evil bosses using the directional buttons and the toggle stick. You move the toggle with your left thumb to follow a song line and press a directional button to play it as you follow the line. When a boss plays his guitar it throws damage your way. In order to deflect it, a series of directional button patterns will come up and you hit the buttons as the show up. Similar to Parappa the Rapper. The songs are cute as j-pop can be and it should be a hit for anyone liking music games. It was for me seeing as I already own the Guitar Hero games for the Wii and DS!

This is a great game. I would like to see this style of play in a guitar hero game.
visuals:5/5
controls:5/5
story:4/5
voice acting/translation:2/5
overall:5/5
This is a great little game. I saw a video from it a ways back and I was not disappointed upon receiving it. The psp screen is perfect in its detail if not in its aspect ratio. The controls are simple but that's necessary for the speed necessary on higher difficulties than easy. The story seems a bit silly but that's partly because it loses something in the translation. The same goes for the vice acting. The voices are the standard crappy American voice actors imitating children and the translation is kind of ham-handed but that only matters between songs during cutscenes.
This game is worth up to twenty dollars. Any higher and you should be looking elsewhere.

Direct port of PS2 game. Probably better suited for handheld. The PS2 version was very hard. PSP gets an easy setting- this is a very good thing! Geat Music and Whimsical Graphics, Simple, Elegant controls, Rockin gameplay!

Very fun to play and definitely an overlooked PSP game that is very interactive and should be one of the top games on the system.