U-1 is an elementary school student with some self-esteem issues. He lets the overachieving Kazuya push him around, he can't get up the nerve to ask his classmate Pico out on a date, and his only friend is his talking dog, Puma. All that changes, though, when he discovers that within him resides the power of a great hero. Were this not a crazy Japanese rhythm game, this one would probably go on to be some lame superhero story. Luckily, U-1 is actually Gitaroo-Man, an intergalactic champion who battles his foes with the power of rock!

That's not a guitar...that's a gitaroo.

A kissing cousin of PaRappa the Rapper in more ways than one, Gitaroo-Man conveys a similarly feel-good, "believe in yourself" kind of message, which is wrapped up in a storyline that is more of a fever dream than a cohesive narrative. The whole thing is complemented by a unique rhythm mechanic. It seems that the evil alien race of Gravillians is making a bid for intergalactic supremacy, and it plans on doing so by collecting all of the gitaroos, ancient musical instruments of god-only-knows what kind of power. As the reluctant hero, you face a series of bizarre Gravillian warriors--Battle-of-the-Bands-style--in order to reclaim all of the gitaroos, save the universe, get the girl, believe in yourself, and so on. Despite being a somewhat awkward Japanese translation at times, Gitaroo-Man still has a surprising amount of emotional resonance, and it's hard not to get a little stirred up during some of the key moments later in the game.

Each opponent in your musical gauntlet rocked a different style of music, and each opponent was suitably bizarre. Your first encounter was with Panpeus, a little devil still in diapers, who used his axe gitaroo to slice through space and time to get right into your bedroom--he, of course, had a thing for fret-shredding heavy metal. After besting him, you faced off against Flying-O, a giant flying saucer that used the power of high-energy Japanese dance-pop to make people dance until they died. Next up was Mojo King Bee, a jazzy trumpet player wearing a bee suit, and then there was the giant hammerhead space-shark, and then, well, things just kept getting weirder from there. It's probably not accurate to call the music in Gitaroo-Man well rounded. But by going from a spaced-out reggae beat to an acoustic love ballad to a fevered salsa beat, it at least qualifies as eclectic.

While most rhythm games make the challenge a sort of metaphorical fight, in Gitaroo-Man you were literally using the power of rock as an offensive weapon, and the game had some interesting mechanics for the actual fight. When playing your gitaroo, you would use the left analog stick to follow a line that would snake around the screen, all the while tapping the circle button in time with cues that lay on top of the line. When your opponent came back at you, the gameplay would shift, and you would have to dodge attacks by tapping the controller's face buttons as they flew toward the center of the screen. It was an odd combination, but using the analog stick gave you the sense that you really were playing some alien musical instrument, and the patterns of your enemies' attacks became insanely intricate in later stages.

Little dog sold separately.

But even beyond its quirky premise, eclectic soundtrack, and unique gameplay mechanics, Gitaroo-Man's most striking feature was its art style. Though the visuals were all polygonal, its aesthetics were firmly rooted in an unusually arty, hand-drawn style. So, instead of giving characters facial details, everything was made to look drawn on. Though it certainly wouldn't be mistaken for your typical anime, there was a surreal playfulness to the art style in Gitaroo-Man. For example, although the game never acknowledged them, there was a nameless backup band that followed Gitaroo-Man through the cosmos, and they were inexplicably dressed up in animal suits.

Gitaroo-Man was a boldly unique endeavor upon its release, and there's still nothing quite like it. Though it may not have had the impact of some of the other games on this list, Gitaroo-Man had a cohesive and uncompromising vision that still holds up today.

--Ryan Davis, Associate Editor

He gave me this Gitaroo. Give Us Your Review of Gitaroo-Man!