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Gitaroo Man is a game that could only have been made by people with a deep, deep love of music. But it's not just a love: it's an innate understanding of tone, of rhythm, of melody, of feel, and how the very best songs combine all that into something wonderful. Little wonder that voice on the title screen breathes the name of its hero with a sigh of pleasure that approaches post-coital bliss. Ahh, Gitaroo Man.There's pleasure, too, in the telling of its story, a familiar but uplifting tale of an underdog triumphing again the odds. It's about a shy, awkward guy beating the bullies to win the affection of the girl he loves, wrapped in a surreal adventure that sees him use a strange guitar-like instrument to save a race of intergalactic music-lovers from the evil Gravillians.
It wasn't the first time a rhythm-action game had narrative trappings, of course - and its debt to PaRappa The Rapper is obvious - but the music is married to the story with real skill. A fairly straightforward J-Rock battle leads into pulsing, urgent synths denoting an alien invasion, but it's level three where things get really good with a wonderfully funky guitar-trumpet duel with Mojo King Bee.
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