Just to warn anyone who hasn’t heard of this game before: Gitaroo Man is completely bonkers. It is a young-boy-done-good story gone mad, gifting a loser teenager called U1 with the power of rock and pitting him against ridiculously varied enemies in a journey across space in an effort to prove his worth and win the love of his girl. It has space sharks that turn into robots and then battle other robots with looping electronic reggae. It has dancing Mexican skeletons and a demon with a giant train and it ends with a huge, epic rock battle over land, sea and eventually space between two giant flying demon robots with guitars, one of which is on fire. It is a guitar-based rhythm-action game with awesome music, but it is also so much more than that. Gitaroo Man has character and spirit with which few games can even compete.

And now it’s here on the PSP, in much the same eclectic and delightfully bizarre form as on the PlayStation 2. We would have sold our own feet for a sequel, but a remake is better than nothing. It comes with a few new multi-player songs, a few peculiarly selective tweaks to the difficulty level and absolutely no other changes at all. Thankfully, it’s still untouchably fabulous in terms of its music and distinctiveness, and even in the wake of Guitar Hero its guitar-playing mechanics still hold up well. Gitaroo Man Lives! is comprised of the same ten stages as the original, each pitting you against a different insane musical enemy. When attacking, you’re following the line on-screen with the analogue nub and pressing Circle in time with the guitar riffs; when defending, it’s all about timed presses of the face buttons as your opponent tries to slaughter you with an awesome solo of their own. Musical styles vary wildly throughout the game, incorporating everything from a trumpet-playing spoof of BB King to hair metal to reggae, J-Pop and good old classic rock. Everyone will have a favourite track and if you’ve never played it before, the sheer triumphance of the game’s Legendary Theme will strike you right between the eyes and paint a huge smile on your face.

If you have played before, though, there’s no reason to buy it again. The new multi-player tracks aren’t anything like good enough to warrant the purchase, and because the other changes are negligible the only thing that you’ll really notice is this conversion’s one minor flaw: in Master mode, where the notes come thick and fast, the PSP screen’s comparatively low refresh rate and widescreen display can seriously inhibit your defensive abilities, as you can invariably see icons approaching from the left and right more easily than you can see those attacking from top and bottom. For new adopters, though, Master Mode won’t become a concern for a very long while, and this is as valid a rhythm-action purchase for your PSP as you could hope to make.

Kelly MacDonald