Music is essential to any good video game; playing in the background whilst helping weave the narrative and action around it. But what about when the music takes centre stage and becomes the main focus of your game time? Well then my friend you’ve got yourself a music game.
One important thing to note is that this list will feature no Guitar Hero of Rockband games. Whilst they may be music games and they may have popularized the genre to astronomical levels in my opinion they’re just not as good, or as fun, as the games in this list.
PaRappa the Rapper – 1996 PS1
PaRappa the Rapper is a rhythm video game developed by NanaOn-Sha
One of, if not, the most influential of all rhythm games PaRappa takes you to a world where all everyday dilemmas can be solved by rapping whilst popularizing the idea of tapping buttons to music. Honestly it’s a pretty difficult game to get the prestigious “U Rappin Cool” but the colourful characters and surreal storyline keep you hooked into playing it until the end, or until you get Cheap Cheap chicken and realize it shouldn’t be this difficult to make a cake!
Gitaroo Man – 2001 PS2
Gitaroo Man is a rhythm video game developed by iNiS and published by Koei for PlayStation 2
Visuals are a big point of any game and with Gitaroo Man they one of the major selling points. Illustrated by Japanese artist Mitsura Nakamura (326) it looks just as stunning as it did when it came out, mixed with talking dogs and stories of Planet Gitaroo and you’ve got a game that’s both interesting in looks and in narrative. It also took the basics of timing button presses to the music and added the use of the controllers’ analog sticks making it a much more frenetic experience.
Theatrhrythm Final Fantasy – 3DS 2012
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is a rhythm video game, developed by indieszero and published by Square Enix for Nintendo 3DS and iOS.
Final Fantasy games have some of the most recognizable and beautiful musical scores throughout all entertainment media, this is in no small part thanks to the work of Nobuo Uematsu and his work on the series. Imagine then a rhythm game where you not only get to listen to renditions of practically every Final Fantasy score but also get to watch as chibi versions of your favorite characters parade across the screen.
Bust a groove – 1998 PS1
Bust a Groove is a hybrid music/fighting video game for the Sony PlayStation released in 1998.
Another game taking the basic ideas of Parappa the Rapper and adding a twist to it. Bust a Groove took rhythm gaming and added elements of fighting games into the mix, and let me tell you that was a great idea. Pitting you in a one on one break dancing duel against your opponent whilst the music gets more and more intense until you dance well enough to unleash your devastating secret super move is something that will never get old in my eyes.
Donkey Konga – 2004 GameCube
Before the likes of Guitar Hero and Rockband introduced us to plastic guitars we had one gorilla teaching us to earn bananas by wailing plastic bongos, and it was a lot more fun. Featuring a wealth of hilarious unlicensed classics it allows you to live out your fantasies of being good at playing bongos during a song with no bongos in it. The main thing though is just how franticly fun it is setting you into a wild panic of clapping and banging whenever the music speeds up.
So here you have my list of the best music games of all time, unfortunately I had to leave out such gems as Rez, Vib Ribbon, Patapon and Samba Di Amigo but so is the downfall of using a list based system. I suggest anyone who reads this makes the effort to play at least one of the games on this list and let all the stress of everyday life fade away as you become one with the rhythm.
Author: Hal, Plymouth store
