Vib-Ribbon

The original PlayStation has some truly underrated gems that no one talks about, games like Tail Concerto, Tomba, Devil Dice, and especially Klonoa (trust me, I'll get to that one soon enough). Vib-Ribbon used to be one of those games, but it's started to have a bit of a resurgence this past year, and a pretty well-deserved one at that.

Vib-Ribbon is a game made by NanoOn-Sha, the same company who has made the much more well-known Parappa The Rapper series. Similarly to Parappa, this is a quirky rhythm game with a unique art style, in this case being mostly composed of straight geometric lines. The goal of the game is to get the main character Vibri, the cute rabbit character you see below, to the end of each song by dodging obstacles to the beat of the music. Each obstacle is tied to its own button, which you have to press to evade it, and later songs start to combine obstacles together and desync the course to make things a bit tougher. It's a simple concept for a rhythm game, but one that works quite well as long as you're able to remember which buttons correspond to which obstacle.

But the real charm in Vib-Ribbon comes in the visuals and the music. All six songs in this game are these experimental tracks by a band called Laugh And Peace, each more difficult than the last. The music won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I found all of the songs to be pretty energetic and catchy. As for the visuals, despite the minimalistic art style, the clean blend between 2D and 3D visuals holds up surprisingly well compared to most PlayStation games. And then there's Vibri, the main protagonist of the game. Vibri is easily one of the cutest video game characters of all time, she's expressive, cheery, and has this adorable automated voice that feels like an early version of Vocaloid. And if you make a mistake, Vibri lets out a heartbreaking screech of pain that makes you feel bad, just as an extra incentive to play better.

 Come on, isn't Vibri adorable?

As for replay value, that's probably this game's biggest issue. Vib-Ribbon only has three difficulties, with two songs each, totaling only six different songs. While the sheer difficulty of some of the later songs might mean the game takes a while to fully complete, and the presence of high scores can incentivize you to keep trying to improve, there isn't too much here... at least unless you're playing on an actual PlayStation (which I wasn't). If you load a custom CD into the PlayStation, the game will autogenerate a level based on whatever is on the CD! This basically gives you an endless amount of levels to play, whether it's preexisting songs or your own audio. If you're playing this game on an emulator or don't have any CDs anymore, Vib-Ribbon will be pretty low on content, but if you are able to access this mode, the possibilities are nearly endless.

And that's Vib-Ribbon, an underrated rhythm game with a simple but effective gameplay loop, a unique soundtrack, and one of the most charming protagonists in all of gaming. The amount of content on offer may depend on how you're playing the game, but I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if you're a rhythm fan.

4/5 Stars