Music is the universal language of the world. Despite some cultural influences and differences, we all enjoy music in various forms and genres. No matter where in the world you’re from, music is a common ground for all humanity. So it’s no surprise then, that music and rhythm games are incredibly popular around the world.
The music/rhythm game is a multi-million selling genre both because of its universal appeal and the fact that the games are generally relatively easy to develop. No matter your age or level gaming expertise, the simplicity of most games in the genre mean you can jump straight in and enjoy, making them a firm favourite for parties and gatherings. There are so many to choose from, but here’s 10 of the best music/rhythm games of all time – in our humble opinion anyway…
10. Parappa the Rapper
Coming from the creative mind of Masaya Matsuura, Parappa the Rapper involves a cartoon animal rapper, with simple gameplay that required you to press the button matching the on-screen prompt. What this game did well however, was letting you improvise by adding additional notes of your own in the middle of other notes. If you kept your timing and got enough notes in the song, you could improve your score dramatically, and enter a zen-like mode where the music video became very animated and fantastical.
9. Vib Ribbon
Another PlayStation classic, Vib Ribbon let you load the game onto the PS1’s ram, and then swap the game disc for any music CD of your choice and play a course that was set to your chosen song. The course was generated from the music data, and the shape of the course would change depending on how complex the song was.
Of course, Vib Ribbon had some songs pre-loaded to save you the trouble of having to already own a few interesting music CDs beforehand, but the ability to use your own music was a great novelty.
