Guitar Hero and Harmonix | Genuine passion 

My fave bit about RB's character creator was the fact they let you order action figures of your custom characters online. Like they were pricey as hell but it's a super cute function, kinda like the Jackbox games would do later with Tee KO shirts.

Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock will always be my favorite rhythm game. But I get where your coming from with Rock Band. Harmonix definitely put more passion into their games but in the innocent beginnings of Guitar Hero, they just wanted to rock out. I got respect for Rock band but I've just always been a Guitar Hero.

Great retrospective man. Glad to see someone covering harmonix in this way

A huge shame to see guitar rhythm games come and go so quickly. Would be cool to see them make a comeback one day.

guitar hero 3 was not only my childhood, but also reminds me of a time where i was full of friends, i was the only one able to play on expert using the joypad (i was bad with the guitar-thing)... now i'm pratically alone, but thank you for this video essay about the serie, it was a fun ride! never played rocksmith nor rockband tho, but i also LOVED dj hero, the plate-controller was so cool and the songs very good.

Great Video. What I like about Rock Band it was the only video game that brought my family together. When everyone including me came home from school. We would Rock out to are favorite instruments. Seeing a smile on my mothers face was just heart warming. Thirteen Years later some times I come over to see my parents and my siblings and play Rock Band 4. With the inclusion of all of are DLC songs we ever bought. ( Minus some we wish we bought.) Rock Band just brings people together. I hope it never dies.

Man you didn't have to diss Guitar Hero: On Tour, that was the absolutely crazy idea of Vicarious Visions that they put their ass on the line for, I know it looks like a cheap version that'll break your hands now but it was made specifically for kids like me who loved the series but only had a DS and it truly captured the fun of the originals with a great setlist for it's first game (haven't played the other two)

I prefer Rock Band over Guitar Hero completely, but DJ Hero is actually an amazing series. It's so underrated.

The Pro Keys Mode in RB3 genuinely got me into learning how to play Keyboard. I think another aspect that you sort of touched on slightly was that Harmonix's setlist decisions were far more inspired than Guitar Hero. Often they'd try to pick songs that weren't just well known but were actually fun to play. They apparently cut out Billy Idol's Rebel Yell from the first Rock Band's main setlist because after play testing it they realized it was too repetitive. Like in Rock Band 1 they could've easily just picked "Dance Dance" as the Fall Out Boy song but instead they put in "Dead on Arrival" because it has a killer drum part and an actual guitar solo. Thanks to Harmonix I've discovered bands and songs I never knew existed prior, like Green Grass and High Tides.

So this is a small detail but it ment so much, I loved rock band 3 because it allowed you to have a stand in for the singer when playing solo, so when the song switched from male singer to female singer, the female member in the band would switch with the default singer.

My favorite comparison is that The Beatles Rock Band has the famous rooftop concert with actual, real life onlookers and pedestrians accurately recreated for crowd shots and Guitar Hero Metallica doesn't acknowledge Cliff or Jason ever existed.

I still consider Rock Band 2 the greatest in the series and the greatest game of this genre. Best song list, best campaign mode (although RB3’s cutscenes were dope and RB4’s mockumentary series was great), best character animations, best venues/stages, etc. I love Rock Band 3 and 4, but they seriously watered down the character animations and made the characters feel lifeless in comparison. I also didn’t like that they removed venue selection. In Rock Band 2 the campaign felt more immersive with how each venue was tied to a specific city. But in 3 and 4, you can’t even choose venues in the quick play mode, and the campaign just repeats the same venues for multiple cities. I really loved how in the first two games, each city in the campaign had unique stages to play at. Made the game feel more authentic then going to New Hampshire or Miami and playing in the exact same club Stockholm had. Instrument customization for characters was watered down too. I actually loved Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock. I wish GH would make a genuine back to basics return to its roots. Rock Band’s gameplay keeps getting better, but I wish it would have as much aesthetic immersion and care into creating venues and character customization as the first two games. I was sad that the extensive instrument and face paint customization was watered down in RB4. I also miss the old Rock Band website where you could list song requests in your profile and upload photos of your characters.

What a blast from the past! I remember playing both series a ton. I'm almost glad that the 360 didn't keep track of your playtime, because I'm pretty sure I spent way too much time playing these series.

Great video as always, keep up the great work man!

Great video as always! Made my night!

Amazing nostalgic trip of a video!❤ thanks for uploading it man

Oh man, what an excellent video! I've always held Harmonix and Rock Band at such high regards. So many of my own thoughts and feelings about this whole ordeal is covered in this video, it really speaks to me. Great work!

I didn't play much guitar hero (mostly played rockband) but my brother and my older cousins played a lot of this. Pretty much everyday after highschool they would play it in my brothers room.

I really appreciate this; I was very much on the Guitar Hero side of the divide, up until Aerosmith and then borrowing my friend's drumkit for PS3's world tour and deciding I'd had my fill. It was really nice to get an insight into what Harmonix were doing with Rock Band, which I had no experience with outside of the PSP game (an RB-themed return to Frequency mechanics) and now I wish I had dipped my toe in that pool back in the day. Awesome work!

I started to follow this franchise after I started playing GH1 in 2005. I got GH2 for my birthday. I still love GH and RB franchise up to this day and playing. It sucks both of them fell so quickly because of saturation. Harmonix is still struggling sell controllers because there's no manufactures. I'm glad custom songs exist for GH and RB games.

Happy to see you cover Guitar Hero!!

Awesome retrospective!

The funniest thing to me about videos covering Guitar Hero/Rockband is that one of the most defining parts of the franchises, the music, is totally unusable in anyway because of licensing. It's so hilariously sad. I couldn't help but a feel some sense of corporate resentment with the midi tracks as work arounds (totally a smart way to do it though!) Great video though it's not often these games are talked about in such a meaningful way. My best friend at the time and I spent an INSANE amount of time playing these games and it was always so great that unlike Guitar hero where you had to lug around 6 different games and switch to one just to play that one really fun song, all we needed was one disc to play all of our Rockband songs. I remember I held on to Rockband one literally until the disc broke and always just played 2 and 3 when he brought them. Didn't buy them until years later when I was going back to play for some nostalgia. Thank god we have clone hero at least.

Man i played so much Rock Band 3 had a bunch top 10 FC’s on Drums/ProDrums. And Rock band network had so many amazing and hard songs.

Nice retrospective. Interesting to hear a similar, but separate point of view regarding these franchises.

I played so much of Guitar Hero 2 and as a weeb here there was one modded called Anime Hero 1-5 I played that a lot after that the both series lost me because of quaility,focus on multiplayer and how they looked.Nowdays I play DJMAX Respect V to fill the void.

Another banger video! I really liked this one and you gave me a new perspective when looking at these games franchise, specialy Rock Band. When I first heard of that game, I thought it was just a knock-off Guitar Hero but after hearing and learning the history of Harmonix, I genualy respect Rock Band a lot more now! They seem very passionate about what they do and I hope they continue making more new amazing games.

I gotta say Guitar Hero and Rock Band were the most memorial rhythm games and my childhood!

Just came here to Rewatch This because I find it Very Inspirational and honestly the more Personal, Emotional bits do Resonate Hard with me. But then I saw the View Count. Needless to say this Ghosthouse is Extremely Underrated.

I’m so excited for you to talk about one of my favorite games of all time: Guitar Hero 5. Edit: I’m saddened. This video turned out to be more about Rockband than Guitar Hero....

As someone who got interested in music and the guitar as a 10 year old kid in 2005, these games will always hold a place in my heart. You hit the nail right on The head in this video man.

Fantastic vid how does this have so little views

Amazing video and for me the last Guitar Hero game I enjoy was actually Word Tour and after that the series kind of went down hill to the point I was actually just listening to my own music instead of the actually games imo, also GH3 is my personal favorite in the series. For Rock Band I never really gotten into it nothing against the series of course I was always more into GH plus I had my own laptop and finding more music on youtube.

so much gameplay capture. Flashbacks to Rock Revolution and playing songs on a standard controller

24:43 thanks for including AVGN lol

Btw did you get in on the limited run switch pre order of nmh 1 and 2?

nowadays, the only way to revive at least one of these two giants is to make a new game, but with songs from the Video Game world. these would be a lot easier to handle legally speaking than regular music, not to mention there are so many awesome games perfectly suited for Rock Band and Guitar Hero it would be perfect. at least for Guitar Hero, they could easily partner up with Riot Games and make a full game featuring the League of Legends band Pentakill.

*Gitaroo Man is so Underratted, maybe do a video on it?*

I still remember playing this on my normal tv because of you plugged it into a plasma or lcd the shit would never match up perfectly. Also getting all achievements , me and my brother played upside down for beating a song on expert on lefty 😂

on a positive note (heh): Because of the 2010s craze you can find these games in every household » GuitarHero/RockBand is still a standard on parties and great fun to this very day.

I always get sad with Guitar Hero's end, Warriors of Rock was the one that I felt that had some soul, specially with having 2112 full in-game and seeing actual personalities with the characters we knew for years It really felt like the game that Guitar Hero was supposed to be, Rock Band being this grounded band story, and Guitar Hero with this rock opera story about being... A Guitar Hero Sad that sadly they only hit the mark with their last bullet

what is the song in the beginning of the video sounds relaxing. also love guitar herooooo nice video

Hold up- this isn't another Suda-related video! Jokes aside, Guitar Hero III was my all-time favorite game in the series, it's sadly that GHLive was the game that put the series to an eternal rest... Never touched any Rock Band game before, except Unplugged from PSP and the RB3 DS version.

guitar hero 2, 80 and 3 were so fucking cool. They were COOL games, the visuals are made with love. The menus with songs playing in background, the sounds, everything had a flow that somehow makes me shiver to this day. Even in the ps2, the venues and characters were so cool. The guitars, the songs you had to buy... I remember the first day I played all those games, and I think about them everyday. My fingers still move automatically when I think about the songs because the charts were so fun to play Ps: rock n roll racing highway star playing in background made me wanna kiss you

loved guitar hero. actually still play clone hero to this day

I was obsessed with guitar hero I wish it would come back. I also loved rock band it was so much fun. The last 5-6 years it feels passion is lost and it’s more about all about money due to massive companies buying all small companies and forcing games to be released faster than they need to.

I actually was more of a Guitar Hero guy growing up, but I'll admit the games were a bit more stale in comparison to Rock Band. I'm happy to see that Harmonix kept doing what they wanted to even long after Rock Band and I kinda want to pick up Fuser. I remember the CM for that game looking like the kindest person ever in the Nintendo Direct lol. Anyways great video and I was glad to provide my voice to it! (Except don't watch my Defending Sonic Adventure vid it hasn't aged well LOL)

I did GH 1,2,3 and Metallica for king diamond.and RB 1 and 2, that's when i realized i could have learned to play all these instruments in the time i got in all these games ,so i stopped. But i still love the games with all my heart

Would you ever do a comparison towards dance central to just dance to D.D.R.

Thx man, I didn't know about this, but this does sound like what Activision would do.

Rock Band 3 was the goat. I wish 4 had that same spirit, it just doesn't feel the same.

Interesting POV that never crossed me. I have always been a Guitar Hero guy the entire time, only ever played LEGO Rock Band as I never found the appeal to buy their other titles for the simple-minded reason of not enjoying the less-toleratant hit window and finding the graphics inferior to Guitar Hero. A portion of the information about Rock Band is pretty new to me because I never found myself diving into it. Although I do not see myself change ship (thanks to a new Xbox360 RGH + missing exports, and wanting to find players to chase ranks!), I appreciate learning of this outlook that never came to me.

YEAHHH I KNEW IT

Man I remember playing both games at my friend's house growing up. Even though I played on easy because I sucked @$$. I enjoyed the hell out of them.

playing coop on Guitar Hero 2 and 3 on the 360 are some of my fondest childhood gaming memories. Shame on activision for driving yet another franchise into the ground

I personally beg to differ concerning your opinion about DJ Hero. Having played it myself, it does quite a few things different from Guitar Hero, as it demands very keen multi-tasking skills. It probably features some of the most passion for a project in any post-Harmonix Hero game, probably because they used a different developer for it than Neversoft.

I used to love Guitar Hero as a kid, but as an adult, I prefer Rock Band. Whereas Guitar Hero became about style and no substance, Rock Band stuck to its guns and built upon the foundation, instead of trying different ideas to see what sticks.

5:40 I smell a pie thief...

The biggest letdown on Rock Band 4 would be the character creation. There's not as many choices as in RB3. But besides that minor thing, I still play the game every single week. I just love it!

One neat thing about RB4 is that you can STILL use your old guitars, as native as far back to the GH3 guitar and RB1 guitar were still compatible, except if you're on xbox, in that case you need overly expensive adapters that cost almost a kidney. Also i didn't like RB4 because its setlist was too lame, i mean, i know this franchise made you discover new music, but sometimes i just want to jam along my favorite tracks, RB1 to RB3 were really balance track wise, a good mix of well known song all the way to more obscure bands.

Personally, I think a "Guitar Hero Ultimate" would work really well. It's basically the appeal of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate applied to a rhythm game. Every track in the series would return, and be given Rock Band-style recharts. Complete with Full Band compatibility and more accurate tablatures. And that's just the base game. There'd also be tons of DLC tracks to keep the game fresh, as well as a revamped GHTunes for an endless amount of songs to play. Of course, that's probably never gonna happen because licensing costs would be absurdly high. But hey, at least we have Clone Hero for that.

I always liked guitar hero kore yhen rockband. Metallica and warrior's of rock were amazing. Lovr the drums conoared to rockband

Nice comments about GDRB. Although the game was remembered less because it followed up TBRB, GRRB does use a heavy amount of motion capture from the band and specially tracked camera cuts that enhance the live performance feel. Because of that it stands out uniquely from other RB games.

HELP WHATs the song at the credits i swear ive heard it before i cant figure it out

Don’t know if you going to read this comment but the reason why the Beatles rock band wasn’t able to be exported was because yeah a. Beatles tracks, but the main reason was that harmonix wanted the Beatles rock band to be its own thing. All about the Beatles music and its visuals being made just for the game and other things. It respect the band that change the world.

Guitar Hero, classic gaming

The GH DS games are suprisingly good

Finally, eyes and hair reveal

Through the Fire and Flames anyone?

how is dj hero guitar hero but with a different controller I dont remember guitar hero having sound voltex-ass knob segments also freezepop is goated

💓HARMONIX💓

I played a little of these. That's about all I know. Good video tho

I used to love Harmonix and for a while considered them to be one of my favorite developers, but it wasn't until the rb4 era that they burned a lot of bridges with their fanbase. From lying to their fans as to why there was no online support initially until later on charging them for it in the form of a $30 expansion pack, pushing a failed Fig campaign to bring back RBN, not honoring their fans for a discount price on any previous RBN songs, and focusing too hard on Pop centric songs instead of Rock centric music which has always been the main preference from a lot of fans because of charts, I almost wish that Rock Band would have stayed dead after 3. You brought up how Neversoft era Guitar Hero lacked soul, well the same can be said for Rock Band 4.

Rhythm games are my favorite types of games to play, it’s a shame they seem to be pretty niche nowadays. It also seems like Japan is the only place that still pumps out good ones. I miss GH3 :(

Is there a movie like that? Pacific Rim

Anyways, here's Wonderwall.

To me guitar hero died after guitar hero 3. Worriors rock is good. But will never compare to the love that was honest and full that gh1 2 and 3 got

this isnt balan wonderworld

Produce smegma. Also when moonlight syndrome review.

2006 is the start of Rhythm Wars 🤔

Nice vid dude, but i think you may be biased to like Rock Band better. I was always a Guitar Hero kid, because i didn't like the aesthetic of Rock Band, Guitar Hero always had cooler art and more personality imo , i cant stress this enough but most Guitar Hero games have badass menus, highways, venues and characters. They were always oozing with personality

Remember when Guitar Hero was really popular? You used to see videos of people playing the various installments of the game here on RU-vid. If you went down into the comment section, you would always find multiple comments about how the people making those videos needed to learn how to play a real instrument. This happened every single time. Those comments always cracked me up. Like, how dare you pretend to play an instrument for fun? The nerve of some people, enjoying what was essentially a jazzed up version of air guitar! Ho ho ho.......

whats your thoughts on Fortnite festival

Oh you did not just disrespect DJ Hero like that

Fortnite festival goes hard

Let me just say it's a bit unfair pitting RedOctane and Harmonix against each other - I feel like they're two lovers forced apart. We should want them to be together again, not in competition.

Harmonix had the better graphics.

your bias is so strong dude lmao tone it down

Seeing anything but expert gameplay makes me barf

fortnite rockb and

I'm not a fan of Simon Says, but good video nonetheless.