Until very recently, my only experience with VR was a one-minute demo about nine years ago. With an Oculus Rift strapped to my face, a virtual catapult hurled me over a low-res city. It was painfully disorienting and I felt my legs give way a bit. I swore off VR for a long time after that unpleasant experience.
Fast forward to 2024 and I was finally ready to try again. An proved irresistible. But I felt like I needed to get my sea legs under me before tackling something more immersive and ambitious like the bundled-in Horizon: Call of the Mountain.
As it happened, the day on which my PS VR2 unit arrived also marked the debut of a VR version of one of my favorite games of the last few years, Trombone Champ.
The original game is a bit like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, only instead of using a plastic imitation of a musical instrument to play notes as they appear on screen, you’re moving a joystick or mouse and pressing a button to “toot.” This time around, in , you hold a virtual instrument to your mouth with one hand while using the other to slide to the correct (or wildly wrong) notes, mimicking an actual trombone.
Unfortunately, I had some trouble setting up my PS VR2. The right controller was working just fine in my PS5’s menus and such, but button presses weren’t working in-game and I couldn’t grab the slide of the virtual trombone. I found the solution on Reddit, where users have mentioned similar trouble with new controllers, which in some cases appears to be due to debris . In my case, I was able to fix the problem by desyncing the controllers and only re-registering them with the PS5 once I was in-game.
Obviously, the first thing I had to do in the Trombone Champ: Unflattened tutorial was more or less figure out of the main Super Mario. Bros theme. From there, I dove straight into the campaign.
The aptly named Flat2VR (which made a well-regarded VR mod for Half-Life 2) adapted Trombone Champ for VR. It did an admirable job of bringing Holy Wow Studios’ game to a new format with a fresh look and feel. Rather than trying to follow the notes of a song on a 2D chart, you’ll need to be on your toes as they fly at you on both sides. After a couple of songs, though, I changed a setting to have them on just one side to make it easier to focus.
You’re also tooting your way through these (primarily royalty-free) songs on stage in front of an audience of Nintendo Mii-style characters. I was trying my best to play these songs properly to get a good score, so I tuned out the crowd for the most part so I could concentrate.
That changed when I tried a ska song I don’t recall hearing before. I didn’t know where it was going and I struggled to keep up at the highest difficulty. The crowd wasn’t having any of it. Unlike in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, there’s no fail state here if you miss several notes in a row. The song keeps going, no matter how badly you mess up. As such, the audience was booing me relentlessly and I couldn’t get them back on board.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been on stage in a band or doing musical theater (yup, I was one of those kids), but I’ve never had a reaction like that. It weirdly cut to my soul, yet I was having a blast at the same time. Sorry to disappoint my virtual haters. I tried flipping them off with my floating hands, but it didn’t work. I resorted to pointing at myself with my thumbs in a “that’s right, this guy” motion, another thing I wouldn’t have tried in a non-VR experience.
Trombone Champ: Unflattened is wildly fun and easily one of the most delightful gaming experiences of 2024. Astro Bot and Another Crab’s Treasure, two of my favorite games of the year, both kept a smile on my face throughout — but Trombone Champ: Unflattened had me full-on cackling. I can’t imagine that I could have chosen a better intro to VR.
There’s a bit more to it, including a free play mode that unlocks all the songs for you (DLC tracks seem to be on the way). I did enjoy vandalizing — I mean, customizing — my trombone with spray paint too. I’m sure Glenn Miller would have loved that.
Maybe I’ll get better at Trombone Champ: Unflattened over time. If not, I don’t care. Being bad at this game makes it all the more enjoyable. The game’s at its best when you’re playing along with a song you’re familiar with. You know how it’s supposed to sound, so screwing up is much funnier.
While there are challenges that reward you for doing well, it’s almost as if the game wants you to suck at it. The toughest songs would be nearly impossible to nail, maybe even for actual professional trombone players, since they wouldn’t have the same tactility of having the instrument in their hands.
The PC adapter for PS VR2 has been out of stock for a while in Canada. But when I get one I’ll probably also snap up the PC version of Trombone Champ: Unflattened there because modders are already adding custom songs into the game.
One song that modders inevitably added to Trombone Champ was the ultimate rhythm game track: Dragonforce’s “Through The Fire and Flames.” In the original game, it’s so tough that even an “autotoot” tool that plays notes automatically . So I’ve no doubt that trying to play it myself in VR will go very wrong and be highly entertaining.
Trombone Champ: Unflattened is out now on PS VR2, Meta Quest and Steam VR
