Nintendo Hard: Despite the simple premise making use of four buttons, the combo system can get pretty frantic and challenging, more so in the second Silver and Gold tracks.Marathon Level: Long tracks can really test your reflexes as the level becomes harder to navigate and keep up a string of combos.Mad Libs Dialogue: Vibri's song for getting a high score changes in structure depending on how good the player did, and she reads the numbers individually (in Japanese, of course).Interface Screw: The longer the song goes, the more of these you deal with - including obstacles moving at different paces and orientation shifts that make it easier to misjudge obstacle placement.By the end, you'll be watching combined obstacles stacked on each other moving at different speeds while spinning as the game switches to an isometric view. And the longer it goes on, the more Interface Screws the game throws at you. Harder Than Hard: Album mode - you play every track on the current CD, randomized.Game-Over Man: Vibri herself appears on the game over screen, either encouraging the player to try again or reacting negatively.Evolutionary Levels: Vibri starts as a rabbit and can turn into a fairy princess, and devolve into a frog and worm.Ear Wings: Getting a high enough score causes Vibri to float up offscreen using her ears as wings.The game had changed the song structure before, but it had been done much more subtly. Difficulty Spike: The bridges in "Overflowing Emotions" shift from a massive increase in tempo to slowing the level to a crawl.Difficulty by Acceleration: Obstacles and perspective shifts become faster and trickier as the tempo of the song changes.This can be really nerve-wracking when combined with the other flavors of Interface Screw. Of course, the vibrations make it much more difficult to tell when to hit the correct dodge for the next obstacle, which makes it really simple to get to the ten misses required to devolve (or, if currently as the worm, a game over). Continuing is Painful: Should you miss an obstacle, you lose your combo, and the ribbon starts vibrating.Still, between Vibri's cuteness and the generally cheerful songs it manages to have an oddly pleasant atmosphere. For most of the gameplay the only things on the screen other than the player character are a single white line and some small geometric shapes at the top. Beautiful Void: The entire game takes place within a nearly empty black void with minimalistic vector graphics in which the only living thing appears to be Vibri herself.Auto-Scrolling Level: Vibri will move automatically, so you must use precise timing to navigate through the various obstacles.
The original finally became available for download on the Play Station Network in North America on October 17, 2014, a solid 15 years after its initial release.
Neither were released outside of Japan, the former most likely for being near impossible to localize. txt files, and Vib-Ripple, which turned digitized images into hidden object games. Vib-Ribbon was followed up by two sequels: Mojib-Ribbon, which could make PaRappa-style rap levels out of.
While not monochrome (the scale at the bottom showing remaining time and the scoring gems are in color), it is a throwback to the primitive graphics of the early 80's. One, it's a Vector Game - despite when it was developed, it runs entirely on vector graphics. Hitting too many obstacles causes Vibri to devolve (from rabbit to frog to worm to game over), although successfully navigating ten in a row causes Vibri to evolve back up (and potentially go from rabbit to princess). The obstacles appear in time with the music, and reaching the end of the song means reaching the end of the stage. There are four basic obstacles (spikes, blocks, loops, and pits), which can further be combined into a dual obstacle (for example, spiky loops and blocks with pits in the middle). In it, you have to guide a rabbit named Vibri across a mobius strip called the Vib-Ribbon, dodging obstacles along the way. Vib-Ribbon is a Rhythm Game produced by NanaOn-Sha of PaRappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy fame, and released for the Sony PlayStation.