History VideoGame / GUITARHERO

** ''Van Halen'' tries to justify it with the band (Dave, Eddie, Wolf and Alex; no Sammy Hagar or Michael Anthony to be seen) going back to their past gigs anx their appearances changing accordingly.

* GrandFinale: ''Warriors of Rock'' was thought to be the finale... until ''Live'' was announced nearly 5 years later.

-->--"Guitar Hero", the song, by Harmonix's in-house band Monkey Steals the Peach

* AnimeHair: Pandora's G-clef hair in GH 5.

** ''World Tour'' onwards has the addition of drums and vocals.

* AudienceParticipationSong: The audience always claps along to the song when Star Power is activated.

* BigRedDevil: Lou.
* {{Bishounen}}: Izzy Sparks.
** Justified, as he's meant to represent the Glam Metal genre.

* BonusBoss: "Jordan", "Through the Fire and Flames", etc.

* BrutalBonusLevel: "[[ThatOneLevel Through the Fire and Flames]]". Good Lord.

** Some of these covers are even covers of covers, such as Guitar Hero II's cover of Van Halen's cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me".

* DealWithTheDevil: The plot of ''Guitar Hero III''
** And ''Smash Hits'' too, to an extent.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: The final stage in ''Guitar Hero 3''.

* DoubleEntendre: From Warriors of Rock

* DownerEnding: In GHWT, there are 5 bad endings (which are the ''true'' endings) for each finished mode. In Guitar mode: The magazine says that the Band sucks. In Bass mode, the bass character quits the band and goes solo. In Drums mode, the drums character gets shipped in a box, in a fallout nuclear bomb test and dies. In Vocals mode, The vocals character also dies from a statue-related disaster. And finally, at the end of the ending cutscene in Band mode, the evil guy (Who was only in one ending, featuring him, in full exposure) laughs evilly [[TeamRocketWins as if the game was mocking you!]]

** There are other interpretations of the endings. For instance, the bassist (who happened to be Shirley Crowley in [=GHWT=]) was frustrated at being overshadowed by the other band members as seen at the bassist career's intro video, so her going solo and releasing a successful album could count as a good ending for her. But then again, the evil guy (Lou) seems to have had a hand in it, so it could also be a case of making a DealWithTheDevil.
* DownloadableContent: Quite a bit of it, though nowhere near [[VideoGame/RockBand its main rival]], for each main game of the series starting with the 360 port of ''Guitar Hero II'' (meaning not band-specific titles). For the most part, DLC is exclusive to the game for which it was purchased, but the Metallica album "Death Magnetic" for ''[=GH3=]'' could be played in ''World Tour'', and ''[=GH5=]'', ''Band Hero'', and ''Warriors of Rock'' support nearly all of ''WT'''s DLC with application of a patch.
** Which, annoyingly, ''breaks the DLC index'' for World Tour, but... not really a problem, except for that obnoxious message GHWT gives in quickplay about it.

*** In Warriors Of Rock however, it includes Ghost Notes in select songs.

** Challenges on Guitar Hero 5 cannot be attempted on Beginner, and some are only possible at Expert (and Expert+ for drums) however there are some exceptions.
* EpicRocking: Guitar Hero 2 has [[Music/LynyrdSkynyrd "Freebird"]] as the last song on career mode.
** Guitar Hero: Metallica is loaded with songs that are over six minutes long. The longest is "Mercyful Fate", which is over 11 minutes long.
** Also, "Do You Feel Like We Do" in Guitar Hero 5.

* FanService: Casey Lynch is a firm believer in equal-opportunity shirtless shredding.

** And, how could we ever forget [[BareYourMidriff Judy Nails]]?

* GrandFinale: ''Warriors of Rock'' was thought to be the finale... until ''Live'' was annouced nearly 5 years later.

* HumongousMecha: The Beast in Warriors of Rock in a way.

* {{Instrumental Weapon}}: In [=GH3=]/Aerosmith, Metalhead can sometimes be seen pointing his guitar around like a gun.

* {{Irony}}: In Guitar Hero Metallica, the very first time you play some of the Metallica songs, sometimes James Hetfield will make various quotes, such as "Alright, who's singing along tonight?" If you're playing [[{{Instrumentals}} Orion]]...

* LargeHam: Gene Simmons as the Demigod of Rock in ''Warriors of Rock.''

* LeadBassist: In ''World Tour'', Shirley Crowley is a FaceOfTheBand example with her solo career.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: [=GH: World Tour=], [=GH5=] and Band Hero for the [=PS2=] are fraught with long loading times, up to about 3 minutes in the case of [=GH5=]. On the plus side, on [=GH5=], if you play a setlist on Quickplay, only the first song has the abnormally long load time, and loading the rest of the songs will be more reasonable.

* MaleGaze: Just play "Music/KnightsOfCydonia" with Judy Nails.

* MultiPlatform (since ''Guitar Hero 2'', except for ''Rocks the 80s'')

* NobodyLovesTheBassist: PlayedForLaughs in [=GH2=] and 3 with loading messages such as "You need a mini-fridge in your practice space. It's more important than a bassist" and "You seem to have a problem with your bass amp. I can hear it!". Deconstructed in ''World Tour'' where, sick of being overshadowed by her bandmates, bassist Shirley Crowley signs a DealWithTheDevil and ends up with more success than the others. Averted from ''Metallica'' onwards.

* NotQuiteDead: Matty Canz in the Drum Career outro in ''Guitar Hero World Tour''.

* RankInflation: Staring from the first four games, your score is represented on a five-star scale, though the lowest you can get is 3 as performance any worse would result in being booed offstage. From the 5th game and onwards, netting you the 6th star if you maintain a full combo. Reaching the goals for the bonus challenges in said game nets you up to 3 more stars for each song. And in the 6th game, with abilities like increasing your multiplier or saving your streak, you can obtain up to '''40''' stars in a single song.

* RiskyBusinessDance: The ad campaign for World Tour. Parodied with the ads for Metallica and Band Hero.

* RockMeAsmodeus: The last boss of ''Guitar Hero III''.

* SheIsAllGrownUp: Judy Nails, between ''Rocks the '80s'' and ''Guitar Hero III''.

* TheStinger: ''Guitar Hero 3'' lets you play the BonusBoss song ''[[Music/DragonForce Through the Fire and Flames]]'' during the end credits, but there's no [[LifeMeter energy meter]] and thus no risk of failure. This is because even those good enough to beat the whole game on Expert have no guarantee of even getting through the ''opening'' of that song without significant practice.

* TheTetrisEffect: "Skittles". Officially called "gems".
* ThemeMusicPowerUp
* TitleDrop: One of the 17 bonus tracks in the first game is [[Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Guitar Hero"]] by Monkey Steals the Peach.

* TransformationSequence: In ''Warriors of Rock''

* UnlockableContent

* UpToEleven: The volume controls in the first two games literally do go up to eleven. In the neversoft intro for the third one, it might say 11 but the sticky note says twelve.

** The band multiplier for Guitar Hero 5, for a full band, caps out at 11. 4x for full-band streaking, 4x for full band star power deployment, and an additional 3x for everyone hitting a band moment. This is also the only way you can meet the diamond challenge cutoff on the last challenge in the game.

** The HD versions lets you play as The God of Rock and The Grim Reaper, while the SD versions has Metalhead and [[ElvisImpersonator Elroy Budvis]]. The SD versions also has a few extra guitars to boot, including one modeled after the logo for Budcat Creations (the company in charge of porting the games to PS2 and Wii, with Vicarious Visions helping them out for the latter).

* VersionExclusiveContent: The [=PlayStation 3=] and Xbox 360 versions of ''III'' each had an exclusive DLC song released on their platforms. [=PlayStation=] owners had [[VideoGame/GodOfWar The End Begins (To Rock)]] while Xbox owners had the MJOLNIR Mix of the iconic ''{{VideoGame/Halo}}'' Theme

* VirtualPaperDoll: ''World Tour'' allows you to customize your characters' clothing, not to mention their face, in excruciating detail. And their body type, in much less detail. ''Smash Hits'' and ''Band Hero'' allowed for this too (even giving you Midori's TwinTails hair as an option for custom females) as well as ''GH5'' and ''Van Halen''. All four games also allowed for customizing the clothing of built-in and unlockable characters, though with more flexibility in ''Smash Hits'' and ''Van Halen'' (not possible however for the licenced characters like the Music/VanHalen band members in ''Van Halen'' [the only options available for them are two different looks from different eras], and Music/TaylorSwift, Adam Levine, and the members of No Doubt in ''Band Hero'', who could not be customized at all).

* DummiedOut: "Trippolette" and "Graveyard Shift" in the original game; "Trippolette" was notably [[ThatOneLevel That One Song]].

* {{Instrumental Weapon}}: In GH3/Aerosmith, Metalhead can sometimes be seen pointing his guitar around like a gun.

** Likewise "2112" ''is'' broken down into its seven parts, so it's not as much of a marathon as DYFLWD (or "Free Bird" back in ''GH2''). Granted since these seven individual tracks are pretty short in length.

Originally developed by Creator/{{Harmonix}}, who are also the creators of ''VideoGame/{{Frequency|Harmonix}}, Amplitude'' and the ''Karaoke Revolution'' series, and went on to make ''VideoGame/RockBand'', ''Guitar Hero'' has become an extremely popular example of the RhythmGame genre that plays like ''Guitar Freaks'', but with five buttons instead of three and commercial songs.

** [[Music/LinkinPark "The Catalyst"]] is impossible to full-combo on Medium Guitar because a tap chord is charted, and is unhittable with any methods, even though the next chord is the same, and is charted as a HO/PO chord. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JqlbXksWjg&feature=player_detailpage#t=310s Here's a vid.]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** Due to the fact that ''Guitar Hero III'' triggers the stage-end flag after the note chart ends, instead of letting the song end properly, "[[Music/RedHotChiliPeppers Suck My Kiss]]" finishes in an even ''more'' smutty manner than intended: the game cuts the song off right at "Your mouth was made to suck my-"
** ''World Tour'' has a T-rating for "Lyrics" and generally anything more extreme than "ass" is censored, but Johnny Rotten's vocals in "Pretty Vacant" by Music/SexPistols still contains [[CountryMatters the clearly-deliberate emphasis on the second syllable of "vacant"]]. To make it even more blatant, the song encourages the player to sing it like this: the lyrics are written out in-game as "Va-cant".

* ZettaiRyouiki: Midori rocks this look. Same with Judy Nails, at least in Warriors of Rock.

In October 2015, Activision released a reboot of the franchise, ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'', which dueled with the ''Rock Band 4'' when it launched in the same month. Developed by ''DJ Hero'' studio [=FreeStyleGames=], the game utilized a new six-button guitar (not six in a row, however; six in two rows of three.), and replaced the classic 3D rendered stages with a first-person perspective of the guitarist using FullMotionVideo. Following the disappointing sales of ''GH Live'', the online servers shut down and the franchise is again dormant.

* DownerEnding: In GHWT, there are 5 bad endings (which are the ''true'' endings) for each finished mode. In Guitar mode: The magazine says that the Band sucks. In Bass mode, the bass character quits the band and goes solo. In Drums mode, the drums character gets shipped in a box, in a fallout nuclear bomb test and dies. In Vocals mode, The vocals character also dies from a statue-related disaster. And finally, at the end of the ending cutscene in Band mode, the evil guy (Who was only in one ending, featuring him, in full exposure) laughs evilly [[Main/TeamRocketWins as if the game was mocking you!]]

* GenreMotif: Each character has one to a different style of rock. Some are consistent throughout the series (Axel Steel representing Classic Metal, Johnny Napalm representing Punk Rock, Clive Winston representing Classic Rock), while others may change from game to game (Xavier Stone and Pandora went, respectively, from Modern Rock to Classic Rock and Alternative Metal to straight-up Goth/New Wave).

** In what can only be an oversight, the European version of ''Guitar Hero: On Tour: Modern Hits'', "[[Music/BulletForMyValentine Scream Aim Fire]]" has the line "Fuck this battlefield" uncensored, despite the 7+ PEGI rating. The line was properly censored in ''World Tour''.

From ''Guitar Hero III'' to ''Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock'', it has been developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. Neversoft rebuilt their own ''Guitar Hero'' engine from scratch when Harmonix handed over the reins to work on ''Rock Band''.

In October 2015, Activision released a reboot of the franchise, ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'', which dueled with the ''Rock Band 4'' when it launched in the same month. Developed by ''DJ Hero'' studio [=FreeStyleGames=], the game utilized a new six-button guitar (not six in a row, however; six in two rows of three.), and replaced the classic 3D rendered stages with a first-person perspective of the guitarist using FullMotionVideo.

->''Gonna be a [[TitleDrop guitar hero]]\\

* MaleGaze: Just play "Music/KnightsofCydonia" with Judy Nails.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: Enforced from ''World Tour'' onwards, since Neversoft wanted the franchise to be more accessible.
** ''Guitar Hero II'' dumbed down the hammer-ons and pull-offs a bit by no longer requiring players to hold both frets at the same time as they move up or down (as one would in real life). The Xbox 360 port took this even further by widening the gap allowed between frets just enough to mean the difference between beating "Woman" (which was also moved from the first tier to the second) on Hard or not. The added songs also meant that players could now pick a song from each set list to skip and still complete the full campaign.
** While ''3'' is considered a Spike overall, particularly concerning the last few songs on Expert, it is a Drop in regards to the timing window, as Neversoft's new engine has more lenience in timing than the old games.
* SequelDifficultySpike: ''Warriors of Rock'' is '''MUCH''' harder than the previous Guitar Hero games, with many considering it the hardest GH game, with songs such as ''[[Music/{{Megadeth}} Sudden Death]]'', ''[[Music/ChildrenOfBodom If You Want Peace...Prepare for War]]'', ''[[Music/{{Slayer}} Chemical Warfare]]'', ''Black Widow of La Porte'', and ''[[Music/{{Dragonforce}} Fury of the Storm]]'' being considered the hardest songs to play and FC in the entire franchise.

*** Then there's the next stage of the Quest Mode: upon transformation Lars Umlaut becomes a PigMan, Pandora becomes a [[OurElvesAreBetter Drow]], Casey Lynch becomes a [[ScaledUp Gorgon]], and Axel Steel becomes a {{Mummy}}! After all that, all eight of them combine their powers to battle a HumongousMecha.

* MusicalGenreDissonance: Since the games decided to add the song's genre to their general info and sorting options in ''5'', the creative team has done it on a hit-and-miss bases. For example: 3 Doors Down's "Kryptonite" is categorized as Southern Rock (which it's not by a longshot; it's alternative/pop-rock), Music/BobDylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is placed under the Blues Rock header (it's actually folk), and {{Music/Gorillaz}}'s "Feel Good Inc." is said to be Hip Hop (it's indie/electronica).

* MusicalGenreBlindness: Since the games decided to add the song's genre to their general info and sorting options in ''5'', the creative team has done it on a hit-and-miss bases. For example: 3 Doors Down's "Kryptonite" is categorized as Southern Rock (which it's not by a longshot; it's alternative/pop-rock), Music/BobDylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is placed under the Blues Rock header (it's actually folk), and {{Music/Gorillaz}}'s "Feel Good Inc." is said to be Hip Hop (it's indie/electronica).