Remember this name: Flat2VR. If you’re a slight VR enthusiast, you may have heard the name, as they are the ones behind the Valve-endorsed VR mod of Half-Life 2 which you can acquire on Steam right now. But boy, those guys are going to go places really soon, as they have a pretty set, and exciting, niche they want to tackle. As the name implies, they want to create VR versions of previously “flat” (non-VR) titles, expanding the horizons of the medium with brand new iterations of games we already know and (hopefully) like, giving us the sensation of immersion we’ve always wanted; we’re IN our favorite games. After announcing a bunch of titles, including an upcoming VR version of Flatout, their first outing is finally available… and it’s freaking Trombone Champ of all things.

Yep, Trombone Champ. That meme game released two years ago, which became a viral sensation on social media, even spanning a truly unique Switch port with actual motion controls, one of the very few games available for the system featuring such support. Flat2VR’s first commercial release feels like a safe choice, but I feel like this was a smart move. Rhythm games are a proven hit in VR, Trombone Champ has already been released with motion control support, and the game isn’t exactly graphically demanding, making it an easier task to be ported to an older system like the Quest 2, whilst still running at a decent framerate.

And there you have it. Trombone Champ: Unflattened. At its core, it’s the same game as before, with the same royalty-free setlist (at the moment, no idea if mod support will be added or not), the same card-based economy, the same visuals… the core elements of the game were kept intact, with VR being added only where it was actually necessary, which was the smartest choice possible.

Sadly, some of those choices resulted in a slightly less amusing experience. First of all, every single session is set on a stage inside a theater. You are always playing the trombone for an audience. An obvious choice to improve immersion, but that also means you can barely pay attention to the otherwise trippy imagery which used to fill the screen halfway through a song; those bits are now just relegated to a screen at the opposite end of the theater, and you can barely pay attention to it, given how the game decided to throw notes at you.

Notes will come from two sides of the stage. You have to pretend you are playing a trombone, with one hand holding it, and the other hand responsible for doing pretty much everything else: sliding, tooting, adjusting the pitch, and so on. It’s a bit confusing at first, because notes are displayed in a vertical scale, but you have to slide horizontally in order to adjust your pitch. This is nothing you can’t get used to after a while, but I can’t help but feel it was a bit unintuitive during my first songs.

Once that initially bumpy phase is over, then it’s business as usual. As previously mentioned, if you’ve played the original Trombone Champ, then Unflattened is that, but via a new perspective. The career mode is pretty simplistic, but it works. Improv mode is fun for like five minutes, before becoming a tremendous nuisance. The game is in dire need of mod support and more content, hopefully furter down the line, but as it stands, it can actually be more fun to play than the original, non-VR version.

It might not be as intuitive as the non-VR original, but Trombone Champ: Unflattened is still a pretty fun musical game for the Quest. If anything, it just shows how well Flat2VR is able to port games to a brand new ecosystem, making them feel even more immersive than before. I didn’t mind the fact it was a bit uglier and confusing to play. At the end of the day, I was pretending to play a trombone with a dumb smile on my face, missing most notes, without a care in the world. I just can’t wait to see what else these VR wizards are up to in the near future.

Graphics: 6.5 One of the most interesting aspects about the non-VR version of Trombone Champ was the trippy imagery plastered onscreen during each session. They are still here, but they are less prevalent, making the game a bit less exciting to look at.	Gameplay: 7.5 You kinda have to play the trombone akin to real life, which makes this version more “realistic”, but the UI makes things a bit confusing at first.
Sound: 8.0 Mostly the same repertoire of royalty-free songs featured in the original, without mods, at least for now.	Fun Factor: 8.5 It’s the kind of dumb experience that’s just perfect for VR. Even if it’s a bit more flawed than the original Trombone Champ in terms of gameplay, it’s still immersive, intuitive, and above all, fun.
Final Verdict: 7.5

Trombone Champ: Unflattened is available now on PSVR 2, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 and PC.

Reviewed on Meta Quest 2.

A copy of Trombone Champ: Unflattened was provided by the publisher.