Grim Ripper is one of the main characters from the Guitar Hero series, first introduced in Guitar Hero. He has always appeared as a hidden character in every Guitar Hero edition to date, except Guitar Hero Aerosmith, including the special version Rocks the 80s. In Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock though, he, along with God of Rock, appears only in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game - both being replaced by Metalhead and Elroy Budvis in the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of the game respectively.
Grim Ripper is the only character to have his own personal guitar, The Scythe (which is, indeed, a scythe with six guitar strings tied to it), which other characters could only play via use of cheat in the three first games; conversely, Grim could not play any of the other guitars as well, except by cheat, too (actually, the whole trick involves a graphic glitch). This practice was dropped as of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.
Biography
The Grim Ripper, as seen in Guitar Hero II
- Tearing it up from the beyond, Grim is a full-on rocker. Grim has abandoned the stealing of souls for the rush of stealing the show and now tours the world laying down monster riffs. - Guitar Hero In-Game Description
- This rock star is bad to the bone. Grim's riffs are so killer, fans are lucky just to leave the show with their souls intact. At his latest killer performance, an awe-struck fan gushed, the curtains flew, then he appeared! - Guitar Hero II In-Game Description
- Dudes? It just doesn't get more gnarly than Grim. With his unholy skill and blood-curdling licks, it's no wonder 40,000 are coming to see him at every show. Grim, like, totally kills. - Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s In-Game Description
- When not scouring the bowels of Hades to sign the next big act, The Grim Ripper makes earthly summer tours part of his M.O. He also enjoys canoe trips. - Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock In-Game Description
Appearance
Guitar Hero
In his first appearence, he wears a long crimson robe, with a chain dangling from the front of it and wing-like bones from his back.
Guitar Hero II
Grim wears a black, sleeveless robe, ripped at the height of his knees, exposing his skeletal arms and legs. He wears studded armbands, sports fully black-feathered wings on his back, has spiral horns coming out of his hood and wears a chain with an hourglass pendant around his neck.
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
Grim's outfit is almost the same from GH2, except now the hourglass has been replaced with a clock (which, given the time shown, might represent Iron Maiden's song "2 Minutes to Midnight"; the clock itself might also be a nod to rapper Flava Flav from Public Enemy, since this was one of his trademarks), and he also wears 3D glasses.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Grim's outfit suffered no changes from GH2, except that he no longer wears the hourglass around his neck.
Trivia
- Some of the Grim Ripper's descriptive texts throughout the series constantly refer to the Blue Öyster Cult famous song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper":
- In Guitar Hero, his introductory text in the shop reads Do not fear the Ripper. Think you have what it takes to keep up with Grim's otherworldly technique?
- In Guitar Hero II, his description reads At his latest killer performance, an awe-struck fan gushed, the curtains flew, then he appeared! The lyrics say Then the door was opened and the wind appeared/The candles blew and then dissapeared/The curtains flew and then he appeared.
- Also in Guitar Hero II when you are reading the description for the SCYTHE guitar it says Ok, Maybe You Should Fear The Ripper
- In Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, his description reads With his unholy skill and blood-curdling licks, it's no wonder 40,000 are coming to see him at every show. The lyrics state (40,000 men and women everyday) Like Romeo and Juliet/(40,000 men and women everyday) Redefine happiness.
- Grim Ripper appears as an unlockable character in skateboarding game Tony Hawk's Project 8.
- In Grim Ripper's GH3 appearance, Tom Morello's motion capture routines were used on him as well.
- He and Izzy Sparks are the only characters that you can see without buying them.
- While the mention to canoe trips on his GH3 description may sound strange, this might as well be a reference to Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld in the Greek mythology, who rowed a boat across the Styx River to take the designated souls from Limbo to the afterlife itself.
- For unknown reasons, Grim has not appeared in a single Guitar Hero game since GH3, although it's possible that he is an unlockable character in Guitar Hero World Tour, but he is simply a skeleton and does not wear his trademark robes, nor have his trademark horns.
- It is possible that by the wording of his name, the "Grim Ripper," is really the actual Grim Reaper in the Guitar Hero universe; given his appearence and his apparent tendency to steal the souls of his audience members.