There is no comfortable way to play this game. Your only options are:
1) Get an OG Xbox, whose hardware are ticking time bombs and looks like shit on modern TVs
2) Play it on 360, which has poor backwards compatibility and is full of framedrops
3) Upgrade your PC (during a component shortage) so it can handle Xbox emulation, which is still in its relative infancy so hiccups are expected
Fuck you Sega, why did you lose the source code to all your best games, I hate you so fucking much
1) Get an OG Xbox, whose hardware are ticking time bombs and looks like shit on modern TVs
2) Play it on 360, which has poor backwards compatibility and is full of framedrops
3) Upgrade your PC (during a component shortage) so it can handle Xbox emulation, which is still in its relative infancy so hiccups are expected
Fuck you Sega, why did you lose the source code to all your best games, I hate you so fucking much
There was a brief period after playing the original Jet Grind Radio where I got into roller-blading. It was some monkey see, monkey do shit. Despite my trim build and regular exercise, I've never been particularly athletic, so sticking wheels under my feet was never a good idea. I remember skating by a neighbors house, their daughter was outside playing in the front lawn, and I recall thinking "kids are very impressionable, don't do any tricks, just skate by all safe-like." I immediately caught a crack in the sidewalk and was vaulted forward, crashed full-force into the cement, bruising several bones pretty badly in the process. The girl ran away crying. I never skated again.
I was unfortunately not part of the original Xbox's target market (my hands were too small to properly hold The Duke), so I missed out on a lot of great sixth gen games. One of those blind spots was Jet Set Radio Future, a game I always regretted not having a chance to play back in the day.
Less of a sequel and more a follow-up, JSRF retells the story of the first game, employing many of the same broad plot beats and themes. More rebellious and articulate in its purpose, Future pushes everything the first game set out to do forward, from its gameplay to its music, and most of all its spirit. Saying a game has "soul" is often met with a lot of eye-rolling, one of the many well-worn rhetorical arguments that people treat with little meaning. I find all this nitpicking about how people employ language in critique to be a bit silly, but none moreso than this, as the insistence for its disuse implies that games are so inherently passionless, so much a product, that they are incapable of expressing the spirit of those who create them. Not only does Jet Set Radio Future beat with Smielbit's signature funk, but it is also alive and buzzing with the spirit of hip hop culture, embodying its four major elements: MCing, rapping, break dancing, and graffiti.
Jet Set Radio - hosted by DJ Professor K - is more than a pirate station. It's revolutionary radio, a call to arms, inciting to action the youth of Tokyo-to to rebel against the sinister Rokkaku Group, which seeks to control speech and expression. Rokkaku's tactics are definably authoritarian, using a corrupt police force to exert their will through violence and manipulation. The rudies of Tokyo-to fight back by overwhelming Rukkaku's control through art - through tagging - and though Professor K spins the music that acts as a soundtrack to their rebellion, he also jockies knowledge. Knowledge of greed and oppression, making known the evils of the world and those who wish to do evil. Knowledge is itself the fifth element of hip hop, and arguably the most vital.
Tagging serves as one of the primary mechanics that ties player action directly to its hip hop roots. Graffiti is an art form, you're told this up front (before being warned not to actually vandalize anything as the Sega corporation really would prefer not to be held liable because you spray painted Sonic taking a fat rip off a bong on the side of the Whole Foods), and it is the rudies main weapon against Rokkaku's censorship. Blotting out consumerist propaganda, washing out the drab uniformity of police colors with your own mix of neons, taking out tanks and helicopters...
Late in the game, Rokkaku tries to turn the rudies tactics against them. Painting over their graffiti with their own hideous tags, even creating their own mechanical copies of you Beat and Yo-Yo to control them by proxy. It is in essence a representation of how corporate interests co-opt culture, and how they lose all sense of what makes that culture special in the process. It's not art, it's a product, it exists not for the sake of expression but for profit and power. You see Gouji Rokkaku in his weird modern art installation, playing his dour music while insisting it's the only thing the people of Tokyo-to will be listening to, the music of the "future," carefully curated by him alone. Paint that motherfucker up.
Even dance culture is well represented here, with each character having their own distinct style that harkens to specific subcultures and groups. When not grinding and tagging, characters sway to the rhythm, retro futurism dancing alongside the gothic, grunge, and punk. Most levels are designed in a way that is highly conducive to losing oneself in the flow of grinding, skating off walls, and flying through the air, and for as complex and large as many of them may be, exploration never feels like something that requires much thought or any effort beyond letting the level take you where it may. In this sense, break dancing, or "B-boying," feels present not just in the way the characters move while idling, but in how the game plays.
All of this is of course accompanied by some of the best music you've ever heard in any damn video game. Hideki Naganuma's score is an inseparable part of Jet Set Radio's identity, but alongside him are the likes of Richard Jacques, and artists such as Scapegoat Wax, Chibo Matto, and Guitar Vader. You need not look much further for Jet Set Radio Future's hip hop cred than The Latch Brothers, however, which was founded in part by Mike D of the Beastie Boys, and who contributed several songs to the game. I've written before that I have very little sense over what makes music good, and I struggle to articulate why certain songs and artists appeal to me, so I find it difficult to talk about Jet Set Radio Future's soundtrack without linking to specific examples that I think are strong indicators to its overall quality. Frankly, I shouldn't even be talking about music culture, but hey, this would be far from the first time I've dived into a subject I am wholly unqualified for.
Jet Set Radio Future is unfortunately not without its flaws. There's a couple levels that I think are actually fairly weak. Fortified Residential Zone is a primarily vertical level that tasks the player with disarming blue and red bombs, but most of the geometry looks very samey and the camera has a habit of locking into a more cinematic point of view on a couple rails which interferes with the timing of jumps necessary for progressing. Fall and you lose a bunch of progress. You're given half an hour before the bombs go off, and it's practically an admission that the level is not as intuitive to navigate as it ought to be. Highway Zero is also a fairly uninteresting level that is remarkably empty compared to others, and which feels a bit incomplete.
However, JSRF's greatest problem is its performance, which is downright dismal. It is constantly dropping frames, and it severely messes with the pace of the gameplay. To be fair, I played this on an Xbox 360 and I don't know if the poor performance is the result of wonky emulation or not. Maybe someone can clarify for me. In any case, Jet Set Radio Future is a game that desperately needs an HD remaster, or at the very least ought to be added to Xbox's growing backwards compatibility list. Original Xbox games (as far as I'm aware) do not get the frame boost treatment in the way other Xbox libraries do, but I'd have to imagine the Series X is a powerful enough system to allow JSRF to settle on a consistent 30fps, and I'll settle for that.
In Future's closing moments, DJ Professor K explains that greed and oppression can never "extinguish the yearning for freedom felt in the hearts of all mankind." The more authoritarians seek to control others, the stronger that desire for freedom becomes; but in times of peace, graffiti will remain to remind people of their passions.
Jet Set Radio Future is hip hop. Me? I'm rocking the four tenants of Weatherby: putting on skates, not putting on safety gear, catching air, and making landfall.
My bones hurt.
I was unfortunately not part of the original Xbox's target market (my hands were too small to properly hold The Duke), so I missed out on a lot of great sixth gen games. One of those blind spots was Jet Set Radio Future, a game I always regretted not having a chance to play back in the day.
Less of a sequel and more a follow-up, JSRF retells the story of the first game, employing many of the same broad plot beats and themes. More rebellious and articulate in its purpose, Future pushes everything the first game set out to do forward, from its gameplay to its music, and most of all its spirit. Saying a game has "soul" is often met with a lot of eye-rolling, one of the many well-worn rhetorical arguments that people treat with little meaning. I find all this nitpicking about how people employ language in critique to be a bit silly, but none moreso than this, as the insistence for its disuse implies that games are so inherently passionless, so much a product, that they are incapable of expressing the spirit of those who create them. Not only does Jet Set Radio Future beat with Smielbit's signature funk, but it is also alive and buzzing with the spirit of hip hop culture, embodying its four major elements: MCing, rapping, break dancing, and graffiti.
Jet Set Radio - hosted by DJ Professor K - is more than a pirate station. It's revolutionary radio, a call to arms, inciting to action the youth of Tokyo-to to rebel against the sinister Rokkaku Group, which seeks to control speech and expression. Rokkaku's tactics are definably authoritarian, using a corrupt police force to exert their will through violence and manipulation. The rudies of Tokyo-to fight back by overwhelming Rukkaku's control through art - through tagging - and though Professor K spins the music that acts as a soundtrack to their rebellion, he also jockies knowledge. Knowledge of greed and oppression, making known the evils of the world and those who wish to do evil. Knowledge is itself the fifth element of hip hop, and arguably the most vital.
Tagging serves as one of the primary mechanics that ties player action directly to its hip hop roots. Graffiti is an art form, you're told this up front (before being warned not to actually vandalize anything as the Sega corporation really would prefer not to be held liable because you spray painted Sonic taking a fat rip off a bong on the side of the Whole Foods), and it is the rudies main weapon against Rokkaku's censorship. Blotting out consumerist propaganda, washing out the drab uniformity of police colors with your own mix of neons, taking out tanks and helicopters...
Late in the game, Rokkaku tries to turn the rudies tactics against them. Painting over their graffiti with their own hideous tags, even creating their own mechanical copies of you Beat and Yo-Yo to control them by proxy. It is in essence a representation of how corporate interests co-opt culture, and how they lose all sense of what makes that culture special in the process. It's not art, it's a product, it exists not for the sake of expression but for profit and power. You see Gouji Rokkaku in his weird modern art installation, playing his dour music while insisting it's the only thing the people of Tokyo-to will be listening to, the music of the "future," carefully curated by him alone. Paint that motherfucker up.
Even dance culture is well represented here, with each character having their own distinct style that harkens to specific subcultures and groups. When not grinding and tagging, characters sway to the rhythm, retro futurism dancing alongside the gothic, grunge, and punk. Most levels are designed in a way that is highly conducive to losing oneself in the flow of grinding, skating off walls, and flying through the air, and for as complex and large as many of them may be, exploration never feels like something that requires much thought or any effort beyond letting the level take you where it may. In this sense, break dancing, or "B-boying," feels present not just in the way the characters move while idling, but in how the game plays.
All of this is of course accompanied by some of the best music you've ever heard in any damn video game. Hideki Naganuma's score is an inseparable part of Jet Set Radio's identity, but alongside him are the likes of Richard Jacques, and artists such as Scapegoat Wax, Chibo Matto, and Guitar Vader. You need not look much further for Jet Set Radio Future's hip hop cred than The Latch Brothers, however, which was founded in part by Mike D of the Beastie Boys, and who contributed several songs to the game. I've written before that I have very little sense over what makes music good, and I struggle to articulate why certain songs and artists appeal to me, so I find it difficult to talk about Jet Set Radio Future's soundtrack without linking to specific examples that I think are strong indicators to its overall quality. Frankly, I shouldn't even be talking about music culture, but hey, this would be far from the first time I've dived into a subject I am wholly unqualified for.
Jet Set Radio Future is unfortunately not without its flaws. There's a couple levels that I think are actually fairly weak. Fortified Residential Zone is a primarily vertical level that tasks the player with disarming blue and red bombs, but most of the geometry looks very samey and the camera has a habit of locking into a more cinematic point of view on a couple rails which interferes with the timing of jumps necessary for progressing. Fall and you lose a bunch of progress. You're given half an hour before the bombs go off, and it's practically an admission that the level is not as intuitive to navigate as it ought to be. Highway Zero is also a fairly uninteresting level that is remarkably empty compared to others, and which feels a bit incomplete.
However, JSRF's greatest problem is its performance, which is downright dismal. It is constantly dropping frames, and it severely messes with the pace of the gameplay. To be fair, I played this on an Xbox 360 and I don't know if the poor performance is the result of wonky emulation or not. Maybe someone can clarify for me. In any case, Jet Set Radio Future is a game that desperately needs an HD remaster, or at the very least ought to be added to Xbox's growing backwards compatibility list. Original Xbox games (as far as I'm aware) do not get the frame boost treatment in the way other Xbox libraries do, but I'd have to imagine the Series X is a powerful enough system to allow JSRF to settle on a consistent 30fps, and I'll settle for that.
In Future's closing moments, DJ Professor K explains that greed and oppression can never "extinguish the yearning for freedom felt in the hearts of all mankind." The more authoritarians seek to control others, the stronger that desire for freedom becomes; but in times of peace, graffiti will remain to remind people of their passions.
Jet Set Radio Future is hip hop. Me? I'm rocking the four tenants of Weatherby: putting on skates, not putting on safety gear, catching air, and making landfall.
My bones hurt.
Hi, I'm the first person on Backloggd to log Jet Set Radio Future and I'm glad my first-ever invocation of "First" is for a thing I'm shamelessly in love with.
how in god's name has this game not been remastered or ported. i don't get it.
West Side Story but turn-of-the-millennium counterculture cyberpunk. Save the world by spraying the cops and capitalists with graffiti while blasting pirate radio jams, pulling sick tricks, and understanding the concept of love.
They very truly do not make 'em like this anymore, just an all-around miracle of a game.
They very truly do not make 'em like this anymore, just an all-around miracle of a game.
what if the first game was just straight up fun to play with no strings attached
O melhor: Difícil escolher entre o visual, a trilha sonora ou o level design
O pior: Faz falta um controle de câmera total
O pior de verdade: Nenhum remaster ou esforço de retrocompatibilidade trouxe esse jogo para plataformas modernas...
O Jet Set Radio original é um jogo que eu queria ter gostado mais. Se inegavelmente seu estilo visual e sua trilha sonora seguem excelentes, o gameplay nunca "clicou" comigo. Os movimentos são lerdos, a câmera não é muito boa (mesmo nas versões HD) e o desafio por várias vezes é só frustrante. Ainda assim, sempre tive muito interesse em jogar a muito elogiada sequência, talvez também pela "mística" que aqueles jogos de difícil acesso possuem. Depois da frustração de Jet Set Radio Future não ter feito parte da retrocompatibilidade do Xbox One, o jeito foi recorrer a emulação. E, de fato, esse jogo merecia mais do que estar a mais de duas décadas preso no Xbox original.
JSRF é tratado como uma sequência, mas na verdade está mais para um reboot do jogo de Dreamcast. A própria história traz vários personagens do jogo original em situações diferentes, mas a narrativa é a mesma: numa Tokyo futurista, controlada por megacorporações, gangues de jovens equipados com patins magnéticos e muita tinta spray deixam suas marcas pela cidade ao som da rádio pirata comandada pelo DJ Professor K. Como um membro dos GG's, você entra em diversos conflitos com outras gangues, a polícia e o conglomerado opressor Rokkaku. É uma história contada de um jeito simples e repleta de exageros, mas que consegue passar sua mensagem.
Nos demais aspectos, Future faz o que toda boa sequência deve fazer: Melhorar o que deu certo e corrigir o que deu errado. Em termos visuais, ele expande de várias formas as ambições do jogo original. Os cenários são bem maiores e cheios de vida, com trânsito, multidões e objetos destrutíveis. Ao invés de ser dividido em fases, as áreas da Tokyo de JSRF são interconectadas e podem ser exploradas livremente quando acessadas pela primeira vez durante a campanha, o que torna o jogo um "semi mundo aberto" muito impressionante tecnicamente. Considerando o aumento de resolução possível via emulação, posso dizer que em vários momentos é um dos jogos mais bonitos que já vi. Aliado a isso está mais um trabalho excelente na trilha sonora feita na maior parte por Hideki Naganuma. A seleção de músicas e remixes é ótima e realmente traz a sensação de estar ouvindo uma rádio daquele mundo.
Mas é no gameplay que as diferenças são mais drásticas. Future deixa de lado a estrutura puramente Arcade do jogo original, apesar de ter vários dos mesmos objetivos. O design do jogo é mais focado em exploração e descoberta do que em otimização de tempo. A missão principal ainda é grafitar todos os lugares apontados em cada cenário, mas sem tempo limite e sem perseguição policial. Os grafites que precisavam de inputs do analógico também foram removidos em prol de algo mais simples e ágil, e o desafio principal do jogo é simplesmente entender como navegar em cada área e alcançar todos os pontos necessários. Resolvido esse "puzzle", uma nova leva de desafios é apresentada ao coletar uma fita cassete disponível em cada região, exigindo combos, pontuações e sequências específicas de manobras, justamente para tirar proveito do conhecimento do cenário adquirido durante a exploração inicial. Uma novidade em mecânica são os combates, geralmente contra forças policiais. É o aspecto do jogo onde um controle de câmera livre mais faz falta, talvez. Mas de modo geral é bem simples e até bem fácil, considerando que mesmo as boss battles podem ser resolvidas rapidamente segurando o gatilho direito para usar o spray no momento certo. Há desafios extras ao terminar a história principal, além de um modo multiplayer (que infelizmente não consegui testar).
Além de um game design mais refinado, os controles também estão bem melhores. Os personagens são mais ágeis, possuem mais movimentos e um melhor controle de velocidade. Em Future é possível executar várias manobras somente apertando o botão X ou Y, mas apesar da simplicidade do comando, para executar combos é necessário manter um certo ritmo entre as manobras. Mais importante é o fato de que manobras num grind aumentam sua velocidade, o que é essencial para a navegação pelo cenário. Há várias nuances no controle e, mesmo com seus vários tutoriais, o jogo deixa de explicar alguns comandos úteis ao jogador, como por exemplo a possibilidade de sair de um grind num half-pipe apertando o analógico. Esse último comando é particularmente muito útil nas duas fases que se passam num esgoto, justamente o ponto baixo do jogo pra mim. Enquanto quase todas as outras áreas são divertidas e interessantes de explorar, o design mais "labiríntico" dessas duas fases em específico só é um tanto quanto cansativo.
No mais, Jet Set Radio Future é um jogo excelente, mesmo considerando a barreira inicial de ser feito em uma época onde ainda estavam decidindo o que exatamente fazer com dois analógicos num controle. Nos momentos em que você entra no ritmo do jogo e entende o que cada cenário pede de você, ele é simplesmente muito satisfatório. Também tem uma boa duração e muito conteúdo extra para quem quer fazer 100%. É realmente uma pena que provavelmente ele nunca será relançado de alguma forma, apesar dos rumores de uma possível volta da série. Mas mesmo se for o caso (e também considerando lançamentos como Bomb Rush Cyberfunk) acho que vale o esforço de tentar jogar essa pérola.
O pior: Faz falta um controle de câmera total
O pior de verdade: Nenhum remaster ou esforço de retrocompatibilidade trouxe esse jogo para plataformas modernas...
O Jet Set Radio original é um jogo que eu queria ter gostado mais. Se inegavelmente seu estilo visual e sua trilha sonora seguem excelentes, o gameplay nunca "clicou" comigo. Os movimentos são lerdos, a câmera não é muito boa (mesmo nas versões HD) e o desafio por várias vezes é só frustrante. Ainda assim, sempre tive muito interesse em jogar a muito elogiada sequência, talvez também pela "mística" que aqueles jogos de difícil acesso possuem. Depois da frustração de Jet Set Radio Future não ter feito parte da retrocompatibilidade do Xbox One, o jeito foi recorrer a emulação. E, de fato, esse jogo merecia mais do que estar a mais de duas décadas preso no Xbox original.
JSRF é tratado como uma sequência, mas na verdade está mais para um reboot do jogo de Dreamcast. A própria história traz vários personagens do jogo original em situações diferentes, mas a narrativa é a mesma: numa Tokyo futurista, controlada por megacorporações, gangues de jovens equipados com patins magnéticos e muita tinta spray deixam suas marcas pela cidade ao som da rádio pirata comandada pelo DJ Professor K. Como um membro dos GG's, você entra em diversos conflitos com outras gangues, a polícia e o conglomerado opressor Rokkaku. É uma história contada de um jeito simples e repleta de exageros, mas que consegue passar sua mensagem.
Nos demais aspectos, Future faz o que toda boa sequência deve fazer: Melhorar o que deu certo e corrigir o que deu errado. Em termos visuais, ele expande de várias formas as ambições do jogo original. Os cenários são bem maiores e cheios de vida, com trânsito, multidões e objetos destrutíveis. Ao invés de ser dividido em fases, as áreas da Tokyo de JSRF são interconectadas e podem ser exploradas livremente quando acessadas pela primeira vez durante a campanha, o que torna o jogo um "semi mundo aberto" muito impressionante tecnicamente. Considerando o aumento de resolução possível via emulação, posso dizer que em vários momentos é um dos jogos mais bonitos que já vi. Aliado a isso está mais um trabalho excelente na trilha sonora feita na maior parte por Hideki Naganuma. A seleção de músicas e remixes é ótima e realmente traz a sensação de estar ouvindo uma rádio daquele mundo.
Mas é no gameplay que as diferenças são mais drásticas. Future deixa de lado a estrutura puramente Arcade do jogo original, apesar de ter vários dos mesmos objetivos. O design do jogo é mais focado em exploração e descoberta do que em otimização de tempo. A missão principal ainda é grafitar todos os lugares apontados em cada cenário, mas sem tempo limite e sem perseguição policial. Os grafites que precisavam de inputs do analógico também foram removidos em prol de algo mais simples e ágil, e o desafio principal do jogo é simplesmente entender como navegar em cada área e alcançar todos os pontos necessários. Resolvido esse "puzzle", uma nova leva de desafios é apresentada ao coletar uma fita cassete disponível em cada região, exigindo combos, pontuações e sequências específicas de manobras, justamente para tirar proveito do conhecimento do cenário adquirido durante a exploração inicial. Uma novidade em mecânica são os combates, geralmente contra forças policiais. É o aspecto do jogo onde um controle de câmera livre mais faz falta, talvez. Mas de modo geral é bem simples e até bem fácil, considerando que mesmo as boss battles podem ser resolvidas rapidamente segurando o gatilho direito para usar o spray no momento certo. Há desafios extras ao terminar a história principal, além de um modo multiplayer (que infelizmente não consegui testar).
Além de um game design mais refinado, os controles também estão bem melhores. Os personagens são mais ágeis, possuem mais movimentos e um melhor controle de velocidade. Em Future é possível executar várias manobras somente apertando o botão X ou Y, mas apesar da simplicidade do comando, para executar combos é necessário manter um certo ritmo entre as manobras. Mais importante é o fato de que manobras num grind aumentam sua velocidade, o que é essencial para a navegação pelo cenário. Há várias nuances no controle e, mesmo com seus vários tutoriais, o jogo deixa de explicar alguns comandos úteis ao jogador, como por exemplo a possibilidade de sair de um grind num half-pipe apertando o analógico. Esse último comando é particularmente muito útil nas duas fases que se passam num esgoto, justamente o ponto baixo do jogo pra mim. Enquanto quase todas as outras áreas são divertidas e interessantes de explorar, o design mais "labiríntico" dessas duas fases em específico só é um tanto quanto cansativo.
No mais, Jet Set Radio Future é um jogo excelente, mesmo considerando a barreira inicial de ser feito em uma época onde ainda estavam decidindo o que exatamente fazer com dois analógicos num controle. Nos momentos em que você entra no ritmo do jogo e entende o que cada cenário pede de você, ele é simplesmente muito satisfatório. Também tem uma boa duração e muito conteúdo extra para quem quer fazer 100%. É realmente uma pena que provavelmente ele nunca será relançado de alguma forma, apesar dos rumores de uma possível volta da série. Mas mesmo se for o caso (e também considerando lançamentos como Bomb Rush Cyberfunk) acho que vale o esforço de tentar jogar essa pérola.
damn so that's why people want a new one
A platformer with rollerskates never felt any better than this. Sega somehow made the presentation even better with how much more stylized, grungy, funky, and dystopian the city of Tokyo-to looks. The way the levels are structured makes for some really fun and challenging platforming, while also telling a story of the city that you're in through its presentation. Like seriously, levels like the roofs of upper class sky scrapers, an area that's just purely one big roller coaster, the lower class cities that are built very strangely, the big sewers with a cult room says a lot about the world building of this game. Everything just makes sense for a messed up city taken over by a totalitarian business. Just like the game's message, this game in general is just pure funky art that doesn't get old from start to finish.
Also the music is obviously incredible, but I didn't want to put too much space on that since most people only talk about the music but haven't played the game itself.
Also the music is obviously incredible, but I didn't want to put too much space on that since most people only talk about the music but haven't played the game itself.
Hello, Allison, I wanna hold your hand
I haven't been the same man
Since I saw you comin' in
Let's have a toast to the girl in Aisle 10
I haven't been the same man
Since I saw you comin' in
Let's have a toast to the girl in Aisle 10
A work of art that showcases the power and style from SEGA's Smilebit team.
Put it down for a few months and came back to realize I had left it off at the skyscraper district and lost interest incredibly hard ngl
JSRF is a bit of step forward step back sequel for me tbh, it doesn't really iterate on the first game as much as just kinda do something different with a similar idea that's better in some ways but also somehow clunkier in others.
It's been long enough since I put it down I feel like I'd need to start over to get back into the swing of it so it's going on the shelf for now. Maybe one day Sega will remaster it with a decent camera and give me the motivation to go back
JSRF is a bit of step forward step back sequel for me tbh, it doesn't really iterate on the first game as much as just kinda do something different with a similar idea that's better in some ways but also somehow clunkier in others.
It's been long enough since I put it down I feel like I'd need to start over to get back into the swing of it so it's going on the shelf for now. Maybe one day Sega will remaster it with a decent camera and give me the motivation to go back
Similar to the first game this is a hard one for me to review. The positive is this game is a huge step forward from the first. On balance it controls a lot better, the game structure is more open and free with the interconnecting levels, and you aren't being hounded by police every two seconds. Things are shaken up pretty often, you are spraying graffiti, racing, tag racing, fighting, and more. The game also has a wonderful charming style that holds up today, great art, cool designs for the different playable characters and rival gangs, and of course an awesome soundtrack (Aisle 10 was my favorite).
However this game really needs a modern remake (I am glad we are getting a reboot!) to fix some issues. The jumps are so floaty yet they have so many areas where you need to be super precise that it just leads to frustration, honestly without save states I am not sure I would have pressed onward in certain sections. The map also might be the worst one I have ever seen, it is almost indecipherable in some sections where the text is just on top of the map entirely and you have no idea what you are looking at. There are other issues but they are pretty of the time, such as a rough checkpointing system and a lack of clarity at times on what you should be doing, but I can accept a lot of that since this is a 2002 game.
Ultimately I think the back half of the game will make me think of this game a lot more fondly than I was working through the horrible sewer level earlier on, and that helps me look past a lot of the issues. Great style and I look forward to a modern take on this, I think it could be special
However this game really needs a modern remake (I am glad we are getting a reboot!) to fix some issues. The jumps are so floaty yet they have so many areas where you need to be super precise that it just leads to frustration, honestly without save states I am not sure I would have pressed onward in certain sections. The map also might be the worst one I have ever seen, it is almost indecipherable in some sections where the text is just on top of the map entirely and you have no idea what you are looking at. There are other issues but they are pretty of the time, such as a rough checkpointing system and a lack of clarity at times on what you should be doing, but I can accept a lot of that since this is a 2002 game.
Ultimately I think the back half of the game will make me think of this game a lot more fondly than I was working through the horrible sewer level earlier on, and that helps me look past a lot of the issues. Great style and I look forward to a modern take on this, I think it could be special
jet set radio future is awesome, a complete upgrade on the original which i found to be a bit lacking in a lot of ways and was ultimately something i appreciated as opposed to future which actually feels like a fun game to play. on the other hand, i feel like jsrf is one of those games where i have more fun just playing it and having fun than i do completing the missions and trying to beat it, which i guess isn't really a bad thing. this game is one i see myself coming back to often but not one i ever see myself going out of the way to finish either.
This is my first time ever playing this game despite playing the first in 2014 and it becoming my all time favorite game ever made that I replay nearly every year. JSRF is a breath of fresh air in a way by not being exactly like the original in how it plays, it goes for a more open approach which at times is great fun and other times extremely tedious. the gameplay is more about going through open levels in a hub that leads 3 ways and you do the objectives of the story while there's side collectibles in it's street challenges and graffiti souls. some of these tasks can be pretty frustrating especially with some of the jank the game still has and some levels I kinda despised like the skyscraper district but I did end up loving a few levels like Chuo Street and Rokkaku-Dai Heights but overall the gameplay is fun but I prefer the arcadic approach of the original
Music and Art are top notch and depending on your tastes you may prefer it over the original. I prefer the original JSR Art and Music but JSRF's Art and Music is extremely nice and some characters got a glow up like Yo-Yo who is my personal favorite character in this game
Story is basically like a soft reboot of the original and still corny, personally I prefer the "story" of the original game as the segments meshed more well together in that game in my opinion than this one.
overall JSRF is worth your time if you enjoy anything skating or anything Jet Set Radio despite some of it's shortcomings, my personal score may change depending on the 100% of the game which I'm doing right now and I enjoyed getting jet ranking on skydinosaurian square.
edit: I honestly really enjoyed 100% completion and it did up the score for me, while the golden rhino graffiti is a bit tedious the test runs are extremely fun
Music and Art are top notch and depending on your tastes you may prefer it over the original. I prefer the original JSR Art and Music but JSRF's Art and Music is extremely nice and some characters got a glow up like Yo-Yo who is my personal favorite character in this game
Story is basically like a soft reboot of the original and still corny, personally I prefer the "story" of the original game as the segments meshed more well together in that game in my opinion than this one.
overall JSRF is worth your time if you enjoy anything skating or anything Jet Set Radio despite some of it's shortcomings, my personal score may change depending on the 100% of the game which I'm doing right now and I enjoyed getting jet ranking on skydinosaurian square.
edit: I honestly really enjoyed 100% completion and it did up the score for me, while the golden rhino graffiti is a bit tedious the test runs are extremely fun
after playing the original jet set radio so much in my younger years, I was absolutely salivating at the prospect of getting to play its follow-up at some point. however, my dad was a firm sony acolyte by that point, so I never had an opportunity to snag an xbox and give jsrf a shot. right before I began college I managed to get ahold of an original xbox for $40 (an unthinkably low price to me now, where an og will cost ~$120) with a copy of jsrf/sega gt 2002 for $10 (which even at the time was a complete rip-off, I found a 50 cent copy mere weeks later). that first playthrough began so well, but as I progressed, it dawned on me just how severely different and compromised the experience was versus the original, and after beating it I reluctantly admitted to myself that the venture had been a bust. I got to play one more title on xbox (silent hill 2, which was an absolute godsend for poor gamers like myself in the pre-definitive edition on pc days) before it succumbed to trace corrosion from a capacitor leakage on my 1.4 board. I scrambled to fix it, eventually installing a new motherboard/HDD combo until within months the EEPROM failed and I was left with a brick yet again. recently I opted to get an xbox 360 s on sale instead, and after finding jsrf on the backwards compatibility list, I felt the urge to return and perhaps see the game in a new light, or to reevaluate the game without its predecessor looming over it.
instead, with a heavy heart I must say that jsrf is even worse than I remember it being upon my first playthrough. the wonder I felt traversing the startlingly-large areas on my first playthrough has been replaced with utter boredom, and the aspects I so hated past the halfway point now strangle my enjoyment even further. it's remarkably ambitious, and I respect the team's desire to remix the original gameplay and setting into an alternate interpretation of the original, but its design strips out the genius of jsr's interlocking mechanics and accentuates the worst aspects.
jsrf moves away from the mission-based structure of the original and allows players to explore a segmented open world, all centered around the GG's garage. there's some level of interconnectivity between the levels, but in actuality three main hubs exist: one based around shibuya terminal, one based around the sewage facility accessed through rokkaku-dai heights, and one highway connecting 99th street, the skyscraper district, and highway zero together with various one-off areas attached. any unlocked area can be accessed at any time to complete optional challenges and collect graffiti souls. however, the game is otherwise rather linear, with objectives being relayed via cutscenes and directives from professor k over the returning pirate radio station Jet Set Radio. occasionally these objectives can be completed out of order, but otherwise a slightly uncomfortable amount of time is spent backtracking to reach far-flung destinations.
the level design itself initially comes off as much more expansive than its predecessor, but further examination reveals the actual tasks are more rigid and demanding. the majority of areas are designed as giant loops to faciliate various races and chases throughout the game, and given that there are often one-way chokepoints that prevent the player from exploring them backwards, it is difficult to freely move about in each beyond going around the loop repeatedly. when missing objectives or collectables along the way this becomes exceedingly tedious. shibuya terminal is a tidy contraindicator to this trend at the very least. this level drastically expands upon the modest bus terminal from the original jsr by adding a mesh of walkways high above the cars below, with nooks and crannies spread throughout and numerous ways to transport oneself from edge to edge. fittingly enough, the game opens with a kinetic sizzle reel of the GG's rolling through this area and performing a dazzling array of tricks all while bounding between rails and lightpoles and jumping between bus stop overhangs. some of the other non-loop stages are not so lucky. 99th street features a nice dragon statue centerpiece but with two nearly-identical downtown shopping areas on either side that lack identity beyond reinterpreting a similar yet singular area from the original title. hikage street is even worse, with three boxed areas with a giant spiraling staircase each, and an interconnecting maze that will force the player to repeatedly and slowly puruse their map in order to proceed.
in terms of the challenges presented, jsrf hews far closer to being a traditional platformer than jsr. each area is focused around a single type of obstacle, and generally moving through each area requires repeatedly surmounting the obstacle, whether it's chained wall-rides on billboards, flipping off of ladders, or doing boost jumps out of half-pipes. unfortunately, given that the skating and grinding has still not progressed far from jsr, there simply isn't enough nuance in control available to actually iterate the difficulty of the obstacles throughout each area, and so instead the game resorts to simply copy-pasting structures for long spans and forcing the player to repeat the same tricks ad nauseum with little variation. enjoy mindless rail-to-wall-ride-back-to-rail sections in chuo street? have fun going through five in a row every time you have the misfortune of needing to visit the rear of the stage for any reason. some stages pull this off better than others: the sewage facility, while mostly linear in terms of how the obstacles are reached, has a variety of different half-pipe-centric challenges throughout its runtime that keep the concept fresh throughout, even though a section requiring literal jump-between-platforms platforming halfway through illustrates how poorly jsr's slippery momentum-based movement translates to grind-less areas. on the other end of this is the fortified residential zone towards the end of the game, where the bottom level involves flipping off ladders and the top level involves making long jumps off of steep downward ramps towards spiral rail climbs. on this bottom level, remembering which of the many identical ladder sections you've already climbed (switches must be activated at the top of each one) becomes tiresome, especially since the map does not seem to help in the slightest. by the time you've surpassed both levels, you're thrust into three back-to-back sections requiring you to fall through wooden awnings to find which ones are sturdy enough to support your weight and can lead you to the next area. one by itself would have been troublesome enough, but three separate ones chained together with no breaks truly illustrates a laziness in design that should have been cut down to size long before the game went gold.
the controls themselves have been tweaked, and on the surface the changes fix many issues with the first game:
-player acceleration has been bumped up slightly, removing some of the sluggishness many complained about. on its own this is a great change other than making turn radii just a wee bit wider than the first game, but the way it interacts with the grinding is suspect. when jumping, the difference between a regular jump and a trick jump (with exaggerated air time)
depends on the speed the player currently has, just as in the first game. since the player is overall faster, it's very difficult to ever pull off a regular jump, and so virtually every jump from a rail is overly floaty.
-rails grab more easily than they did in the first, making missed grinds less frequent. in the original this would have been a nice change, but jsrf vastly increases the number of grindable surfaces at any given time, and it results in far too many instances of the player randomly grabbing onto rails when they aren't meant to. a grind button is still desperately needed here, and possibly a way to quickly jump between parallel rails a la sonic.
-large graffiti has been changed from a series of QTEs to a group of various one-shot graffiti points in a row. while theoretically this should keep the pace steady, it ends up causing unnecessary interruptions because the targeting system simply refuses to let you do a line of them in one go. occasionally I have actually gotten a run of five or seven graffiti points when holding the button down, but it's so inconsistent and really halts the game when I have to round back to get the one or two points that somehow didn't get covered, especially when they're on a rail.
-the previously unused X and Y buttons have now been allotted to performing tricks, which is a godsend on rails, where they allow you to build speed without jumping. if I had to single out one addition that really elevates the experience and that I would love to backport to jsr, it would be this one. however, there's an awkward unforced error in the design here in that the player must use a certain rhythm to perform them lest it fails. if the rhythm were consistent it would be no big deal, but it absolutely changes depending on location/speed/incline/etc. and is entirely indecipherable. I would also raise the max cap on speed you could gain a bit, but that's a more minor tweak.
-you can also now turn around at will by pressing Y while moving compared to the awkward analog stick method from the original. you also frequently turn around while performing tricks, and will land moving backwards. this is way more of a hindrance than a boon, since you cannot boost while turned around, and as far as I'm aware your turn radius is even larger than it was before. totally useless feature as far as I'm concerned.
-boosting has been changed from a cooldown with minor effects to a 10-can cost with a major increase in speed. in theory I agree with the decision, but the price is just way too much... five cans probably would have worked, but with every character having a 30 can cap now, you'll have to jettison a third of your cans for a three second boost. there's also a frustrating smear filter it applies to the screen when boosting, and it can make it difficult to discern fine details when the boost is being used before jumping.
I've now penned an awful lot of words describing just basic movement/graffiti/level design/etc., and that's because here it makes up a good 75% of the game. unlike the first game, which required an understanding of multiple intertwined mechanics and hazards to successfully develop routes for each level, here you're often required to simply go around spraying every graffiti point in an environment with no pushback from external forces. herein lies the major design paradigm shift between the two titles: the original focused on creativity and route-planning in environments with dynamic processes, whereas jsrf focuses on fixed challenges delivered in strictly partitioned segments. the challenges themselves require a greater level of finesse to accomplish, but the only punishment is generally falling some distance and needing to try again. every punishment is delivered via frustration and lots of retracing steps to climb up and attempt the trick again, and while this is technically easier than the original, which required full-mission retries upon death, this game feels so much more unnecessarily punitive. the verticality of many stages exacerbates this issue with just how far you can fall from a screw-up. failure in jsr often encouraged new strategies, and each level was open-ended enough in that game to allow route changes if a particular approach wasn't working. here it's just constantly bashing your head against clunky challenges over and over again, and the game is so much worse for it.
of course, there's more beyond simply spraying graffiti and platforming here. for one, combat has taken on a heightened important in quartered-off encounters. generally you will run into an invisible trigger that plops you into a small arena surrounded by electrified fences and forced to fight cops or golden rhino. fighting mainly consists of running into opponents, knocking them down, and spraying them... and it really never gets more complicated against human foes. the lack of mechanics and variety seems almost unfinished considered how many times you need to take on enemy forces, and beyond some armored opponents requiring a boost to knock over there's little challenge or strategy in taking down humanoid opponents. the sole exception is a late-game miniboss who can use doc ock-esque extendable robotic arms to attempt to attack you, allowing you to grind on his arms once they have been shot and knock him down; even this fight never increases in complexity past the beginning. there's also a couple true bosses to take on, which range in quality. the mid-game fight against the spider-esque police mecha is so quick and simple as to be unmemorable. there's a late-game train robot which is great in how it forces you to jump between rails to dodge various telegraphed attacks, but as mentioned before jumping between rails is very clumsy, and you'll often waste so many cans boosting to get close enough to attack that you won't have enough to actually attack with. the final boss is particularly annoying in that you must boost into it multiple times with no indicator that you are doing any damage until it finally breaks open the weak point. by this point, you must drop to the bottom of the stage, grab cans to restock, and then climb all the way back up in a rather annoying sequence that requires you to make multiple blind jumps (the camera faces towards the player during spirals, and with jumps at the end of the spirals you must memorize where the rail ends... very frustrating). the original boss was certainly not amazing, but it was at the very least much less involved in terms of the platforming involved. the original stood out to me in how little it emphasized combat overall and how well the game performed without it, so the move towards required combat here grates on me a bit, especially since it's not particularly fun.
rival gangs also show up here, with their own set of events for you to take on. "Tagger's Tag" returns from the original game, where you must chase each rival gang member in a loop and spray them a certain number of times. this is arguably the worst part of the original game, and thankfully it's slightly better here. the new lock-on system makes staying behind a moving target much easier, and downed rivals don't deal damage like they used to. a couple of the fights do have much higher can counts required to take them on (poison jam took me 30 a pop), which is certainly annoying, but since you can hold the button down here to spray consistently it's less of a problem. races aren't too difficult either given that you understand the loop in a given stage. however, the capture the flag game is a total dud. in open levels where you could choose and optimize routes between flags, perhaps this could be fun, but in both of the available capture the flag matches the areas are virtually straight lines you must run between. if you grab the first flag, and the next flag is straight behind you in a corridor, your opponents trailing you will have an instant headstart on that flag, making racing for it pointless. in the hikage street version, it's better to straight-up memorize the flag placements and then only go for the odd-numbered flags. rounding these out is the absolute slog that is death ball. halfway through the game you're captured and forced to win three back-to-back death ball rounds to earn your freedom. this sport consists of grabbing a ball and running it around a track while avoiding your opponents. there's a mechanic where you can toss a ball to and from your AI-controlled partner, but it's completely broken, and your companion is next to useless in terms of tactics. on my first playthrough this was a nightmare for me, and this time I ended up trivializing it by simply standing in place, waiting for the AI to get closeish, and then running while hoping the AI didn't attempt to run backwards and cross me at any point. total waste of time, and especially unbearable considering you have to do three in a row.
I do want to give the game credit where credit is due of course, and it's impossible to downplay the technical improvements the game has made over the dreamcast original. it's sadly unclear what the early dreamcast builds of this looked like, but this is pushes the xbox non-stop to great effect with long draw distances and complex level geometry. the new aesthetic moves away from the 10-minutes-in-the-future setting of jsr while completely skirting any sort of gritty cyberpunk look in favor of sleek, almost retrofuture robot-esque characters and pastel colored buildings. I still have a preference for the original areas, but it relates more to the jsrf having such artificial area design to the point where it ruins the immersion that the original creates with its much more naturalistic urban layouts. the soundtrack is also incredibly strong, favoring a heavier dance influence over the more kitschy plunderphonics of the original. there are fewer guest tracks, but the ones that appear are just as memorable as those from the first game. real talk: birthday cake gets some undue hate, but the real detestable track here is Aisle 10. such a beyond-corny rap track that reeks of loser white boy energy; I was shocked to find out that it was an actual hit that they licensed and not some shitty no-name artist. thankfully we also got contributions from The Latch Brothers, a very solid beastie boys side project. there's a lot of solid little technical touches; the one that sticks out for me is how the characters seem to melt at high speeds, like their polygons begin warping from the momentum they carry.
it's not that I don't want to like this game; I wanted to love it when I originally played it. I made it up to the death ball tournament completely convinced that it was a classic in its own right and that my frustration would cease with time. this replay has made it so incredibly apparent that this isn't the case though, and any slight nostalgia I had for it quickly disappeared given the how dull the experience is. to me "dull" describes the majority of the game, and there's no better section that illustrates it than the noise tank section past the halfway point. you're required to take down many noise tanks that have infested the previous areas you've already explored, and rather than any sort of intelligent enemy design they simply stand in bunches looping their dance animation, often floating inexplicably above the ground waiting for you to run into them so they can disappear with no effects. just a total drag that siphons your time by running you through on-rails areas you've already experienced. no matter what I do in this game it always seems to interrupt my flow to toss me into some shit I don't wanna do: some random fight, running back and forth between areas, untelegraphed and uncancellable events with rival gangs, and any number of other tedious and frustrating activities, none of which make me think about the mechanics outside of basic execution. it's not the kind of game I want to invest time into, and to me it doesn't live up its predecessor.
a note about playing this on 360: everything I said above but a good smattering of slowdown (depends on area + player character) along with some screen tearing. it made the skyscraper district -- already one of the worst areas in the game -- so bad as to give me a headache... it's definitely not the optimal way to play, but this game is already rather inaccessible as is, so I wouldn't blame anyone for trying it out that way.
instead, with a heavy heart I must say that jsrf is even worse than I remember it being upon my first playthrough. the wonder I felt traversing the startlingly-large areas on my first playthrough has been replaced with utter boredom, and the aspects I so hated past the halfway point now strangle my enjoyment even further. it's remarkably ambitious, and I respect the team's desire to remix the original gameplay and setting into an alternate interpretation of the original, but its design strips out the genius of jsr's interlocking mechanics and accentuates the worst aspects.
jsrf moves away from the mission-based structure of the original and allows players to explore a segmented open world, all centered around the GG's garage. there's some level of interconnectivity between the levels, but in actuality three main hubs exist: one based around shibuya terminal, one based around the sewage facility accessed through rokkaku-dai heights, and one highway connecting 99th street, the skyscraper district, and highway zero together with various one-off areas attached. any unlocked area can be accessed at any time to complete optional challenges and collect graffiti souls. however, the game is otherwise rather linear, with objectives being relayed via cutscenes and directives from professor k over the returning pirate radio station Jet Set Radio. occasionally these objectives can be completed out of order, but otherwise a slightly uncomfortable amount of time is spent backtracking to reach far-flung destinations.
the level design itself initially comes off as much more expansive than its predecessor, but further examination reveals the actual tasks are more rigid and demanding. the majority of areas are designed as giant loops to faciliate various races and chases throughout the game, and given that there are often one-way chokepoints that prevent the player from exploring them backwards, it is difficult to freely move about in each beyond going around the loop repeatedly. when missing objectives or collectables along the way this becomes exceedingly tedious. shibuya terminal is a tidy contraindicator to this trend at the very least. this level drastically expands upon the modest bus terminal from the original jsr by adding a mesh of walkways high above the cars below, with nooks and crannies spread throughout and numerous ways to transport oneself from edge to edge. fittingly enough, the game opens with a kinetic sizzle reel of the GG's rolling through this area and performing a dazzling array of tricks all while bounding between rails and lightpoles and jumping between bus stop overhangs. some of the other non-loop stages are not so lucky. 99th street features a nice dragon statue centerpiece but with two nearly-identical downtown shopping areas on either side that lack identity beyond reinterpreting a similar yet singular area from the original title. hikage street is even worse, with three boxed areas with a giant spiraling staircase each, and an interconnecting maze that will force the player to repeatedly and slowly puruse their map in order to proceed.
in terms of the challenges presented, jsrf hews far closer to being a traditional platformer than jsr. each area is focused around a single type of obstacle, and generally moving through each area requires repeatedly surmounting the obstacle, whether it's chained wall-rides on billboards, flipping off of ladders, or doing boost jumps out of half-pipes. unfortunately, given that the skating and grinding has still not progressed far from jsr, there simply isn't enough nuance in control available to actually iterate the difficulty of the obstacles throughout each area, and so instead the game resorts to simply copy-pasting structures for long spans and forcing the player to repeat the same tricks ad nauseum with little variation. enjoy mindless rail-to-wall-ride-back-to-rail sections in chuo street? have fun going through five in a row every time you have the misfortune of needing to visit the rear of the stage for any reason. some stages pull this off better than others: the sewage facility, while mostly linear in terms of how the obstacles are reached, has a variety of different half-pipe-centric challenges throughout its runtime that keep the concept fresh throughout, even though a section requiring literal jump-between-platforms platforming halfway through illustrates how poorly jsr's slippery momentum-based movement translates to grind-less areas. on the other end of this is the fortified residential zone towards the end of the game, where the bottom level involves flipping off ladders and the top level involves making long jumps off of steep downward ramps towards spiral rail climbs. on this bottom level, remembering which of the many identical ladder sections you've already climbed (switches must be activated at the top of each one) becomes tiresome, especially since the map does not seem to help in the slightest. by the time you've surpassed both levels, you're thrust into three back-to-back sections requiring you to fall through wooden awnings to find which ones are sturdy enough to support your weight and can lead you to the next area. one by itself would have been troublesome enough, but three separate ones chained together with no breaks truly illustrates a laziness in design that should have been cut down to size long before the game went gold.
the controls themselves have been tweaked, and on the surface the changes fix many issues with the first game:
-player acceleration has been bumped up slightly, removing some of the sluggishness many complained about. on its own this is a great change other than making turn radii just a wee bit wider than the first game, but the way it interacts with the grinding is suspect. when jumping, the difference between a regular jump and a trick jump (with exaggerated air time)
depends on the speed the player currently has, just as in the first game. since the player is overall faster, it's very difficult to ever pull off a regular jump, and so virtually every jump from a rail is overly floaty.
-rails grab more easily than they did in the first, making missed grinds less frequent. in the original this would have been a nice change, but jsrf vastly increases the number of grindable surfaces at any given time, and it results in far too many instances of the player randomly grabbing onto rails when they aren't meant to. a grind button is still desperately needed here, and possibly a way to quickly jump between parallel rails a la sonic.
-large graffiti has been changed from a series of QTEs to a group of various one-shot graffiti points in a row. while theoretically this should keep the pace steady, it ends up causing unnecessary interruptions because the targeting system simply refuses to let you do a line of them in one go. occasionally I have actually gotten a run of five or seven graffiti points when holding the button down, but it's so inconsistent and really halts the game when I have to round back to get the one or two points that somehow didn't get covered, especially when they're on a rail.
-the previously unused X and Y buttons have now been allotted to performing tricks, which is a godsend on rails, where they allow you to build speed without jumping. if I had to single out one addition that really elevates the experience and that I would love to backport to jsr, it would be this one. however, there's an awkward unforced error in the design here in that the player must use a certain rhythm to perform them lest it fails. if the rhythm were consistent it would be no big deal, but it absolutely changes depending on location/speed/incline/etc. and is entirely indecipherable. I would also raise the max cap on speed you could gain a bit, but that's a more minor tweak.
-you can also now turn around at will by pressing Y while moving compared to the awkward analog stick method from the original. you also frequently turn around while performing tricks, and will land moving backwards. this is way more of a hindrance than a boon, since you cannot boost while turned around, and as far as I'm aware your turn radius is even larger than it was before. totally useless feature as far as I'm concerned.
-boosting has been changed from a cooldown with minor effects to a 10-can cost with a major increase in speed. in theory I agree with the decision, but the price is just way too much... five cans probably would have worked, but with every character having a 30 can cap now, you'll have to jettison a third of your cans for a three second boost. there's also a frustrating smear filter it applies to the screen when boosting, and it can make it difficult to discern fine details when the boost is being used before jumping.
I've now penned an awful lot of words describing just basic movement/graffiti/level design/etc., and that's because here it makes up a good 75% of the game. unlike the first game, which required an understanding of multiple intertwined mechanics and hazards to successfully develop routes for each level, here you're often required to simply go around spraying every graffiti point in an environment with no pushback from external forces. herein lies the major design paradigm shift between the two titles: the original focused on creativity and route-planning in environments with dynamic processes, whereas jsrf focuses on fixed challenges delivered in strictly partitioned segments. the challenges themselves require a greater level of finesse to accomplish, but the only punishment is generally falling some distance and needing to try again. every punishment is delivered via frustration and lots of retracing steps to climb up and attempt the trick again, and while this is technically easier than the original, which required full-mission retries upon death, this game feels so much more unnecessarily punitive. the verticality of many stages exacerbates this issue with just how far you can fall from a screw-up. failure in jsr often encouraged new strategies, and each level was open-ended enough in that game to allow route changes if a particular approach wasn't working. here it's just constantly bashing your head against clunky challenges over and over again, and the game is so much worse for it.
of course, there's more beyond simply spraying graffiti and platforming here. for one, combat has taken on a heightened important in quartered-off encounters. generally you will run into an invisible trigger that plops you into a small arena surrounded by electrified fences and forced to fight cops or golden rhino. fighting mainly consists of running into opponents, knocking them down, and spraying them... and it really never gets more complicated against human foes. the lack of mechanics and variety seems almost unfinished considered how many times you need to take on enemy forces, and beyond some armored opponents requiring a boost to knock over there's little challenge or strategy in taking down humanoid opponents. the sole exception is a late-game miniboss who can use doc ock-esque extendable robotic arms to attempt to attack you, allowing you to grind on his arms once they have been shot and knock him down; even this fight never increases in complexity past the beginning. there's also a couple true bosses to take on, which range in quality. the mid-game fight against the spider-esque police mecha is so quick and simple as to be unmemorable. there's a late-game train robot which is great in how it forces you to jump between rails to dodge various telegraphed attacks, but as mentioned before jumping between rails is very clumsy, and you'll often waste so many cans boosting to get close enough to attack that you won't have enough to actually attack with. the final boss is particularly annoying in that you must boost into it multiple times with no indicator that you are doing any damage until it finally breaks open the weak point. by this point, you must drop to the bottom of the stage, grab cans to restock, and then climb all the way back up in a rather annoying sequence that requires you to make multiple blind jumps (the camera faces towards the player during spirals, and with jumps at the end of the spirals you must memorize where the rail ends... very frustrating). the original boss was certainly not amazing, but it was at the very least much less involved in terms of the platforming involved. the original stood out to me in how little it emphasized combat overall and how well the game performed without it, so the move towards required combat here grates on me a bit, especially since it's not particularly fun.
rival gangs also show up here, with their own set of events for you to take on. "Tagger's Tag" returns from the original game, where you must chase each rival gang member in a loop and spray them a certain number of times. this is arguably the worst part of the original game, and thankfully it's slightly better here. the new lock-on system makes staying behind a moving target much easier, and downed rivals don't deal damage like they used to. a couple of the fights do have much higher can counts required to take them on (poison jam took me 30 a pop), which is certainly annoying, but since you can hold the button down here to spray consistently it's less of a problem. races aren't too difficult either given that you understand the loop in a given stage. however, the capture the flag game is a total dud. in open levels where you could choose and optimize routes between flags, perhaps this could be fun, but in both of the available capture the flag matches the areas are virtually straight lines you must run between. if you grab the first flag, and the next flag is straight behind you in a corridor, your opponents trailing you will have an instant headstart on that flag, making racing for it pointless. in the hikage street version, it's better to straight-up memorize the flag placements and then only go for the odd-numbered flags. rounding these out is the absolute slog that is death ball. halfway through the game you're captured and forced to win three back-to-back death ball rounds to earn your freedom. this sport consists of grabbing a ball and running it around a track while avoiding your opponents. there's a mechanic where you can toss a ball to and from your AI-controlled partner, but it's completely broken, and your companion is next to useless in terms of tactics. on my first playthrough this was a nightmare for me, and this time I ended up trivializing it by simply standing in place, waiting for the AI to get closeish, and then running while hoping the AI didn't attempt to run backwards and cross me at any point. total waste of time, and especially unbearable considering you have to do three in a row.
I do want to give the game credit where credit is due of course, and it's impossible to downplay the technical improvements the game has made over the dreamcast original. it's sadly unclear what the early dreamcast builds of this looked like, but this is pushes the xbox non-stop to great effect with long draw distances and complex level geometry. the new aesthetic moves away from the 10-minutes-in-the-future setting of jsr while completely skirting any sort of gritty cyberpunk look in favor of sleek, almost retrofuture robot-esque characters and pastel colored buildings. I still have a preference for the original areas, but it relates more to the jsrf having such artificial area design to the point where it ruins the immersion that the original creates with its much more naturalistic urban layouts. the soundtrack is also incredibly strong, favoring a heavier dance influence over the more kitschy plunderphonics of the original. there are fewer guest tracks, but the ones that appear are just as memorable as those from the first game. real talk: birthday cake gets some undue hate, but the real detestable track here is Aisle 10. such a beyond-corny rap track that reeks of loser white boy energy; I was shocked to find out that it was an actual hit that they licensed and not some shitty no-name artist. thankfully we also got contributions from The Latch Brothers, a very solid beastie boys side project. there's a lot of solid little technical touches; the one that sticks out for me is how the characters seem to melt at high speeds, like their polygons begin warping from the momentum they carry.
it's not that I don't want to like this game; I wanted to love it when I originally played it. I made it up to the death ball tournament completely convinced that it was a classic in its own right and that my frustration would cease with time. this replay has made it so incredibly apparent that this isn't the case though, and any slight nostalgia I had for it quickly disappeared given the how dull the experience is. to me "dull" describes the majority of the game, and there's no better section that illustrates it than the noise tank section past the halfway point. you're required to take down many noise tanks that have infested the previous areas you've already explored, and rather than any sort of intelligent enemy design they simply stand in bunches looping their dance animation, often floating inexplicably above the ground waiting for you to run into them so they can disappear with no effects. just a total drag that siphons your time by running you through on-rails areas you've already experienced. no matter what I do in this game it always seems to interrupt my flow to toss me into some shit I don't wanna do: some random fight, running back and forth between areas, untelegraphed and uncancellable events with rival gangs, and any number of other tedious and frustrating activities, none of which make me think about the mechanics outside of basic execution. it's not the kind of game I want to invest time into, and to me it doesn't live up its predecessor.
a note about playing this on 360: everything I said above but a good smattering of slowdown (depends on area + player character) along with some screen tearing. it made the skyscraper district -- already one of the worst areas in the game -- so bad as to give me a headache... it's definitely not the optimal way to play, but this game is already rather inaccessible as is, so I wouldn't blame anyone for trying it out that way.
This is everything that the original Jet Set Radio was meant to be. The controls feel so much smoother and your character is just a little faster for that extra oomph. The combat has been improved and simplified so all you need to do is knock them over in the streets and spray by holding down a button. And the graffiti is simplified too so you can spray on the go and you don't have to stay in one place doing a fancy dance while hoping the police don't catch you. The game is technical and filled with depth, yet it provides plenty of learning opportunities through tutorials and excellent level design. Add to the fact that this game has an outstanding soundtrack and looks better than many games from the 2010s, and you've got yourself one of the greatest games of all time. SEGA really is doing themselves a disservice by not polishing this in a modern port, but regardless, do whatever it takes to play this game if you like stylish games that are a blast to move and jump around in. One of my favorite games that I played this year.
Playing JSRF right after playing the OG, one of my favorite games I've discovered this year, and hearing nothing but praise for the sequel, I was disappointed to feel that JSRF took one step forward and two steps back.
Let me start by saying the original JSR's strength was not the gameplay. While fun if you mastered it, there was still a lot of room for improvement.
JSRF absolutely remedies this by fine-tuning everything that was needed with tighter controls, better physics, more tricks and options. Just objectively and absolutely devours the original game in the gameplay department. That is the one step forward and the best thing about JSRF.
The original JSR's biggest strength was it's style and soundtrack. Probably my favorite artstyle in videogames, and one of the best OSTs of all time. JSRF retains having a strong artstlyle and a good soundtrack... it's just not as good in my opinion. While the original POPPED, colors here are bleaker and have more of a depressing green tint to it. And this isn't some sort of "The future is bleak" commentary either, JSRF establishes that it's future is more advanced and hopeful than ever before. At first it is an interesting style choice, but over time you start to become bored of the game's visuals due to most areas looking very same-y in terms of color diversity.
The soundtrack is the more subjective take, but I definitely did not bop my head like I did when playing the original the entire time. There are some good tracks here and there but a lot of them become really grating as you hear them over and over again. Part of the reason the soundtrack suffers is how the game is structured, which I will get to.
The way the game is structured is another step back in my opinion. I loved the original for it's arcadey feel. You go into a level, complete the objective with the highest score possible, and you move on, kinda like a Tony Hawk game or Star Fox 64.
How JSRF is structed is basically a segmented open world, and it's LARGE. For many this is a popular structre. To me, it was a major flaw. You see, when it comes to arcadey fun games like JSR, I like to be put straight into the action. The problem with the open world is that it can take a while to get to your objective. There are many instances where you have to run through a section of the world that you have already ran through 5 times in order to get to a single objective. As an example, there are lots of times where you're at point A, and you need to get to point D. This requires you do run through point B and C to get to D. And then you need to get back to point A, so you need to run through point C and B again. I don't mind replaying a level with a different objective, the problem is the travel to the objective. It just becomes tedious. I will say, if traversal wasn't as fun as it was, this would be a major problem in the game and pretty much ruin it for me.
Having said that, with this structure in place, each chapter in the game will pretty much have 3 of it's own same songs in rotation, which you will be forced to hear over and over again while running through the padding this game likes to do. It really drives you mad.
I still did enjoy my time with JSRF and the first 2 hours gave me the impression this was gonna be an objectivley better game than the original. But the further you get through the more the tedium kicks in. And perhaps my expectations were too high after loving the OG and hearing all the praise this one was getting. Despite the flaws, JSRF is still a great game and I still recommend it if you loved the orignal. I even recommend it if you didn't like the original as for some people this is the only playable one (which I heavily disagree with).
Let me start by saying the original JSR's strength was not the gameplay. While fun if you mastered it, there was still a lot of room for improvement.
JSRF absolutely remedies this by fine-tuning everything that was needed with tighter controls, better physics, more tricks and options. Just objectively and absolutely devours the original game in the gameplay department. That is the one step forward and the best thing about JSRF.
The original JSR's biggest strength was it's style and soundtrack. Probably my favorite artstyle in videogames, and one of the best OSTs of all time. JSRF retains having a strong artstlyle and a good soundtrack... it's just not as good in my opinion. While the original POPPED, colors here are bleaker and have more of a depressing green tint to it. And this isn't some sort of "The future is bleak" commentary either, JSRF establishes that it's future is more advanced and hopeful than ever before. At first it is an interesting style choice, but over time you start to become bored of the game's visuals due to most areas looking very same-y in terms of color diversity.
The soundtrack is the more subjective take, but I definitely did not bop my head like I did when playing the original the entire time. There are some good tracks here and there but a lot of them become really grating as you hear them over and over again. Part of the reason the soundtrack suffers is how the game is structured, which I will get to.
The way the game is structured is another step back in my opinion. I loved the original for it's arcadey feel. You go into a level, complete the objective with the highest score possible, and you move on, kinda like a Tony Hawk game or Star Fox 64.
How JSRF is structed is basically a segmented open world, and it's LARGE. For many this is a popular structre. To me, it was a major flaw. You see, when it comes to arcadey fun games like JSR, I like to be put straight into the action. The problem with the open world is that it can take a while to get to your objective. There are many instances where you have to run through a section of the world that you have already ran through 5 times in order to get to a single objective. As an example, there are lots of times where you're at point A, and you need to get to point D. This requires you do run through point B and C to get to D. And then you need to get back to point A, so you need to run through point C and B again. I don't mind replaying a level with a different objective, the problem is the travel to the objective. It just becomes tedious. I will say, if traversal wasn't as fun as it was, this would be a major problem in the game and pretty much ruin it for me.
Having said that, with this structure in place, each chapter in the game will pretty much have 3 of it's own same songs in rotation, which you will be forced to hear over and over again while running through the padding this game likes to do. It really drives you mad.
I still did enjoy my time with JSRF and the first 2 hours gave me the impression this was gonna be an objectivley better game than the original. But the further you get through the more the tedium kicks in. And perhaps my expectations were too high after loving the OG and hearing all the praise this one was getting. Despite the flaws, JSRF is still a great game and I still recommend it if you loved the orignal. I even recommend it if you didn't like the original as for some people this is the only playable one (which I heavily disagree with).
sick as hell, and you know i sat my zoomer ass down and listened when this 20 year old game insisted that it was the future. but the whole time i was thinking about how i spent my 2020 seeing this game's composer tweet about funky femboys, and this dj professor k rp account that was warning people not to get vaccinated, in character. i think hes still going. people were @ing him going JET SET RATIOOO.
this is to say that the actual future just confuses me. but the game itself makes it clear it's not about the future future anyway. just what we choose to do to shape it. im taking that as another reminder to be less online.
i spent all my teen years listening to cibo matto (still lives in my heart) thanks to jsrf, even though i wasnt able to actually play it back then. it simply looked like the coolest shit, and id enjoyed the first game too. having finally played it in 2023, as an adult, was a bit anticlimactic for no particular reason? - it's everything i expected. it's the sequel to jsr, it's bigger, badder, but still a fun little thing about skating around tagging shit to funky music. all those songs id heard thousands of times, finally sounding off with full context. neat mini dj mixes for each chapter. it really did end up being the coolest shit.
fuck exclusives lol. theres some irony in no one being able to play a game all about the undying rebellious spirit because they dont happen to own a 2 decade old slab of plastic with a particular brand stamped on it. my uncle had an xbox but he wasnt cool enough to carry this game. unfortunate. and this shit still carries itself more like the dreamcast than it does xbox anyway. wheres the french guy on twitter begging #BreakFreeJSRF.
it's cool that video games can affect us even when we've yet to play them. jsrf ended up being as important to me as a lot of games i actually played growing up. always the game i was going to play one day, always that game in the future. and when the future finally came, there was that satisfaction of seeing all these disparate things id absorbed by osmosis, allowed to move and flow together for the first time. theres that song i spent so many years listening to. those character designs id adored from afar. that refinement upon the first game everyone would go on about. i still lost my mind a bit in the sewer level, as you do, but it was all in good fun.
ultimately id have liked to vibe to it all as the 14 year old spacing off to Skate 2, and not the 24 year old with nothing going on. but this works too.
this is to say that the actual future just confuses me. but the game itself makes it clear it's not about the future future anyway. just what we choose to do to shape it. im taking that as another reminder to be less online.
i spent all my teen years listening to cibo matto (still lives in my heart) thanks to jsrf, even though i wasnt able to actually play it back then. it simply looked like the coolest shit, and id enjoyed the first game too. having finally played it in 2023, as an adult, was a bit anticlimactic for no particular reason? - it's everything i expected. it's the sequel to jsr, it's bigger, badder, but still a fun little thing about skating around tagging shit to funky music. all those songs id heard thousands of times, finally sounding off with full context. neat mini dj mixes for each chapter. it really did end up being the coolest shit.
fuck exclusives lol. theres some irony in no one being able to play a game all about the undying rebellious spirit because they dont happen to own a 2 decade old slab of plastic with a particular brand stamped on it. my uncle had an xbox but he wasnt cool enough to carry this game. unfortunate. and this shit still carries itself more like the dreamcast than it does xbox anyway. wheres the french guy on twitter begging #BreakFreeJSRF.
it's cool that video games can affect us even when we've yet to play them. jsrf ended up being as important to me as a lot of games i actually played growing up. always the game i was going to play one day, always that game in the future. and when the future finally came, there was that satisfaction of seeing all these disparate things id absorbed by osmosis, allowed to move and flow together for the first time. theres that song i spent so many years listening to. those character designs id adored from afar. that refinement upon the first game everyone would go on about. i still lost my mind a bit in the sewer level, as you do, but it was all in good fun.
ultimately id have liked to vibe to it all as the 14 year old spacing off to Skate 2, and not the 24 year old with nothing going on. but this works too.
My favorite games tend to be ones where every facet of their design feels like they were under the most scrutiny possible during development. The more laser focused, the better. Jet Set Radio Future is one of a few very strong outliers. If anything, Future is significantly less interested in this design philosophy than the original Jet Set Radio. That game was mission-based whereas Future is a lot more open, letting you travel to different parts of Tokyo-to on a whim. There's also no timer so you're free to tackle objectives at whatever pace you prefer. The Rokkaku Police aren't even on your ass as much and mainly show up for scripted battles that lock you into tiny arenas. For a while, I struggled to deduce if this all meant Future was a lesser game. For years I struggled to justify not only why Future would be designed like this, but why I loved the game when it clearly had these "flaws".
Over time, I began to notice how large of a fanbase Future had relative to its sales. It's no secret that Future didn't sell especially well (being stuck to the OG Xbox probably didn't help) but you wouldn't know that if you just saw how much fanart, cosplay, remixes, and general discussion around the game exists if you bother looking. What made me realize why Future is one of my favorite games is by seeing all the games being made in its image, and I'm not just talking about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Games like Neon Tail and Hover also show clear inspiration from the JSR franchise, especially Future. Now, whether these games are good or scratch the same itch as Future is irrelevant. What matters to me is that they exist at all. There are so many other, more successful franchises that haven't seen any spiritual successors from indie devs. What does Future do that makes people want more of it?
Jet Set Radio Future gives us a glimpse into a world and characters that resonated with players. It's about as counterculture as a game gets while being absolutely sincere about it. This is the secret sauce that holds Future together and has given it such a fan following. So many games from the 00's desperately followed trends in order to appeal cool to their target audience. The worlds and characters from games like SSX, Splashdown, and Freekstyle aren't original. They took current fashion choices, lingo, among other trends and blended them together into an exaggerated mirror of our world. The JSR games created their own style and people miss it and that's why fan content around these games is so common.
When you look at Future as less of an arcadey action platformer and more as a chance to explore a world with its own flair and pathos, the changes to its structure compared to the original make much more sense. Future isn't a game meant to be mastered in the same way as JSR, it's a game meant to be lived in. From the bustling nightlife of 99th street, to the grimy Tokyo underground sewage facility, Future's environments are simply fun to traverse and lose yourself in. A bunch of mini playgrounds without the timers of a Tony Hawk game or the constant threat of enemies like in the original JSR. Exploring these locales turns into a zen-like experience thanks to Hideki Naganuma's truly peerless beats.
Would I like an alternate version of Future with the more heavy handed structure of the first JSR? Sure, I'd like to see how well that'd work. But I love what we have now. I love that Smilebit managed to craft such charming characters. I love simply being in the world of Future. There's truly nothing else like it, which is why Future will never be forgotten by those that have played it.
Over time, I began to notice how large of a fanbase Future had relative to its sales. It's no secret that Future didn't sell especially well (being stuck to the OG Xbox probably didn't help) but you wouldn't know that if you just saw how much fanart, cosplay, remixes, and general discussion around the game exists if you bother looking. What made me realize why Future is one of my favorite games is by seeing all the games being made in its image, and I'm not just talking about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Games like Neon Tail and Hover also show clear inspiration from the JSR franchise, especially Future. Now, whether these games are good or scratch the same itch as Future is irrelevant. What matters to me is that they exist at all. There are so many other, more successful franchises that haven't seen any spiritual successors from indie devs. What does Future do that makes people want more of it?
Jet Set Radio Future gives us a glimpse into a world and characters that resonated with players. It's about as counterculture as a game gets while being absolutely sincere about it. This is the secret sauce that holds Future together and has given it such a fan following. So many games from the 00's desperately followed trends in order to appeal cool to their target audience. The worlds and characters from games like SSX, Splashdown, and Freekstyle aren't original. They took current fashion choices, lingo, among other trends and blended them together into an exaggerated mirror of our world. The JSR games created their own style and people miss it and that's why fan content around these games is so common.
When you look at Future as less of an arcadey action platformer and more as a chance to explore a world with its own flair and pathos, the changes to its structure compared to the original make much more sense. Future isn't a game meant to be mastered in the same way as JSR, it's a game meant to be lived in. From the bustling nightlife of 99th street, to the grimy Tokyo underground sewage facility, Future's environments are simply fun to traverse and lose yourself in. A bunch of mini playgrounds without the timers of a Tony Hawk game or the constant threat of enemies like in the original JSR. Exploring these locales turns into a zen-like experience thanks to Hideki Naganuma's truly peerless beats.
Would I like an alternate version of Future with the more heavy handed structure of the first JSR? Sure, I'd like to see how well that'd work. But I love what we have now. I love that Smilebit managed to craft such charming characters. I love simply being in the world of Future. There's truly nothing else like it, which is why Future will never be forgotten by those that have played it.
this game is so sick. it improves upon the first game in so many ways. the controls feel so much better and just skating around and doing cool tricks is way smoother. i think the more open world setting and free-form gameplay works really well. music is incredible again and love the character designs in this one. jazz gotta be my favorite character
Understand the concept of cum.
Despite me slightly liking Jet Set Radio more, this game is still peak fiction.
Shoutouts to upping the ante from corrupt, militaristic, fascist cops and assassins in the previous game to dystopian, Cyberpunk hellhole fueled by Capitalism.
Shoutouts to upping the ante from corrupt, militaristic, fascist cops and assassins in the previous game to dystopian, Cyberpunk hellhole fueled by Capitalism.
The only problem with the first game was its level design and its controls.
These things were fixed in Future and it makes for a much more enjoyable experience.
Music is equally as good.
These things were fixed in Future and it makes for a much more enjoyable experience.
Music is equally as good.
This has no right to be as fun as it as man.
This is probably the best video game ever made
God knows how I finished this on 360 with all those frame drops back in 2016 but I'm replaying it through emulation now and yeah, this rocks.
The game that understood the concept of love
"breast milk" - Hideki Naganuma, composer for Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future
I think this game understood the concept of love.