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

É O GOAT

Finalmente joguei esse pela primeira vez.

O jogo tá MUITO mais estiloso, tanto nos visuais quanto na trilha sonora.

O gameplay evoluiu bastante de um para o outro, o mundo aberto dividido em blocos é mais legal, a câmera funciona por mais que ainda não use o segundo analógico, não tem mais as partes canalhas e retiraram o tempo limite para os objetivos.

O "reboot" passa a impressão que essa era pra ser a versão definitiva de JSR se não fosse as limitações do dreamcast. Perfeito.

7/10
The core mechanics have become as high as possible, i can’t argue with that, the game has become more casual and for me the series has turned a little in the wrong direction, even if we don’t talk about the more faded visual.. if the first game offered small but well-thought-out locations in terms of game design, offering a challenge, now we have a kind of open world for 40 hours of spray farming, I accidentally deleted my saves, and now I don’t even want to complete it, although one of the last locations with a roller coaster is cool

One of the most overrated games I've played. I'm sorry.

This has one of the BEST soundtracks I've ever heard and a style that is still rarely outmatched. However, it has some of THE MOST BAFFLING game design I've seen. In regards of the overall structure, there's barely a sense of direction in-between stages or even IN stages, making it extremely easy to get lost and confused during your playthrough.

However, the thing that easily puts this thing down for me is the combat, where you have to dash towards enemies to knock them down in which allows you to spray them, taking them out. While this was also in the original JSR, a game I consider to be among my favourites, it was never something you had to do, with the final boss being designed in a way that took advantage of the games strengths. In JSRF, you HAVE to engage in forced combat sections constantly in order to progress the game. Not only is this forcing you into a system that is generally not fun to play, it also halts the pacing to a crawl, and makes me much more likely to go and play something else.

Maybe this will hold up better on a replay, like the original, but for now, I don't think it's anywhere near as perfect as I see people label it as. Sorry.

An improvement in many ways over the original, still lacking in level design in later areas that force you to redo the same relatively simple grinds and jumps just to get another chance to try that one annoyingly hard one that always feels like it's near the end. A lot of backtracking too that just makes a lot of this game's length feel artificial. Having no button to stop grinds when it's this easy to accidentally jump onto them is criminal. Music and visuals however are absolutely on-point and once again make it a lot easier to suffer through some of the more frustrating moments and at least this time there's satisfaction to be had when the level design allows for it. I wish more levels felt as open as Shibuya Terminal. The sewer level is, naturally, the worst in the game.
I don't mind most of the redesigns but I prefer the originals. I don't like what they did with my girl Cube, making her taller and more 'well-proportioned', they made her personality horny as well (going by one of her lines about her henchmen), I miss when she used to be chill and friendly and listen to Rob Zombie. Gum also inexplicably has cleavage now. I get the impression they tried a bit too hard in places to appeal to what they thought western audiences wanted at the time after the original did a lot better outside of Japan. The designs still rule for what they are, same with the new muted but consistent colour scheme, but I still have a preference for the more childlike and colourful attitude of the previous game which seemed more obviously fun, where here DJ K is a huge prick who insults you every time you plummet from a skyscraper or drown in a river. I thought you were cool, man! Must be that crazy hypercapitalist society they have in the far-off Future Year of 2024.

Jet Set Radio Future is neither a sequel nor a remake, it is more accurately described as a "reimagining", like SmileBit thought "okay let's say that the Dreamcast game we released a few years ago never existed and we come up with this parallel universe kind of alternative instead".

JSRF is a vast improvement from its predecessor in many areas, it has an even slicker visual design, even more delicious ear candy, and a revised control scheme that makes this all a far more tolerable experience. And yet, it still has a few rough spots on the surface that still make it far from perfect. There is this recurring problem in the game that you can easily lose momentum and you have to regain it by winding back, and the spraycan system is not really helping much still. In retrospective, I realized this game would actually benefit a lot more if it had more friction as you are accelerating.

All that said and done, JSRF is still one shining gem of the XBOX, and it would be foolish from me to say you shouldn't get it.

Fly like a butterfly.

honestly such a great game…the controls are so nice and the story is much more complex and fully fledged out then the original while still keeping the important details. character designs are sick as balls. only complaint is some of the chapters were a little long and draining…specifically the one in the sewers, it was really fun at first, especially with the introduction of a new way to do tricks but there could have been some more obstacle diversity and maybe some more checkpoints so you dont have to keep redoing things. I also thought it was an interesting choice to take away yoyo for the majority of the game, as he was the starter character. but honestly a super cool game, i think for being so different from the original its still able to hold onto the title very well