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).