God DAMN this game is good. Metroidvania that controls like those old driving flash games, and works shockingly well. Music perfectly matches the themes and atmosphere, and the hand-drawn art-style is so full of personality. Lots of the regions on the map are pretty well designed, and weapons/ abilities you gain naturally let you reach new locations as you go, and they encourage experimenting with movement and tech. There's 2 points in the game that are total slogs but otherwise it keeps pace for the runtime. Particle effects and smoke can limit visibility which is annoying, though this is highly dependent on your screen resolution. Play this game cause it is GOOD
2007
It's a damn shame what happened to this game, Steam release really did just kill it. Great game and community at the time, had great tools for making cool builds and gamemodes, suppose it was never meant to be. Seems mostly inactive now, only time you can get on an active server seems to be on weekends. I'll set my rating to what the game was at it's peak back then, seems silly to rate it as it is now since it's mostly dead lol (don't look at the game's forums)
This game feels like the gameplay of RE4 faster paced and more poorly done. It benefits from a portable format be it Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck (played on the latter) since missions last 10-15 minutes usually. While the Campaign is what the majority of people will play and stop at, the Raid Mode is what I put much more time into, but with either mode I have many criticisms.
Campaign definitely feels like a mix of the RE1 and RE4 formula, though it feel like it’s a mixed bag. You start out desperate for ammo, but once you get further in you’ll be flush for ammo like other RE games. The mission structure made exploring the ship feel boring, since you'll keep being placed in missions in separate locations, while this mission structure seems to be there to keep the game digestible in short time chunks for its original portable platform. The map would benefit from more free-play, and the few pockets that the game gives you often have you exploring a very large map and spending much of that time just walking from one point to the next to try and unlock the door with a new key. With this game leaning more into the arcadey gameplay you see in a game like RE4/5, I would have preferred they condense the map.
The controls closely mirror what you have in RE4/RE5, with quick turning and easy access to the knife. You can target body parts like the arms or legs to stun or make an enemy falter. I did have fun being able to target the legs and finish enemies off with the knife, the game definitely encourages using these mechanics as it will often give you arenas full of zombies, where crowd control becomes a major game mechanic.
One of the mechanics the game pushes the player to use is the dodge mechanic, which feels very inconsistent in practice. Sometimes I would dodge without doing press the required combo, while other times I would take a hit even if my timing felt perfect. This could be down to the fact that dodging requires a left stick + A button combo, and I feel like moving dodging to one button could solve this problem.
I know the bare basics of the RE story until this game, so the story of this game was what I was expecting, which was cheesy action drama. If you played RE1 you’ll see a lot of the same story beats. It's goofy and cheesy, though the voice acting is charming in that sense.
Raid Mode is similar to the Mercenaries mode of previous games in the series had at this point, but with more focus on the custom weapon parts system. You get a list somewhat linear missions to do, and you’re scored based on stricter criteria, such as damage received, whether you kill all enemies, and if you complete it below the recommended level. These bonuses aren’t necessary, but the change from a score based system to a leveling system makes replaying missions feel tedious. Since you'll often play one or two levels that reward generous BP, it can be frustrating to get the bonuses as enemies can be difficult to react to (infected fish) or are placed such that you need to know they're there if you don't want to take damage. The poor dodging system is especially frustrating here, since there are enemies that can (and WILL) one tap you if you can't outmaneuver them or manage to trigger a dodge. Some of the longer missions with spongy bosses are especially guilty of this issue.
Completing missions gives you BP, which lets you buy new guns, upgrades, and refills on equipment. What annoys me is that you have to purchase more ammo for your weapons before missions, which feels really restrictive since it often reduces much of the BP profit you earn. While there’s plenty of ways to save ammo by means of integrating melee and focusing fire on legs, it doesn’t help enough for some builds and can leave you scrounging for any ammo. Starting the player off with at least half ammo would go a long way in encouraging replaying in spite of mistakes or losing missions.
It's worth noting that I played the Raid Mode solo instead of co-op so I can't talk about how the mode works with teammate weapon parts. This mode definitely feels more geared towards co-op than solo, since many levels that involve gauntlets of enemies that swarm you, and even when using high-level gear and using KB+M it feels like a nightmare to try and get bonuses for no-damage. This bonus seems more feasible with a co-op partner, so take that as you will. I finished Chasm Mode but didn't finish Trench since it felt like a slog to play through.
The gun part system seems like it was intended to make guns feel more powerful over time, but in the 7 hours i spent on Raid Mode it felt very lackluster and I didn't feel like they were doing anything meaningful for my gun. The system in the Campaign did this much better, you actually felt like each attachment made a notable change to the behavior of your gun, whether it be burst fire, charged shots, or just fire rate.
While I enjoyed parts of the game that embraced the arcadey feel and let you experiment with how to tackle enemy encounters, it feels very unremarkable in a lot of places in both the Campaign and the Raid Mode, it felt derivative while introducing new mechanics and ideas that don't work well with the gameplay of the game. It feels middle of the road in that sense for my rating, not terrible, mostly competent, but falls short in many aspects.
Campaign definitely feels like a mix of the RE1 and RE4 formula, though it feel like it’s a mixed bag. You start out desperate for ammo, but once you get further in you’ll be flush for ammo like other RE games. The mission structure made exploring the ship feel boring, since you'll keep being placed in missions in separate locations, while this mission structure seems to be there to keep the game digestible in short time chunks for its original portable platform. The map would benefit from more free-play, and the few pockets that the game gives you often have you exploring a very large map and spending much of that time just walking from one point to the next to try and unlock the door with a new key. With this game leaning more into the arcadey gameplay you see in a game like RE4/5, I would have preferred they condense the map.
The controls closely mirror what you have in RE4/RE5, with quick turning and easy access to the knife. You can target body parts like the arms or legs to stun or make an enemy falter. I did have fun being able to target the legs and finish enemies off with the knife, the game definitely encourages using these mechanics as it will often give you arenas full of zombies, where crowd control becomes a major game mechanic.
One of the mechanics the game pushes the player to use is the dodge mechanic, which feels very inconsistent in practice. Sometimes I would dodge without doing press the required combo, while other times I would take a hit even if my timing felt perfect. This could be down to the fact that dodging requires a left stick + A button combo, and I feel like moving dodging to one button could solve this problem.
I know the bare basics of the RE story until this game, so the story of this game was what I was expecting, which was cheesy action drama. If you played RE1 you’ll see a lot of the same story beats. It's goofy and cheesy, though the voice acting is charming in that sense.
Raid Mode is similar to the Mercenaries mode of previous games in the series had at this point, but with more focus on the custom weapon parts system. You get a list somewhat linear missions to do, and you’re scored based on stricter criteria, such as damage received, whether you kill all enemies, and if you complete it below the recommended level. These bonuses aren’t necessary, but the change from a score based system to a leveling system makes replaying missions feel tedious. Since you'll often play one or two levels that reward generous BP, it can be frustrating to get the bonuses as enemies can be difficult to react to (infected fish) or are placed such that you need to know they're there if you don't want to take damage. The poor dodging system is especially frustrating here, since there are enemies that can (and WILL) one tap you if you can't outmaneuver them or manage to trigger a dodge. Some of the longer missions with spongy bosses are especially guilty of this issue.
Completing missions gives you BP, which lets you buy new guns, upgrades, and refills on equipment. What annoys me is that you have to purchase more ammo for your weapons before missions, which feels really restrictive since it often reduces much of the BP profit you earn. While there’s plenty of ways to save ammo by means of integrating melee and focusing fire on legs, it doesn’t help enough for some builds and can leave you scrounging for any ammo. Starting the player off with at least half ammo would go a long way in encouraging replaying in spite of mistakes or losing missions.
It's worth noting that I played the Raid Mode solo instead of co-op so I can't talk about how the mode works with teammate weapon parts. This mode definitely feels more geared towards co-op than solo, since many levels that involve gauntlets of enemies that swarm you, and even when using high-level gear and using KB+M it feels like a nightmare to try and get bonuses for no-damage. This bonus seems more feasible with a co-op partner, so take that as you will. I finished Chasm Mode but didn't finish Trench since it felt like a slog to play through.
The gun part system seems like it was intended to make guns feel more powerful over time, but in the 7 hours i spent on Raid Mode it felt very lackluster and I didn't feel like they were doing anything meaningful for my gun. The system in the Campaign did this much better, you actually felt like each attachment made a notable change to the behavior of your gun, whether it be burst fire, charged shots, or just fire rate.
While I enjoyed parts of the game that embraced the arcadey feel and let you experiment with how to tackle enemy encounters, it feels very unremarkable in a lot of places in both the Campaign and the Raid Mode, it felt derivative while introducing new mechanics and ideas that don't work well with the gameplay of the game. It feels middle of the road in that sense for my rating, not terrible, mostly competent, but falls short in many aspects.
This game definitely feels "of its time" with the platforms it released on, being a action game with simple combat and controls and cool ideas it doesn't really flesh out.
2023
You can't really talk about this game without acknowledging it's influences of Jet Set Radio and its sequel Future. JSR and Future had amazing art design that still hold up today, but JSR feels very floaty to control, the movement feels held back by a poor camera system and stilted registration of whether or not you started grinding on a rail. Since SEGA seemingly forgot people liked cool arcadey games the fans made a game that's better in almost every way.
BRC's controls are the largest improvement by far, you still have weight and momentum behind your character, but QOL mechanics like The Manual and Boost give you much more flexibility in combos and routes for building a large combo. While The Manual can arguably make keeping combos easier to continue, I prefer this design choice over frustration felt in JSR specifically. Controls are simple, but mostly to the game's benefit.
The art design feels like a refinement of the cel-shading used in JSR Future specifically, it's extremely strong artistically, and really shines on a 2k or even a 4k display. I even tried it on a tiny CRT and it holds up surprisingly well. This strong art design enhances the maps built for this game, which are as pleasant to look at as they are fun to play. Millennium Mall is visually the strongest in my opinion but Pyramid Island is a blast in gameplay.
Gameplay is great, the focus is on a sudo-free-play where you put up enough graffiti tags to do the next objective, which works really well with how well designed the maps are, which naturally make you want to mess around and try to build combos. Bosses were a nice addition, though with how simple the controls are they don't have much complexity but I don't think that's necessary.
The story is alright, I do think the ending missed out on having a better message, since without spoilers it builds to something that doesn't get addressed much at the end.
Music was fantastic, very good range of artists, and bringing back Hideki Naganuma is great to see.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk can be enjoyed with no knowledge of its inspirations, and has timeless presentation and gameplay. Even if games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater aren't your thing, BRC is very friendly to beginners.
BRC's controls are the largest improvement by far, you still have weight and momentum behind your character, but QOL mechanics like The Manual and Boost give you much more flexibility in combos and routes for building a large combo. While The Manual can arguably make keeping combos easier to continue, I prefer this design choice over frustration felt in JSR specifically. Controls are simple, but mostly to the game's benefit.
The art design feels like a refinement of the cel-shading used in JSR Future specifically, it's extremely strong artistically, and really shines on a 2k or even a 4k display. I even tried it on a tiny CRT and it holds up surprisingly well. This strong art design enhances the maps built for this game, which are as pleasant to look at as they are fun to play. Millennium Mall is visually the strongest in my opinion but Pyramid Island is a blast in gameplay.
Gameplay is great, the focus is on a sudo-free-play where you put up enough graffiti tags to do the next objective, which works really well with how well designed the maps are, which naturally make you want to mess around and try to build combos. Bosses were a nice addition, though with how simple the controls are they don't have much complexity but I don't think that's necessary.
The story is alright, I do think the ending missed out on having a better message, since without spoilers it builds to something that doesn't get addressed much at the end.
Music was fantastic, very good range of artists, and bringing back Hideki Naganuma is great to see.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk can be enjoyed with no knowledge of its inspirations, and has timeless presentation and gameplay. Even if games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater aren't your thing, BRC is very friendly to beginners.