A more "open world" take on the classic "Jet Set Radio". If I'm being completely honest, I enjoy this way less then the first game.
To start with the positives though, I do like the change of aesthetic to a less cheery, more sort of grimy vibe. Adds an interesting edge to it that I think is pretty cool. This change in aesthetic also reflects in the music, with it gearing more towards weird electronic and overall experimental sounds. The group "The Latch Brothers" are sort of the "Deavid Soul" of this game in terms of providing alot of the games most memorable tracks.
With the more futuristic theme, the different districts and cities are way more bigger, grander, and somewhat bizarre if you think about the logistics of it too much (which is good i like that lol). With these bigger levels though, there is more of an attempted emphasis of speed. I think focusing on speed was the right call but just executed poorly. Going back to the first game for a bit, in that game, you had your rather slow normal skating, and then you can dash forward for a bit holding the right trigger, and grinding and tricking conserved your speed. Now in future, the normal dash is removed in favor of an unbelievably uncontrollable "boost dash" that goes so fast that it's almost absurd. So while skating on-ground, you are either going either at a snail's pace or at insane breakneck speeds, which makes you only want to be rails at all times. Speaking of, there has been additions to how grinding works, which sounds cool considering all you can do in the original game was pretty much just go forward with some very small things to spice it up. What was done to change things was add a trick button that makes you go at a pretty good speed. The fun of timing the button presses gets pretty old real quick though. It becomes more of a thing you just have to do to not be slow all the time, which kinda sucks.
They have also changed how graffiti works in this game. Instead of doing motions and patterns with the joystick, it has been reduced to a single button press (or maybe a few depending on the size of the graffiti). I could see why they did this, considering that with the increased size of these areas, having to do those long patterns could get tiring, but I think for me, it sort of pushes doing graffiti to the side, more of just a chore you have to do, which is weird because graffiti is like this whole series' thing lol.
All of this pales in comparison to how this game handles the police compared to the first game. In JSRF, the game will just seemingly at random throughout the story, just lock you in an enclosed area and force you take all of them out before you can get back to what you're doing. This fucking sucks and is annoying.
And since this is a sort of less linear type game, points and score are kinda meaningless now (unless you wanna unlock certain stuff). It's weird that it's even still in this game. And what's weirder is that they have the same mini games that the first game had (Jet Technique, Jet Graffiti, etc.). These side modes sort of don't really work with the designs of these areas and get boring real quick (The exceptions to this being the races, and flag capture). They are just sort of another chore to do if you wanna unlock some secret characters.
With all of that being said, I still have a sort of fondness for this game. What this game was able to achieve with, to my understanding, only like a couple months of development time, is absolutely impressive. If they had more time to let this one cook in the oven instead of being rushed to be a launch title for the XBox, I could see it being a bit more fun. But in the end, the visuals, art, and overall vibes carry this game HARD.
To start with the positives though, I do like the change of aesthetic to a less cheery, more sort of grimy vibe. Adds an interesting edge to it that I think is pretty cool. This change in aesthetic also reflects in the music, with it gearing more towards weird electronic and overall experimental sounds. The group "The Latch Brothers" are sort of the "Deavid Soul" of this game in terms of providing alot of the games most memorable tracks.
With the more futuristic theme, the different districts and cities are way more bigger, grander, and somewhat bizarre if you think about the logistics of it too much (which is good i like that lol). With these bigger levels though, there is more of an attempted emphasis of speed. I think focusing on speed was the right call but just executed poorly. Going back to the first game for a bit, in that game, you had your rather slow normal skating, and then you can dash forward for a bit holding the right trigger, and grinding and tricking conserved your speed. Now in future, the normal dash is removed in favor of an unbelievably uncontrollable "boost dash" that goes so fast that it's almost absurd. So while skating on-ground, you are either going either at a snail's pace or at insane breakneck speeds, which makes you only want to be rails at all times. Speaking of, there has been additions to how grinding works, which sounds cool considering all you can do in the original game was pretty much just go forward with some very small things to spice it up. What was done to change things was add a trick button that makes you go at a pretty good speed. The fun of timing the button presses gets pretty old real quick though. It becomes more of a thing you just have to do to not be slow all the time, which kinda sucks.
They have also changed how graffiti works in this game. Instead of doing motions and patterns with the joystick, it has been reduced to a single button press (or maybe a few depending on the size of the graffiti). I could see why they did this, considering that with the increased size of these areas, having to do those long patterns could get tiring, but I think for me, it sort of pushes doing graffiti to the side, more of just a chore you have to do, which is weird because graffiti is like this whole series' thing lol.
All of this pales in comparison to how this game handles the police compared to the first game. In JSRF, the game will just seemingly at random throughout the story, just lock you in an enclosed area and force you take all of them out before you can get back to what you're doing. This fucking sucks and is annoying.
And since this is a sort of less linear type game, points and score are kinda meaningless now (unless you wanna unlock certain stuff). It's weird that it's even still in this game. And what's weirder is that they have the same mini games that the first game had (Jet Technique, Jet Graffiti, etc.). These side modes sort of don't really work with the designs of these areas and get boring real quick (The exceptions to this being the races, and flag capture). They are just sort of another chore to do if you wanna unlock some secret characters.
With all of that being said, I still have a sort of fondness for this game. What this game was able to achieve with, to my understanding, only like a couple months of development time, is absolutely impressive. If they had more time to let this one cook in the oven instead of being rushed to be a launch title for the XBox, I could see it being a bit more fun. But in the end, the visuals, art, and overall vibes carry this game HARD.