I play a lot of games and usually don't dive very deep into any one of them beyond clearing them once, but I've revisited Layer Section at least once a year since I bought it in 2007, making it quite possibly my most frequently revisited game ever. That's not to say I've dived that deep—in fact, it took me fifteen of those years of revisiting to clear it just the one time. But that in and of itself is remarkable, because usually if I can't do something in the amount of time it took me to go through all of school, I give up on it. Something about Layer Section keeps bringing me back. It was my first Saturn shmup, and the first shmup I played for more than a session or two.

All this should illustrate pretty clearly that I consider it a standout title within the genre. It's not that it does anything particularly unique or subversive, I think it just strikes a very precise balance between approachability and challenge, while also delivering an audiovisual feast that perfectly showcases the genre's appeal. It's not the easiest shmup (though I'd be hard pressed to identify one that's even kind of easy), but it might be the best intro to the genre. It helps that it's also one of the most affordable shmups on the Saturn, though that is increasingly akin to being the most affordable Ferrari on the Ferrari lot.

One thing I like about the Saturn port, at least on paper, is that it gives you a set number of credits that can't be upgraded. You can't press an "insert coin" button to drag yourself past the finish line without actually achieving anything. Either you clear the game within the allotted 4 credits, or you lose. This implies some degree of thought went into designing the port as a home experience where there would be no such thing as coins. Whether that's the right number of credits for a game this hard is up to you to decide, but it bears repeating that it took me fifteen years to do so.

This brings me to my one gripe about the game, which is that there's ostensibly no way to practice it other than sequentially from beginning to game over, which means if you're struggling to learn the boss of Stage 7's attack patterns, you'll have to play through the entire preceding 25 minutes or so every time you want to witness that boss. This is like having to run back home every time you make a mistake on page 10 of that Chopin Etude, run back to the piano teacher's house, and start the piece over. That's no way to learn. And of course, this wouldn't have been the case in the arcade, where you would've been able to insert a coin to extend your play. There's sort of a catch-22 there, since, as I already mentioned, simulated coin slots rob video games of their meaning. The answer to this catch-22 that console shmup designers eventually landed on was to include practice modes with stage selects. Well, I'm happy and eager to report that Layer Section on the Sega Saturn HAS a stage select, hidden safely away in a debug mode where no one will find it. Use a Pro Action Replay, Pseudo Saturn Kai, or other cheat code input method to activate this mode. If your Pseudo Kai is up to date, the code is already pre-loaded in the database, you just have to activate it from the Pseudo Kai menu. The debug mode also lets you fast forward through the game in real time, which is very handy for skipping over some of those dazzling graphical transitions when you're just trying to drill a specific sequence.

Speaking of those transitions, I think another key aspect that makes Layer Section so compelling is in how the background action clearly conveys the trajectory of your journey. This is a game about going deep, layer by layer. You start in outer space, close in on the Earth until finally breaching its atmosphere, infiltrate the crust, and make your way deep into the core, where the ultimate threat awaits. It's a simple and catchy visual concept that facilitates a great variety of setpieces that feel far more jointed than in your typical shmup. Nothing more jarring than suddenly finding your intergalactic spaceship gliding at a bicycle's pace past the pyramids of Egypt without explanation. Layer Section is a top-down shooter, and it means it. The main gameplay gimmick—a lock-on laser that allows you to shoot threats below you—is also a clever way to meaningfully harness the top-down perspective.

Maybe that's what makes this game so special. It takes a well tread genre template—the top-down vertical shooter—and uses it so thoughtfully that it retroactively justifies the template's existence. "Here's what only this type of game can do."

I'm eleven hours into this game, which may not sound like much, but that was all in one sitting. I'm thirty-nine years old. Eleven-hour gaming sessions don't just happen. But it did.

For many years, I've been of the mind that Jet Set Radio is the number one video game IP most deserving of another attempt. The aesthetic and core concept are so compelling, so singular that they've left a twenty-year void, and yet both JSR games fell so short of their potential, largely as a result a of simply coming too soon. It was like a year or two after JSR Future that Japan finally got on board with the idea of real-time camera control in 3D games. Every time I play JSRF, I think about how real-time camera control and a few other basic QOL tweaks that would've been an assumed standard shortly after JSRF came out would've made it drastically more fun. Alas.

In the meantime, there have been a number of games that seemed pre-launch to be flirting with the idea of positioning themselves as JSR "spiritual successors"—Hover is the one that immediately comes to mind, as well as a Steam Early Access game called Neon Tail which I think is still in development. But in each case, the more these games came into focus, the less they looked like JSR, so I got used to this feeling of being faked out and then disappointed.

Then they announced BRC, which really really REALLY looked like a JSR spiritual successor, and I think the collective mood surrounding that announcement was cautious optimism. It looked too good to be true, and history dictated that it probably was.

The game stayed in development for quite a long time after its initial announcement, which history also dictates is a Bad Sign. (In hindsight I think that rule may be less applicable the smaller the development team and budget. When Bungee is late with something, you worry. When five guys in a studio apartment making no money are late with something, you go, "Well, yeah.")

By the time BRC came out, I was going through a rare period of not gaming very much, for personal reasons. This has happened a few times over the years, usually as a result of my social life picking up, and each time a specific game has come along to bewitch me and pull me right back into the hobby. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is that game. It has restored my excitement for the gaming medium. It is my twenty-year-old wish come true. If you have longed for a new Jet Set Radio that is more fun than those games ever were, this is it. Team Reptile gets it, and more importantly, they DID it.

The only thing that gives me slight pause for thought is that the game is easy to the point that the actual "game" aspect of it might feel a little thin to some players. Because of the advent of manuals, which are a one-button input with no timing or balance element (unlike in Tony Hawk Pro Skater), keeping a combo going is practically effortless in most situations.

Still, in my opinion, that actually SERVES this game. One thing I learned from 2006's Okami is that challenge doesn't preclude enjoyment in a video game—the game need only provide a compelling world to occupy and a fun way to occupy it. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a celebration of mobility, and the joy of movement is baked into every action and every second of gameplay. It's a hangout game—see the sights, feel the beats, style on some cops, dance with your NPC friends. I don't miss the maddening difficulty of the old JSR games, because often that came at the expense of flow and spurred resentment rather than adoration for the beautiful world they'd created. But mileage may vary.

Other omissions I would welcome the post-launch addition of: halfpipe-specific tricks and custom graffiti. The latter is achievable with mods, and the tags in the game are great to begin with, but it would be nice to have a streamlined way to create or import custom artwork.

Thank you, Team Reptile.