The first time I started this game was on the Vita back in 2016. I remember JSR getting a good amount of representation in the Sonic & All-Stars Racing games and I thought this game looked fun so it caught my attention. Then when I got around to playing it, I dropped it immediately after the tutorial. Partly because of the jank and me just being lazy with games in general. Got the game on Xbox 360 to see if it was any different and the rest is history.

Is the game as janky as I remember it being? Yes, but this time I'm playing it on a much better controller, the Xbox Series X controller, so it's a little bit more bearable. Everything else about the game is great though. The music kicks ass, the art style pops and still looks great to this day, and the characters look pretty cool with Beat being my favorite. The final boss was also pretty unique and stood out to me despite how annoying the last phase of it was. However, what keeps this game from being a truly great one is constantly fighting with this game's physics to get my character to move how or do what I want them to. It's a frustrating experience and it made me nearly drop the game a couple of times, but luckily I prevailed and made it to the end. Despite my rating, I will still say it is good, but a deeply flawed game. I hear Jet Set Radio Future is a major improvement so I hope it either gets added as a backwards-compatible title on Xbox or gets a remaster in the near future.

Reviewed on Jan 28, 2023


2 Comments


1 year ago

JSRF is actually a massive step up from JSR and I honestly think you'll end up liking it a lot more. It's less jank and the missions are more straightforward with slightly less bs if you can bear through some weird platforming segments. You should probably just emulate it if you're able honestly. I doubt it's going backwards-compatible are getting rereleased anytime soon. That's mainly because half the soundtrack is licensed music that Sega lost the rights to.

1 year ago

At that point, I'll either just use Xemu or play it on 360 if I can find a copy. Didn't know that about the copyrighted music. Now it makes a lot more sense as to why they never did a remaster or make it backwards compatible on modern consoles.