Having played this game extensively back in early 2021, and finished replaying it just recently, JSR solidified itself as a comfort game for me, and I would even say it's one of my favourites by now.
With its cool cel-shaded look and funky beats, the game really goes hard with its stylish look and aesthetic. It’s easily identifiable and makes the game stand out among others, from the world to the characters to the graffiti itself.
Then there’s the gameplay, where you typically skate around performing tricks and doing graffiti to piss off the police and claim your territory, with some occasional racing and tagging others. It can be a bit hard to master at first, especially more complex moves like wall grinding, but with practice and eventual familiarity with the surroundings of each stage, the gameplay becomes incredibly satisfying. The ranking system furthermore adds motivation to perform better in the game. Each stage is also quite distinct from each other, typically with their own aesthetic and unique level layout. Mastering these stages is key to do the best in gameplay, so thankfully none of the stages I found to be boring or a chore overall.
The story is fairly simple, but entertaining for what it is. And while this simplicity does extend to most of the cast, as they typically only have 2-3 lines, each character’s design is stylish and makes them stand-out from each other. Furthermore, with playable characters each have different stats in Technique, Graffiti and Power, so that adds to variety and allows you to see which character suits your playstyle best.
Having said all that, JSR is still rough around some edges. The controls can be a bit frustrating due to either the camera not cooperating well enough or when you get stuck grinding a rail really slowly. Doing graffiti can also be considered as tedious, particularly as the inputs for it can be more complex depending on the character you’re playing as, having to keep in mind the amount of graffiti cans you have, and also needing to consider nearby enemies coming up and attacking you. Again, practice makes perfect, but this can easily make the whole experience more frustrating than needed.
Each stage bar Bantam Street and Grind Square also have some parts that I find unusually more frustrating than needed, mainly due to the way they’re structured. While they don’t sour my experience with the overall stage too much it is a bit of a chore to go through them, such as the Sewage Pipe and Playground in Shibuya-cho. Bantam Street and Grind Square are exceptions since they aren’t separated into sub locations, and thankfully what is there I find to be quite fun.
This is more of a nitpick, but I also wish that for the extra modes for stages you were able to select what music you could play. The choice of song being random each time you do those modes means you can go quite a while without hearing a few particular tracks. I distinctly recall most of the tracks that play in Chapter 2 never playing afterwards for example. Another unfortunate part about this is that only one song will play on loop in these extra modes instead of the smooth transitioning between songs that occurs within the main levels.
Overall, I think Jet Set Radio is easily one of the most fun games I’ve played. Despite its issues, I find the gameplay satisfying to the point that these complaints hardly matter to me in the end. I definitely recommend giving this game a try, and then if possible later, its sequel Jet Set Radio Future, which I heard is a great improvement to the original.
With its cool cel-shaded look and funky beats, the game really goes hard with its stylish look and aesthetic. It’s easily identifiable and makes the game stand out among others, from the world to the characters to the graffiti itself.
Then there’s the gameplay, where you typically skate around performing tricks and doing graffiti to piss off the police and claim your territory, with some occasional racing and tagging others. It can be a bit hard to master at first, especially more complex moves like wall grinding, but with practice and eventual familiarity with the surroundings of each stage, the gameplay becomes incredibly satisfying. The ranking system furthermore adds motivation to perform better in the game. Each stage is also quite distinct from each other, typically with their own aesthetic and unique level layout. Mastering these stages is key to do the best in gameplay, so thankfully none of the stages I found to be boring or a chore overall.
The story is fairly simple, but entertaining for what it is. And while this simplicity does extend to most of the cast, as they typically only have 2-3 lines, each character’s design is stylish and makes them stand-out from each other. Furthermore, with playable characters each have different stats in Technique, Graffiti and Power, so that adds to variety and allows you to see which character suits your playstyle best.
Having said all that, JSR is still rough around some edges. The controls can be a bit frustrating due to either the camera not cooperating well enough or when you get stuck grinding a rail really slowly. Doing graffiti can also be considered as tedious, particularly as the inputs for it can be more complex depending on the character you’re playing as, having to keep in mind the amount of graffiti cans you have, and also needing to consider nearby enemies coming up and attacking you. Again, practice makes perfect, but this can easily make the whole experience more frustrating than needed.
Each stage bar Bantam Street and Grind Square also have some parts that I find unusually more frustrating than needed, mainly due to the way they’re structured. While they don’t sour my experience with the overall stage too much it is a bit of a chore to go through them, such as the Sewage Pipe and Playground in Shibuya-cho. Bantam Street and Grind Square are exceptions since they aren’t separated into sub locations, and thankfully what is there I find to be quite fun.
This is more of a nitpick, but I also wish that for the extra modes for stages you were able to select what music you could play. The choice of song being random each time you do those modes means you can go quite a while without hearing a few particular tracks. I distinctly recall most of the tracks that play in Chapter 2 never playing afterwards for example. Another unfortunate part about this is that only one song will play on loop in these extra modes instead of the smooth transitioning between songs that occurs within the main levels.
Overall, I think Jet Set Radio is easily one of the most fun games I’ve played. Despite its issues, I find the gameplay satisfying to the point that these complaints hardly matter to me in the end. I definitely recommend giving this game a try, and then if possible later, its sequel Jet Set Radio Future, which I heard is a great improvement to the original.
2 Comments
Bout the city is a bop tho ngl
Reddish
2 years ago