P R E C I O U S T H I N G
I've already expressed my love for Jet Set Radio's unique style and gameplay in my review for Jet Set Radio Future, wherein I tied that game's counter-culture edge and major theme of self-expression to the key tenants of hip hop: MCing, rapping, break dancing, graffiti, and knowledge. There is, however, an unspoken sixth pillar of hip hop culture that is known to few yet is every bit as institutional as the rest - big fat asses. "Let me see you shake that ass, ass, ass, ass." Not even Percy Bysshe Shelley himself could write something so radical yet soulful.
It's not worth trying to side-step the comparisons to Jet Set Radio given how proudly Bomb Rush Cyberfunk wears its inspirations, and really, some of Bomb Rush's best and worst qualities can be attributed either to what it takes or what it decides to leave behind. The most obvious point of comparison is its graphics, which perfectly captures the same blocky cel-shaded style of its Dreamcast and Xbox forbearers. There's been a number of would-be imitators over the year, but Team Reptile is so clued into what makes this style work. Not just in their use of color and lighting, or in the low-poly nature of the character models, but even right down to the disparate clash of high- and low-quality textures. It all feels so authentic that you might mistake Bomb Rush for a legitimate long-lost Jet Set Radio Future 2 at a glance.
There are some excellent character designs here as well, some of which, like Solace and The Franks, would feel perfectly at home in a Jet Set Radio game, while others like Bel and Red are striking enough to give Bomb Rush something unique to hang its hat on. I really love Vinyl's design, specifically. After playing a couple chapters, I hopped on a call with Larry Davis and speculated that she'd join your crew because her design screams "playable character," or as I put it "Damn, girl, you got a playable character body."
However, Bomb Rush's design is at times faithful to a fault. Poor draw distancing seems a stylistic choice here where it was a compromise JSR had to make given the limitations of early 2000s hardware and its rendering power. Bomb Rush also features larger, more open spaces, and not being able to assess points of interest from a distance harms level readability. It can also make some locations feel uninhabited until you're close enough for NPCs to pop in, like in the very spacious Brink Terminal or Mataan - obvious stand-ins for Shibuya Terminal and Pharaoh Park.
But one area where Bomb Rush actually differentiates itself from Jet Set Radio is in its story - which there is a surprising amount of. You start the game as Faux, a renown "writer" who agrees to help the Bomb Rush crew go "all city..." Or that's the deal until his head gets cut off. It's fine, though. Tryce - Bomb Rush's leader - quickly slaps a robot head onto Faux's body. Problem solved! This eventually turns out to be a sort of Reverse DIO situation, and where the story goes with it is actually pretty interesting. I actually found myself really getting into the story in a way I did not in Jet Set Radio, which itself is framed more as a documentary, simply narrating beats in a struggle between Tokyo-to's gangs and the Rokaku group, as if retelling a story rather than actively building one.
The only thing it's lacking is a true Professor K figure to tie everything together, a weird omission considering Bomb Rush's slavish faithfulness. It is also somewhat lacking in the same rebellious spirit as JSR by making the conflict between the various gangs and individual writers seeking "all city" status the focus. You aren't doing battle with a greedy corporation, and although you fight the police at numerous points throughout the story, their presence feels in service of the inter-gang struggle Red and the Bomb Rush crew find themselves caught in, always present yet somewhat out of focus. It's fine to go for something different, of course, but given how difficult it is to untangle Bomb Rush from Jet Set Radio, it's hard to feel like it's lacking a key piece of that game's spirit.
Hey, speaking of the cops, they're no damn fun to fight! Terrible, I know!
Combat plays out by mashing the same buttons you use to initiate tricks and visually resembles some strange cross between break-dancing and karate - it's like something Zach from Power Rangers would cook up. It's silly and fun to watch, but in practice it's pretty dull and too frequent, resulting in fits of starts and stops between skating and clunky combat. At several points in the story, even completing one tag will alert the police, triggering an intro cutscene followed by constant hounding from goons, attack helicopters, and turrets that try to tie you down. Though this system does feel better in-hand than Jet Set Radio Future's own dire combat, you could cut its frequency down by half and it would still feel like too much.
Dying in combat is also the only real fail-state that the game has. Missions play out in a fairly rigid structure: paint tags until the rival gang notices you, complete their challenges and build rep, fight the police, then go head-to-head in a point challenge under the dutiful watch of the Old Heads to claim your rival's territory. These challenges are all pretty easy, and even by the late game some of them feel like tutorials. The tagging system is very lenient too, the only way you can fail is by getting up and leaving the room to go get a sandwich. That said, I do think the combo system for tagging is novel and an engaging way to access your full library of tags without resorting to presets or pure randomization, and the tight structure of the game never feels stale thanks to the quality of Bomb Rush's level design. I only wish it was more challenging, but outside of combat the difficulty feels pretty stagnant.
The JSR games weren't perfect, either. There's plenty of faults in Future's performance and level design, and the original Jet Set Radio had its own issues with difficulty and structure. Being flawed but funky just means Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is following in its grandfather's footsteps, and I think it does such a fine job at capturing what made those games special that it feels like a worthy successor.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done get my na
I've already expressed my love for Jet Set Radio's unique style and gameplay in my review for Jet Set Radio Future, wherein I tied that game's counter-culture edge and major theme of self-expression to the key tenants of hip hop: MCing, rapping, break dancing, graffiti, and knowledge. There is, however, an unspoken sixth pillar of hip hop culture that is known to few yet is every bit as institutional as the rest - big fat asses. "Let me see you shake that ass, ass, ass, ass." Not even Percy Bysshe Shelley himself could write something so radical yet soulful.
It's not worth trying to side-step the comparisons to Jet Set Radio given how proudly Bomb Rush Cyberfunk wears its inspirations, and really, some of Bomb Rush's best and worst qualities can be attributed either to what it takes or what it decides to leave behind. The most obvious point of comparison is its graphics, which perfectly captures the same blocky cel-shaded style of its Dreamcast and Xbox forbearers. There's been a number of would-be imitators over the year, but Team Reptile is so clued into what makes this style work. Not just in their use of color and lighting, or in the low-poly nature of the character models, but even right down to the disparate clash of high- and low-quality textures. It all feels so authentic that you might mistake Bomb Rush for a legitimate long-lost Jet Set Radio Future 2 at a glance.
There are some excellent character designs here as well, some of which, like Solace and The Franks, would feel perfectly at home in a Jet Set Radio game, while others like Bel and Red are striking enough to give Bomb Rush something unique to hang its hat on. I really love Vinyl's design, specifically. After playing a couple chapters, I hopped on a call with Larry Davis and speculated that she'd join your crew because her design screams "playable character," or as I put it "Damn, girl, you got a playable character body."
However, Bomb Rush's design is at times faithful to a fault. Poor draw distancing seems a stylistic choice here where it was a compromise JSR had to make given the limitations of early 2000s hardware and its rendering power. Bomb Rush also features larger, more open spaces, and not being able to assess points of interest from a distance harms level readability. It can also make some locations feel uninhabited until you're close enough for NPCs to pop in, like in the very spacious Brink Terminal or Mataan - obvious stand-ins for Shibuya Terminal and Pharaoh Park.
But one area where Bomb Rush actually differentiates itself from Jet Set Radio is in its story - which there is a surprising amount of. You start the game as Faux, a renown "writer" who agrees to help the Bomb Rush crew go "all city..." Or that's the deal until his head gets cut off. It's fine, though. Tryce - Bomb Rush's leader - quickly slaps a robot head onto Faux's body. Problem solved! This eventually turns out to be a sort of Reverse DIO situation, and where the story goes with it is actually pretty interesting. I actually found myself really getting into the story in a way I did not in Jet Set Radio, which itself is framed more as a documentary, simply narrating beats in a struggle between Tokyo-to's gangs and the Rokaku group, as if retelling a story rather than actively building one.
The only thing it's lacking is a true Professor K figure to tie everything together, a weird omission considering Bomb Rush's slavish faithfulness. It is also somewhat lacking in the same rebellious spirit as JSR by making the conflict between the various gangs and individual writers seeking "all city" status the focus. You aren't doing battle with a greedy corporation, and although you fight the police at numerous points throughout the story, their presence feels in service of the inter-gang struggle Red and the Bomb Rush crew find themselves caught in, always present yet somewhat out of focus. It's fine to go for something different, of course, but given how difficult it is to untangle Bomb Rush from Jet Set Radio, it's hard to feel like it's lacking a key piece of that game's spirit.
Hey, speaking of the cops, they're no damn fun to fight! Terrible, I know!
Combat plays out by mashing the same buttons you use to initiate tricks and visually resembles some strange cross between break-dancing and karate - it's like something Zach from Power Rangers would cook up. It's silly and fun to watch, but in practice it's pretty dull and too frequent, resulting in fits of starts and stops between skating and clunky combat. At several points in the story, even completing one tag will alert the police, triggering an intro cutscene followed by constant hounding from goons, attack helicopters, and turrets that try to tie you down. Though this system does feel better in-hand than Jet Set Radio Future's own dire combat, you could cut its frequency down by half and it would still feel like too much.
Dying in combat is also the only real fail-state that the game has. Missions play out in a fairly rigid structure: paint tags until the rival gang notices you, complete their challenges and build rep, fight the police, then go head-to-head in a point challenge under the dutiful watch of the Old Heads to claim your rival's territory. These challenges are all pretty easy, and even by the late game some of them feel like tutorials. The tagging system is very lenient too, the only way you can fail is by getting up and leaving the room to go get a sandwich. That said, I do think the combo system for tagging is novel and an engaging way to access your full library of tags without resorting to presets or pure randomization, and the tight structure of the game never feels stale thanks to the quality of Bomb Rush's level design. I only wish it was more challenging, but outside of combat the difficulty feels pretty stagnant.
The JSR games weren't perfect, either. There's plenty of faults in Future's performance and level design, and the original Jet Set Radio had its own issues with difficulty and structure. Being flawed but funky just means Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is following in its grandfather's footsteps, and I think it does such a fine job at capturing what made those games special that it feels like a worthy successor.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done get my na