Jet Set Radio is an absolute classic. It's vibrant, sharp, and somewhat off-kilter visual style, and it's eclectic soundtrack that boasts a wide variety of music genre's (including big beat, hip hop, disco, experimental electronic, etc.) is already enough to appeal to me perfectly.
But my enjoyment of Jet Set Radio is not only limited to it's aesthetic as I find it's gameplay quite fun and addictive. Having to grind and trick your way to specific spots to graffiti will always be fun to me. The arcade-y elements like the score and limited time add a nice splash of chaos to the gameplay as your being chased by police and have to avoid them as well. And the optional game modes are a blast as well, such as "Jet Technique", which requires you to make full use of the cities' design and the more obscure-ish tricks like 180 tricks and turn-arounds to get a good rank.
The character designs are also so cool. Honestly the "main 3" have the most boring designs, and that's saying something cus they are already kinda cool on it's own. It's story, while quite simple, is also kind of nonsensical and i think that's kinda funny lol.
This is a near perfect game, but my only criticisms really are as follows:
1) The controls/physics take a bit of getting used to. But after a while, getting used to how this game works through playing it more, it starts to click and it becomes less of a hassle.
2) The rival gang "boss" fights are kinda too easy and are a guaranteed "Jet Rank" if you are even slightly competent at the game. This is a side effect from how the game changed when being localized from Japan. In the original Japan release, they just ran around sporadically and you just had to chase down each one separately, but in every other version of the game, they sort of nerfed it to where they all run more-less in the same direction and they now have a visible text display as too how many spray cans you need left to defeat them. To be honest I would've preferred how they did it originally.
But my enjoyment of Jet Set Radio is not only limited to it's aesthetic as I find it's gameplay quite fun and addictive. Having to grind and trick your way to specific spots to graffiti will always be fun to me. The arcade-y elements like the score and limited time add a nice splash of chaos to the gameplay as your being chased by police and have to avoid them as well. And the optional game modes are a blast as well, such as "Jet Technique", which requires you to make full use of the cities' design and the more obscure-ish tricks like 180 tricks and turn-arounds to get a good rank.
The character designs are also so cool. Honestly the "main 3" have the most boring designs, and that's saying something cus they are already kinda cool on it's own. It's story, while quite simple, is also kind of nonsensical and i think that's kinda funny lol.
This is a near perfect game, but my only criticisms really are as follows:
1) The controls/physics take a bit of getting used to. But after a while, getting used to how this game works through playing it more, it starts to click and it becomes less of a hassle.
2) The rival gang "boss" fights are kinda too easy and are a guaranteed "Jet Rank" if you are even slightly competent at the game. This is a side effect from how the game changed when being localized from Japan. In the original Japan release, they just ran around sporadically and you just had to chase down each one separately, but in every other version of the game, they sort of nerfed it to where they all run more-less in the same direction and they now have a visible text display as too how many spray cans you need left to defeat them. To be honest I would've preferred how they did it originally.