this game is very cool. it's hard for me to be critical of it, but I burned out of this game a lot sooner than I did the original Jet Set Radio because there's kind of nothing to do, and not much skill to the game either. the original JSR is a very clumsy game but that was somewhat intentional, getting used to it's controls takes a while, and it's environments are very bizarre to traverse because the mechanics aren't intuitively consistent; a lot of jumps in that game simply don't seem possible outside of the brief indication of interactables being placed in quite bizarre locations. But see I think that's one thing that made that game so great, it has a lot of the DNA of Mario 64, the pinnacle of 3d platforming in it. You aren't just discovering new areas, you're coming to grips with how to control your character in a way that makes it all the more personalized. There's a lot of goofy things in JSR, like how if you go up a sloped railing and jump off of it to a wall or other railing, it stores that upward angle you'd get if you jumped off the end of it; leading to you being able to make insane upward jumps you wouldn't be able to otherwise. Or the really bizarre manual turn input, which doesn't really work the way it's intended so you have to let go of forward and return to neutral; and then snap forward, back, then hold forward again, just for it to work. There's a lot of janky nuances to how you control your character or traverse the environment that just isn't really here in Bomb Rush. The game delivers the vibes immaculately. I love this game's universe, every character design, almost every song; But actually playing this game? Outside of the main campaign, there's not much to see really. I think this is a really huge game for a small team to create, it's way bigger than the original JSR, but there isn't as much intrigue because a lot of player expression isn't really frontloaded through the gameplay. A lot of what you could do that'd set you apart from someone else is like, tertiary flare things, like using the phone camera. I think a lot of this has to do with the scoring system trying to accomplish too many things at once.
It's extremely trivial to just keep a combo going forever but to really score high you have to hit multipliers by leaning into unique turns on railings, hitting unique wall rides, and quarter pipes. the lack of any sort of fail states outside of falling into water or to the city below in mataan makes it so there isn't even really the slightest of thought to be put into how you'd route building those multipliers. in JSR the more esoteric and difficult infinite grinds were usually the most rewarding ones, a natural conclusion of what that'd mean: Movement in that game already isn't free, so an infinite grind that wouldn't be clear to you at all would naturally be one that'd take some finesse and craft to it. In BRC the scoring system creates a positive loop for your boost gauge, which means the higher you are into a score, the more meter you regenerate upon using boost tricks, which cost quite a bit of meter. This kind of makes every combo in the game have the same structure and planning. Your ability to route combo'ing an entire stage is further dampened by how certain areas in stages are unable to be reached from lower elevations, like on pyramid island or mataan.
Now, BRC does actually follow it's inspirations game design outside of it's presentation well in the sense that; the benefit of having stylized low poly environments is that how you interact with the environment is very intuitive and actionable; On top of the fact that things you can wall ride off of are the same 5 or so billboards placed in different locations. This can lead to masterful indication as if you placed that same billboard in a place that's conspicuous; but unclear as to how you'd get there, that's a very silent way of getting a player to scavenge around for the solution to that. This game doesn't really baby you despite being so easy. With these observations in mind I can't really be too hard on the game for being what it is; A very streamlined volley of vibes.
It's extremely trivial to just keep a combo going forever but to really score high you have to hit multipliers by leaning into unique turns on railings, hitting unique wall rides, and quarter pipes. the lack of any sort of fail states outside of falling into water or to the city below in mataan makes it so there isn't even really the slightest of thought to be put into how you'd route building those multipliers. in JSR the more esoteric and difficult infinite grinds were usually the most rewarding ones, a natural conclusion of what that'd mean: Movement in that game already isn't free, so an infinite grind that wouldn't be clear to you at all would naturally be one that'd take some finesse and craft to it. In BRC the scoring system creates a positive loop for your boost gauge, which means the higher you are into a score, the more meter you regenerate upon using boost tricks, which cost quite a bit of meter. This kind of makes every combo in the game have the same structure and planning. Your ability to route combo'ing an entire stage is further dampened by how certain areas in stages are unable to be reached from lower elevations, like on pyramid island or mataan.
Now, BRC does actually follow it's inspirations game design outside of it's presentation well in the sense that; the benefit of having stylized low poly environments is that how you interact with the environment is very intuitive and actionable; On top of the fact that things you can wall ride off of are the same 5 or so billboards placed in different locations. This can lead to masterful indication as if you placed that same billboard in a place that's conspicuous; but unclear as to how you'd get there, that's a very silent way of getting a player to scavenge around for the solution to that. This game doesn't really baby you despite being so easy. With these observations in mind I can't really be too hard on the game for being what it is; A very streamlined volley of vibes.