On the surface, Jet Set Radio may seem like an explicit expression of the urban teenage outrage from something like Tony Hawk games, you do graffiti around town, the police and even the army pursue you, you help an underground illegal radio, everyone is dancing all the time, the visual style is a colorful explosive display of liveliness. On the inside, this is nothing more than the envelope of an identity crisis lie.
What this really is, compared to Tony Hawk, is a simplified version where about two action buttons carry all the movement. The complex techniques of the older game are now automated, which may sound like an improvement in the flow of movement, yet ends up backfiring, as this automation also means that it is much harder to predict what the character is even going to do. In consequence, penalties are also relieved, falling down, even after impossible falls, is a rare sight, grinding rails no longer requires keeping any balance at all. These watered down decisions exist also because of a more careless attention to detail on movement, where something essential as jumps often becomes unexpected leaps of faith. This lack of attention is to be expected.
Tony Hawk games totally committed to translating skating into videogame through an exaggerated arcade abstraction. Where impossible jumps were possible, still an essence was maintained regardless of the surrealism. You had two minutes, a song, and a place where to find your own style to be turned into your combo tricks playground. Jet Set Radio arcade capacities are but a mere curiosity. Perhaps in recognition of not being able to find a game where moving around was satisfactory enough, perhaps in disbelief of the power of arcade, Jet Set Radio is nothing but a game of following steps and getting interrupted.
No longer is the city there as your canvas, the graffiti spots to paint here are clearly marked with red arrows. Those missions at least still leave up to you the routes to get to the different marked points whereas the duels, in Tony Hawk an even more concentrated and heavily penalized one minute jam, are now the epitome of identity robbery. To show your value to others, you copy their exact movements.
The two minute arcade do what you want without additives is now an infinitely generous timed mission full of stops. Start the mission and get a cutscene. Trigger the police, reinforcements, whatever, get another cutscene, even in midair. Pause and open up your map to locate your missing objectives. Search for health refills if you get too many hits. Perform an incredible stunt, like grinding a rail without pressing a button, and get a replay highlight. Paint a graffiti, halt your movement completely regardless of acceleration and complete a quick time event standing still for seconds.
Tony Hawk games, if cynically seen, may look like a messy license mashup in an attempt to grab attention wherever it could, but, above everything, contained a clear idea on what the urban movement on top of a skate meant in its own arcade terms. Jet Set Radio has clear ideas on the aesthetic it wants to reach, but at its heart is, at best, just a confused teenager that prefers to watch the style from afar, afraid of taking the wheels and falling down.
What this really is, compared to Tony Hawk, is a simplified version where about two action buttons carry all the movement. The complex techniques of the older game are now automated, which may sound like an improvement in the flow of movement, yet ends up backfiring, as this automation also means that it is much harder to predict what the character is even going to do. In consequence, penalties are also relieved, falling down, even after impossible falls, is a rare sight, grinding rails no longer requires keeping any balance at all. These watered down decisions exist also because of a more careless attention to detail on movement, where something essential as jumps often becomes unexpected leaps of faith. This lack of attention is to be expected.
Tony Hawk games totally committed to translating skating into videogame through an exaggerated arcade abstraction. Where impossible jumps were possible, still an essence was maintained regardless of the surrealism. You had two minutes, a song, and a place where to find your own style to be turned into your combo tricks playground. Jet Set Radio arcade capacities are but a mere curiosity. Perhaps in recognition of not being able to find a game where moving around was satisfactory enough, perhaps in disbelief of the power of arcade, Jet Set Radio is nothing but a game of following steps and getting interrupted.
No longer is the city there as your canvas, the graffiti spots to paint here are clearly marked with red arrows. Those missions at least still leave up to you the routes to get to the different marked points whereas the duels, in Tony Hawk an even more concentrated and heavily penalized one minute jam, are now the epitome of identity robbery. To show your value to others, you copy their exact movements.
The two minute arcade do what you want without additives is now an infinitely generous timed mission full of stops. Start the mission and get a cutscene. Trigger the police, reinforcements, whatever, get another cutscene, even in midair. Pause and open up your map to locate your missing objectives. Search for health refills if you get too many hits. Perform an incredible stunt, like grinding a rail without pressing a button, and get a replay highlight. Paint a graffiti, halt your movement completely regardless of acceleration and complete a quick time event standing still for seconds.
Tony Hawk games, if cynically seen, may look like a messy license mashup in an attempt to grab attention wherever it could, but, above everything, contained a clear idea on what the urban movement on top of a skate meant in its own arcade terms. Jet Set Radio has clear ideas on the aesthetic it wants to reach, but at its heart is, at best, just a confused teenager that prefers to watch the style from afar, afraid of taking the wheels and falling down.