10 Reviews liked by sleepysnack


I have very complex feelings about this game. Probably the most complex feeling about a piece of art I had in a long time. I've been excited about this game ever since it got announced when I was around 19 - 20 (ironically enough I thought it was announced when I was around 17 and with this revelation it made my feelings even more complex) and now i'm 23 almost 24 in around half a year. A lot of things changed in the last 3-4 years and some stay the same.

One constant was that I was very excited for this game. Um Jammer Lammy and the original Jet Set Radio on dreamcast were some of the most formative point of my early childhood/teen years. I remember when the PS3 port came out and it gave me another chance at JSR when I was 12 since my Dreamcast was turbo dead. It is one of my favorite games ever made, hell this VERY game made me play all the way through the story again with my friends and gfs and I loved it.

This game is hard to talk about because it makes me think about other things and then I go on tangents about those things. Because this things where's its inspiration not only on its sleeves but its forehead and maybe even a tramp stamp so its inspiration can see it and get super horny and fuck it in the butt lol sorry.

My point is, this game doesn't KNOW what it wants to be. Its it own thing but also it isn't, its Jet Set Radio Future but it isn't, its a Tony Hawk game but it isn't, its fucking Grand Theft Auto but also it isn't. Now I'm not saying I want this game to perfectly ape these games at that point I'd just fucking play em instead, what I am saying is that it kinda is copying what these games did and trying to put a spin on them and with some it succeeds. Like its character design and aesthetic.

This game looks dope. If you put Red in JSR (mainly Future) I would not bat an eye. Its style is dope, when I unlocked one of the main spoiler character I was omega hyped cause I liked their design a shit ton its sick. The cities are nice too they look cool especially the oil rig area of the game it was sick I thought.

But also that pays to its detriment. It's failures. A great example is that very oil rig level. I liked how it looks, but a huge problem with a giant problem I have with these maps (especially since the fucking mini map in this game is the worst i've seen in ANY game) these maps are not intuitive. Navigating these maps are hell and while playing that very oil rig I literally said "Man this is just the oil rig from Underground but bad lol" and I don't want to think that but that's honestly most of this game.

This game has graffiti QTE but bad its even more vapid than JSRF just pressing a button and spraying. This game fixes the handling of JSR but still at times feels annoying and with the camera fucking going bananas sometimes its just as hard if not sometimes harder navigating this game than even the original JSR.

This game has GTA stars, but bad. This game tried to do what JSRF did with dealing with the pigs (cops) but the problem is with this is that they did not fix the fundamental problem of the combat of JSRF. Its still boring, you just mash buttons, the enemies have almost no variety besides sometimes they have a shield and sometimes they're a big robot or they try sniping you and at the end of the day you can ignore them for the whole game. Hell, if you're going to do combos and shit you HAVE to because even dealing with them breaks your combo and its so boring! The only saving grace is the mods and that someone made it so fighting them didn't stop your combo and multiplier which made the game 2Xs more fun LOL.

The enemies just don't have what the golden rhino had and it shows all the enemies were so samey and all the bosses were so samey besides like one and its only because you didn't tag em. Oh yeah this game is also Tony Hawk but bad. The combo system in this game is probably one of the most boring things in a game ever. All you do is hit corners and billboards and maybe a halfpipe if its there for multiplayer and then mash buttons for tricks. To my knowledge there aren't really any cool complex tricks that can be done besides boosting and doing a trick and look I don't mind people liking simple games its ok but the fact that this game looked at two games meant to be arcadey and made them so simple and boring (hell even doing a manual is just holding a button) is so lame.

This entire game is kinda just eye candy, a world I would go to in VR Chat like I'd chill and smoke in it but Its not something engaging to me. Hell even the music is just shit i'd put on a road trip just to sleep if i'm the passenger. They aren't bad but since this game isn't like JSR and doesn't diversify with levels often the same song will play like 100000 times and the only time you can really change it now is with either a music mod (pc only for now lol) and unlocking the song mixes which is like. why????

Anyways I guess my point is, is that this game gets boring fast. Its too samey. All you do is meet a new gang, tag their tags, do combo challenges or platforming challenges, do a BIG combo challenge, and then do a Mario Sunshine level, rinse repeat. And yeah there are unlockables but when even the characters are essentially just skins with like 4 voice lines, it just feels so. Vapid. Superficial.

And I hate to say that. I'm kinda a big team reptile shooter. I bought like 8 people Lethal League Blaze, I used to bring it on campus for my friends to play, I OWNED the original Lethal League, and yeah its a different game but with how that game has such diverse characters with different gameplay and hell Switch and Jet being 5 dollars fucking dlc in Bombrush, its a little sad when every characters have the same stats. The same gameplay. The same. Everything.

Look I got a super autism brain, you can tell how much I fucking typed here, but I guess i'm just sad because of what this game could of been. And its not even bad I guess its just not for me. If you're a Jet Set Radio outsider looking in, you'll like it, if you're someone into games where you don't have to fully think and its easy to sink your teeth into, this is for you, if you liked JSRF, well this may be the closet thing you have to some sort of sequel pc port. I guess to gist of it is for me is that I kinda wanted a game that was a mix of the two. and I got something that was a mix of a bunch of things I REALLY like but because of scope, size of team, and time couldn't fully get there. Hell they updated the game and added a minigame to the phone so I feel me saying "it could of cooked more" is true! Especially since its 40 bucks which is even more than Hi Fi Rush and of course they need the money but 40 bucks + 5 for essentially skins and 15 bucks for the OST is something i'd expect the Bethesda Tango Gamework game to do and not the dope azz indie product.

TLDR: I had some fun playing it especially using the mods today. But I just wish it was more complex, I wish it was as compassionate as the art, the character design, the architecture!

I don't want just Jet Set Radio, but thats what I got kinda but all the aspects I hated amplified sorta. And I guess I wanted to vent

No Star Rating cause its not fair since i'm gonna use mods, see updates (especially if there is a momentum mod since this game didn't have that and the only ways to go faster besides boosting is doing tricks and doing multiplier shit which is also something that drives me off the wall), and maybe even speedrun it since it has pretty cool tech.

Give it a chance you'll like it probably but I wanted to give I guess another perspective on this game.

Here's my main takeaway from this game. It has a very compelling setting that's just got the vibes I love. A lot of the guns feel amazing to use, the gun-play is SO GOOD! Which is something to me because I feel like I have become more and more picky with my shooters. Here's a funny take, if I shoot you with a gun, you should die. I hate dumping mags, I hate bullet sponges, I hate all that RPG/shooter mechanics. When I was playing this game I was just vibing. I go out, kill shit, leave. I want to drink a fucking beer while playing this game and I’m not even the biggest beer guy. You know what? This game is basically fishing. You go out, you catch a fish or two, maybe you do it while pondering about some deeper shit happening in your life, OR perhaps you do it to not think at all. Either way it’s a slow methodical process where you get something out of it. In context of the game, maybe you get the bounty and enjoy seeing the cash/xp flow in, or you’re like damn that gun felt really good to use. Either way the game HAS a flow and it’s a nice flow to be a part of once in a while, well until..

This is the part where the fishing metaphor gets really funny. Imagine you’re fishing by yourself at your favorite lake, then a “party” of guys come in with their big fuck off boat and loud music. Now this becomes very disruptive for you, so.. What do you do? I suppose you got a few options here. You can just leave and find a different fishing spot, maybe sit around and wait for them to leave (but where's the fun in that?). OR. You can listen to the devil in your ear and try to ruin their fun. In Hunt: Showdown a lot of these options are options you can certainly do.. But I have to add an additional factor to this. Those party fishing guys? They fucking hate people that aren’t them. So you better hope they didn’t see you to begin with! Or they’re going to make your boat sink, maybe steal your fishing rod.. MAN, maybe if you’re lucky they’ll call you the f slur or something. The first two things I listed, I don’t really blame them for because the game promotes that. The bigotry, lol no people just suck sometimes. The PVP aspect of the game really complicated my feelings on the game, any of the nice things I’ve said about it just becomes more of an emotional gray to me. The gun play, remember when I said that was good? Well when you include PVP scenarios to it.. That becomes muddy because a good amount of guns become problematic. Here’s a fucking example! Shotguns! They either feel amazing or absolute dogshit! No in-between, because this game’s delay is so strange,if you’re using shotguns prepare for the inevitable trades. Which for a game that has “permanent death” as a mechanic is pretty grating! At least, I sure did when I was playing this. Also in context to PVP, there is no reason why you wouldn’t use a Winchester/ or any gun that offers multiple shots before reload. I mean fuck, all you need is a good sidearm in this game. A lot of people (including myself) were using the Uppercut then you got assholes who use the fucking Dolch. I’ve heard and seen good things about the spitfire too but whatever I digress.

Experiencing this game’s PVP really helped me come to some conclusion with the frustration I have towards its “instrumental” play style. It offers these “options” when some of these options just feel like quality of life improvements of the game, meaning, it creates this air of “why the fuck WOULDN’T you take this???”. Like serpent, why the fuck wouldn’t you take serpent??

[For additional context this is what Serpent does, quoted from the wiki. “Using Dark Sight, interact with nearby Clues, Rifts, Banishable Targets, and abandoned Bounty from a safe distance.”]

Fuckers be like “oh if everyone just had it from the start it would be too strong!!” Would it really?? Because with how I fucking see it, with how PVP is like in this game, picking up the bounty is almost ALWAYS a disadvantage. Oh you gain the ability to see other hunters around you? In a game where you almost always see better with sound? WOW! What a game changer! For how long will I get this blessing? Five seconds? That’s so lovely! What do they get? Oh they always know where I’m going? It’s basically having a fucking supernatural tracker on me? Wow. Seems like a fair deal to me! Don’t even get me started on the recently added pact that grants you the ability to self revive as a solo hunter with the Necromancer trait. Like WOW. An “OPTION” that makes the solo experience more playable!! WHY WOULDN’T YOU FUCKING TAKE THIS?

No matter the PVP “play style” it always churns into some form of online shit flinging (Like fuck it shows up during this review. Fuck Dolch users!!). A lot of people in the community hate “campers”/”snipers”, that was in some form a big discourse within the community because you had people that were taking advantage of a particular hunter skin that had a lot of dull colors that easily blend in the game’s environments. Also trappers! The toxicity within the use of traps sure is something. There was this problem of what I will describe it as “turtling” where a team would set up base at one of the settlements (probably the one with the bounty in it) and just place barb wire traps (or just barb wire) EVERYWHERE! Then hunters outside of this settlement would combat this by just waiting outside and stare at the timer going down, because eventually the team would have to make a break for it. SO these moments are just stalemates that murder any hint of fucking momentum in this game and it all comes down to a battle of pettiness. This factor of the game definitely got me to stop playing because it was this shit- every time. The simple enjoyable flow of hunt showdown was not worth having to put up with this shit. 

The only hint of feeling of “magic” with this game’s PVP is when PVP conflicts feel like an actual SHOWDOWN. You know- the title of the fucking game? Go figure. Anyways the moments of multiple hunters meeting head to head at the same settlement, having an all out gun battle, is where the drama happens! That’s the moment that gets me to understand why the developers wanted to make the game the way that it was. You really feel that set up to it, (when it happens of course.). It has the pacing of a spaghetti western (Like fistful of dollars) without any words being said. That comparison is probably why I always found myself preferring to play Hunt Showdown alone than with friends. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a good underdog story. Not that Fistful of Dollars is one but... Playing Hunt Showdown solo really feels like both to me. I guess that was and still is the main appeal to me with Hunt Showdown. It’s the stylish world and the drama it can generate with tension. It’s why at this point I find myself having the preference to watch people play it over playing it myself. The guy I usually watch play this game makes this game look so enticing. His aggression, the way he goes up against teams of two and three, using every weapon he can get his hands on that were left behind on dead hunters because the ammo being so scarce. That shit is intense and a joy to watch! 

I don’t know, man. I guess I would just enjoy this game more if it was a single-player game. If this shit was a fucked up western stalker it would be one of my favorite games ever. It’s why sometimes I just played on the Oceania servers because no one in the Oceania area uses their own servers. That’s the closest I’ve gotten to a single-player Hunt Showdown experience. It was alright. Part of me feels like I enjoyed Elden Ring so much when it released because before it came out I was getting tortured by this fucking game! So yeah at the time, it felt like a blessing that I could look like a queer, hold a huge sword, and ride a horse in a weird vast world without having to feel like an asshole. Yes, I play the souborne games with no multiplayer because that shit adds nothing to the experience I enjoy from those types of games. Anyways, I don’t regret getting into Hunt Showdown even though most of my experience with it was negative because it gave me the inspiration to begin writing my very own setting for a TRPG game. It revealed to me that I have a dream to create a world/experience similar to Hunt Showdown but with focus on the type of play that's more freeing and alive than whatever the hell is going on here!

Good things come to those who wait!

thinking about the types of people who worked on this game and the types of people who okayed every decision made on this game and the types of people who this game was made for and i feel nothing for any of these people but pure contempt. fuck this game and fuck everything it stands for. it is a repulsive pile of soulless pink glittery filth. it is nothing short of nauseating to look at, to listen to, or to play. the game grumps are in this and it's not even the most upsetting/annoying part of it. i've literally never hit the "skip cutscene" button on a first playthrough before i played this game. but in the end i'm not really sure why i did, because the actual game sandwiched between these F-tier 2012 tumblr comic voiceovers sucks, too! as if it couldn't get any worse it's a fucking terrible beat-em-up! i don't even understand how they got it so wrong! the people at wayforward have obviously played a lot of old games, they should know how this stuff works, but they seem to have fucking forgotten, so you're left to trudge through a broken mess of non-functional juggles, pointless backtracking and some of the worst bosses i've ever has the displeasure of fighting in a video game. i think i'd rather play any beat em up than this. hell, give me Bad Dudes and i'd probably have a better time. anyway did you know this game's sequel which released a week ago has chris niosi in it? thought that was cool and interesting

extremely fucking cool but unfortunately doesn't get enough time to iterate on its ideas. combat and scoring could really be something special but they're just not quite there

if you still don't have a mommy kink after playing this you missed the entire point of the game

the chase missions sucked shit

This game is so cool, but then you have to actually play it.