a cyberfunk love-letter to Jet Set Radio

August 26, 2023 5:39 AM

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk: Better Red than dead [Shack News] “Set in a funky, futuristic New Amsterdam, the world of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is ruled by crews of graffiti artists-slash-DJs-slash-superheroes(?). The constant power struggle is a bid to become “All City,” the top of the top. You start as Faux, someone seemingly crucial to the current rankings. But before you can escape a mysterious holding cell and figure out what’s up, another crew leader lops your head off with weaponized vinyl. You wake up with a new (robot) head, a new name (Red) and a new crew, and set off to get your head back and become All City on the way. [...] If you’re an old school Segahead, there are definitely a few holes in your heart in need of filling. Jet Set Radio, which hasn’t seen a new game since the Xbox, is one of the biggest. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has appeared like a beacon of hope to fill that void, and it does so while bringing new stuff to the table. This game is like a long-lost Dreamcast game in so many different ways, and most of them are good. Clearly, the developers at Team Reptile understand the concept of love.” [Launch Trailer][Gameplay Trailer]
posted by Fizz (14 comments total)

I was just listening to the soundtrack, it rules. The game looks fun. JSR was such a vibe, hard to ask for a more stylish game for inspo.
posted by tovarisch at 5:51 AM on August 26, 2023

I love the entire aesthetic and vibe that this game is chasing. I hope we continue to get more games of this type/genre.
posted by Fizz at 5:53 AM on August 26, 2023

And yes, the soundtrack is killer.
posted by Fizz at 5:53 AM on August 26, 2023

These skate and grind games are great, havenèt played one since that lovely student project Zineth from a decade back..
posted by anthill at 6:35 AM on August 26, 2023

That "understand the concept of love" quote in the FPP makes me want to fill this thread with Jet Set/Grind Radio music quotes. LET'S GET SCRATCHIN
posted by JHarris at 11:35 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

High and a winner got a hot hand
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen

The game's so good it's even bad in the right ways, if that makes any sense.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:05 PM on August 26, 2023

BRUSH YA TEETH
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:04 PM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Supa Buruzaaaaaaaa ("Super Brother," perhaps the most direct Mario reference ever in a Sega game, in a song by the excellently-named Guitar Vader.)
posted by JHarris at 2:21 PM on August 26, 2023

I have been waiting for this to see the reviews. I never got to play the original Jet Grind (my friend had the original (import) Dreamcast but we never got that when we lived together, he may have gotten it later).

But I sure as hell got JSRF on the XBOX and loved the hell out of it. There are still parts that are in my head. that big dig pit? I think that was JSRF. If memory serves correct.

Anyways, hope this is great.

While I don't think it's the same type of game, the skate/grind/transport on modern urban paths of DokeV intrigues me, but not sure if there's much news on that.

It seems like 2023 has some great releases, already with BG3 and this should be fun.
posted by symbioid at 9:28 PM on August 26, 2023

I haven't been any kind of gamer since the early 90s, but I've been listening to the streaming soundtrack https://jetsetradio.live/ at least since at least 2014 cuz its crazy good.
posted by Fupped Duck at 10:29 PM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

It’s so good. Team Reptile set out to make a love letter to Jet Set Radio (Future) and succeeded. It does not have any real ambitions beyond that, and some reviews have dinged it for that, but “cruise around a cheerful cel-shaded city, figuring out how to tag ever-more-obscure places, while listening to a bunch of upbeat tunes” is a perfectly fine goal for a game IMHO. It nails all the good parts of its inspirations, slightly iterates on their mechanics, and refrains from tacking on unnecessary complexity or awkward minigames (*cough* Gameball). It’s just like how I *remember* playing JSR(F), rather than just like booting up the original and dealing with the awkwardness of a game from before every controller had two analog sticks and every 3d game used the left stick for movement and the right for camera control.

The story is super goofy and yet also surprisingly tight and personal. Usually these sorts of games just stick your graffiti crew into a struggle against vaguely-defined evil corporations. Bomb Rush just involves working out a lot of personal grudges amongst the graffiti writers of New Amsterdam. Which does also incidentally involve destroying a new high-tech policing initiative along the way, but really it’s about the struggles to be at the top of this little underground scene that most people of the city pay no attention to beyond swearing when a kid with a skateboard and a jetpack knocks them over in their quest for that elusive 13,000,000 point trick chain.

And so many of the unlockable characters are just endearingly goofy and uncool and give absolutely zero shits about their uncoolness.
posted by egypturnash at 10:50 PM on August 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

The review notes that combat is kind of crap, which yeah, it’s annoying. Once you discover how to reliably trigger a spray-paint event on a cop (kick them, then jump), it gets a lot faster, but then you have to contend with the fact that quickly humiliating cops also quickly gets them to escalate, and soon you’re trying to remember where a bathroom is so you can dodge in, change your outfit, and lose the heat. You can generally just run away on a grind rail and be fine, but it’s kind of annoying. I’m hopeful that there will be an update that either lowers the escalation speed, scatters more bathrooms around, or makes it possible to get your score multiplier up by humiliating cops. That last one would make the score challenges a *lot* more fun, right now they mostly involve cruising around a zone trying to hit every fast corner and billboard ride spot possible to build up multiplier, then settling into a nice grind loop that lets you get off a bunch of high-scoring tricks by hitting the boost and trick buttons simultaneously. Getting the cops involved by re-painting tag spots, then increasing the multiplier even more, would be a ton of fun.
posted by egypturnash at 10:58 PM on August 26, 2023

This thread settled now? Most of the relevant comments already made? Okay.

TERRITORY IN THE TERRITORY
posted by JHarris at 7:23 AM on August 28, 2023

Also, Fupped Duck, that site is great!
posted by JHarris at 9:09 AM on August 28, 2023