Jet Set Radio Future!

For my first review it seems fitting to write about my favourite game of all time; Jet Set Radio Future.

No matter how much I play this game, I've never got bored of it, but of course, to understand this I must explain the game.

As previously mentioned I picked up this game from a bargain bin in some independent game shop in some wet, dull and dreary town no doubt near some manor house or some such other old building that we went through on holiday about 6 years ago. Released in 2001, Jet Set Radio Future (Or JSRF, as I will refer to it as from now on in) is a Sega title for the original Xbox, a sequel to a game called Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast (Or Jet Grind Radio as it was known in the US). Set in Tokyo in the 'futuristic' 2007 you play various members of a roller blading gang called 'The GGs' (I always assumed this stood for 'Good Guys' but on some research I found it stands for 'Graffiti Gang Gangsters') as they claim territory, battle rival gangs, gather new members and battle the 'Rokkoku Police'. All the while aided by the commentary of my personal favourite npc, DJ Professor K.

You start off as Yo-Yo, the newest member of the gang, which at this point only comprises of Corn, the leader, Gum, the only girl in the gang to start and Roboy, an old prototype robot who acts as an in game main menu, letting you save your game, change your graffiti styles, change character, change your Garage (The gang hideout) background music track and later on letting you do test runs, which shall be explained later.

Upon entering the first area of Tokyo, Dogenzaka Hill, you are tasked by DJ Professor K to cover it in graffiti, and shown how to do so. After this you are put to race against another skater, who, if you beat him, joins your gang, this guy's called Beat and is famous due to his being featured on the cover art. After this you go through your first cop battle and are then guided to the next area. For a first area set of tasks, this all sounds rather hectic, but it's set out in such a way that you can do it at your own pace. This is pretty much your tutorial and is actually designed in such a way that it doesn't feel like a tutorial at all, it flows well and feels like you've been thrown straight into the game, yet you are able to cope.

The controls are simple, to grind just jump onto the rail with A, to do a grind combo hit X or Y, move with the left stick, spray graffiti with R trigger and boost with B. With this basic combination you'll never need to hit another button while playing, yet it still takes some skill to master the harder tricks, as what you can do relies on the environment. This way you can master the button functions early on and focus on timing and speed as you get to more complex areas, rather than learning new button combinations at the risk of forgetting others, a problem I see in many modern games.

The graphics style is one I've not seen in many other games, based on a manga/anime style of drawing it doesn't quite fit the usual conventions of video game graphics post 1990s. It doesn't try to look realistic, effort has clearly been put into main characters and explorable areas, but beyond that it's very basic, which suits the style it's been done in well, plus it was produced in a time when only a minority of gamers cared about graphic quality over gameplay and story, something that seems to be switching around as graphics improve. Movement blur of your character is implemented well for determining how fast you're moving as is the colour of the sparks when grinding, helping the player decide if they're going fast enough to make a particular jump.

The challenges of JSRF come in all areas. Throughout the story the player is faced with different battles to overcome, this includes; story challenges, Graffiti Souls, Area challenges and Test Runs.

Story Challenges- From your basic racing, to police battles. Racing is as it always is, race another rollerblader or gang around a circuit, first to the finish wins. Police battles range from basic to insane, basic being knock police over inside a certain area and spray their coats while they're on the ground to defeat them, to the Golden Rhino police who can take a few knocks with boost before going down, and even then will take a few knock downs and sprays to completely defeat them. Other challenges consist of chasing and spraying other gang members, getting more trick points than other gangs in certain time limits and boss battles, such as fighting the Police tanks, a spider like machine and the end boss battle against Rokkoku Gouji, the mayor of Tokyo and owner of the Rokkoku Police, in his power suit called A.KU.MU.

Graffiti Souls - Items dotted around the various maps to be collected by the player, when collected these shiny, alien like heads (also used as the JSRF logo) unlock new graffiti tags for the player to use. Collecting all the Souls in one area takes you halfway to unlocking the Test Run for that area.

Area Challenges - These are initially unlocked by finding a golden cassette tape with a red question mark on it. There's one in each area and to complete the Area Challenges this needs to be found first, when found your journal for that area will update with 5 challenges. Completing these challenges is often tough and very time consuming, but finishing the challenges for an area, along with collecting all graffiti souls for that area will unlock test runs.

Test Runs - Available after beating the main story (which in itself can take around 10 hours, depending on whether it's your first time or not), collecting all Graffiti Souls and finishing all area challenges in a particular area. Test Runs consist of 4 types, Jet Tech; Scoring as many points as possible in a set time. Jet Tag; Tagging all the graffiti spots as fast as possible. Jet Speed; Racing around the area as fast as possible and finally, Jet Flag; Collecting flags from around the area as fast as possible. Each area will have three of these four modes to complete. Upon completing them and achieving Jet ranking in each you will unlock a new playable character from each area. Usually this will be an enemy from the story, more often than not a rival gang. However, one unlocks my favourite playable character; Potts, the dog who hangs around with the GGs in their Garage.

To unlock all the characters you could well be looking at a good 20 - 25 hours gameplay, not including time spent just messing around and having fun in the open world. This game, in my opinion, brings more to the table in variety, gameplay and uniqueness than 99% of modern games. This is the sort of game I would one day like to develop, it stands out.

This summer, it should be noted (Hopefully within the next month or so) an HD remake of the Dreamcast original is being released onto the XBLA, PSN and PC (Probably via Steam for the PC, although nothing's been said yet). I'm eagerly looking forward to this as having never owned a Dreamcast I've never had the chance to play the original.

In conclusion I would say if you have an original Xbox or an Xbox 360 (It's worked on my old 360 arcade and my new 360 Slim); Get this game and play it now! It really has stood the test of time, and in my opinion easily holds it's own against big names like Halo, Call of Duty, Forza and other such titles. It is a game of it's own genre, something not seen often. If you need more testament towards it's greatness, it still sells for a good £25 online, compared to games released to high acclaim only 2 or 3 years ago that now sell for £2 - £3.

This gem even includes a very unique soundtrack, including artists such as Scapegoat Wax and Hideki Naganuma. I still listen to it on my iPod on a near daily basis, well worth looking up on YouTube.

Link to Jet Set Radio HD official page: http://www.sega.co.uk/games/jet-set-radio/

~Rusty Mongrel.