JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future

"JSRF manages to retain the best parts of it's predecessor while at the same time trudging into new ground."

Smilebit has taken it upon themselves to deliver us a sequel to the underrated yet wholly unexpected JGR (Jet Grind Radio). Enter JSRF – Jet Set Radio Future. Bigger, stronger, longer, prettier, louder, and just as odd. Yes, they’ve succeeded - JSRF stays true to the core gameplay of its predecessor, but at the same time takes it to the next level, backed by the power of the Xbox.

The game is set in Tokyo. Apparently, a major corporation called the Rokkaku group has seized control of the city and is oppressing its hapless civilians. In come a motley group of young skaters called the “GG’s”. The mission is simple – spray, or ‘tag’ graffiti all over Tokyo to oppose the Rokkaku’s authority. Of course they aren’t going to stand by idly as you go about this – cops, machine-gun toting assassins, tanks, helicopters, jets, and one very large spider all stand in your way. As far as the good guys go, during the game, you meet up with other characters. Some will challenge you to events, and if you win, they’ll join your ‘clique’. By the end of the story, the group grows to quite a respectable size. After a couple of play-throughs, you can get over 20 people in your group!

The tagging or spraying is done by way of the right trigger button. You simply haul ass to wherever the tag spot is and press the trigger. For those of you who’ve played JGR, you’ll remember that tagging was quite different in that game. You actually had to make corresponding button presses on the DC’s d-pad while tagging in order to correctly tag. Smilebit took that complexity out this go around – they say the games much-faster play speed wouldn’t allow for it. In my book the new system works well, and I can understand their reasoning for taking it out – the game IS pretty fast-moving. Some sprays would be impossible if they hadn’t gotten rid of the old system – they’re simply isn’t enough time, for example, to press d-pad buttons while spraying to complete the tag during a corkscrew turn on the rollercoaster your grinding in the Sky Dinosaurian level.

Also gone are time restraints. One was constantly rushing from one destination to another in JGR in order to make the time limit. Throw in all the cops, tanks, and other obstacles you faced while still trying to make the time limit, and you’ve got one helluva challenge. That’s all changed with JSRF – you’re free to explore the city to your hearts content, and spray your graffiti whenever you see fit. You might be thinking this would remove any challenge from the game – not true. The worlds are very cleverly designed - you will find yourself spending a lot of time gazing at a tag point in the distance and trying to figure out how to get there. Not having to be rushed by a time limit while doing this makes it a better experience in my opinion.

In order to help facilitate you in this process, Smilebit has ingeniously incorporated a ‘look’ feature into the game. Move the right thumbstick any which way, and the view will change to a first person perspective, where you can freely look around and see what you need to do. I found myself using this a lot – even for whole minutes at a time while trying to figure out how to get to particularly brain-teasing spray locations. Another useful ability is boost dash – press the B button, and you speed up in a flash – for the price of 10 spray cans. This comes in very useful – in fact, some tag locations are near impossible to get to without using it.

The graphics of this game are, if nothing else, unique. Smilebit has managed to create a completely involved, living, breathing world. Life hustles and bustles around you as you tear through the streets…pedestrians walk around, cars zoom around, birds fly around, and more. The streets are definitely more alive then they were in JGR, and the areas in general are much bigger this go-around, plus, everything you would think would be grindable usually is. Along with being bigger, they are packed with things to do and see. No bland, empty areas here – along your journey through this game you’ll visit a rollercoaster park, the roofs of several skyscrapers, a neon-magnificent shopping area, the sewers, and more. Innovative and unique, to say the least.

Did I mention the graphics are cel-shaded? Yes, in keeping with the JSRF’s theme of innovation and uniqueness, everything is fully represented in full cell-shaded glory. Everything looks fantastic cel-shaded, in fact, the cel shading adds to the overall feel of the game. The framerate stays solid for the most part. You will encounter some slowdown every now and then, especially during a battle with a huge spider. It’s not frequent enough to be a major problem, though.

Simply put, the large and vibrant worlds, coupled with the cel-shading, make for an awesome visual experience. To date, I can’t think of any other game, save GTA3, that had such an involving environment. Keep in mind though, ‘involving’ doesn’t necessarily mean realistic, and on the realism tip, JSRF is pretty far from it. The laws of gravity are much more forgiving then real life….if you jump, you’re likely to stay in the air for much longer then humanly possible. One of the coolest adaptations of these revised gravitational laws is that it allows you to grind straight up vertical objects. Yes, straight up light poles, lamp-posts, or any other vertical object. This adds a whole new dynamic to the game, one that makes it a better overall experience.

The control of this game, unfortunately, leaves a little to be desired. The camera manages to screw up every so often. This would have been a much bigger problem; however, you weren’t able to reposition the camera squarely behind your character by pressing the left trigger. Thank God for that. This makes the camera a minor annoyance rather then a glaring faux pas. Along with the camera, another thing that manages to be annoying are the ‘floaty’ jumps…as I mentioned before if you jump in this game, you’ll land much farther and later then you would in real life. This is fine for the most part, but can be frustrating when the stakes are high. For example, when you’re hundreds of feet in the air on the Skyscraper level and have to aim jumps precisely, it gets very frustrating to float off the side of the building and fall to your death repeatedly. You eventually get used to it, but it’s still somewhat annoying.

This brings me to the third thing I find annoying – some of the tag locations are just very frustrating to get to. I understand that this is part of the challenge, but it’s frustrating when I make a series of accurately placed jumps, grinds, and billboard-rides in order to reach some godforsaken corner of the map, but then screw something up and fall all the way to the bottom. Sometimes it could take you an irritatingly long amount of time just to get back to where you started from to try to get the pesky tag in question again.

Another fly in the JSRF ointment is difficulty of this game, or more accurately, the lack of difficulty. The cops, jets, helicopters, assassins, and such that the game throws at you really aren’t that hard to defeat. Even the last boss in the game can be defeated without much difficulty. Along with that, you can keep trying the various gang-challenges until you succeed, although none of them are difficult enough to keep you trying for more then a couple of tries. Sadly there are no difficulty settings, so making the game more challenging for yourself is pretty much out of the question. That said, this game isn’t completely devoid of any challenge though – the cleverness of the level designs hold plenty of challenge to test your cognitive mettle.

In keeping with the ‘unique and innovative’ theme of this game – Smilebit has concocted a very stylish and entertaining mix of music which blends right in with the rest of the games odd-ness. The music is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a video game. There are tracks from every genre of music – from rap, to rock, to near-unclassifiable wailing over loud instruments. Trust me: You won’t get bored listening to this soundtrack. There is no option for custom soundtracks in this game, however, I can understand why there isn’t. This game is a complete package of uniqueness and innovation – the sound is just as important as the sight. It would have been nice to have the option, but it’s not much of a loss without it. Unfortunately, the tracks seem to be designated to a specific area, i.e., you’ll hear the same four or five songs over and over until you move to another area. This does introduce a bit of redundancy, and thus boredom into the game, but it isn’t enough to turn you off of the game itself. Once you move on to another area, you’ll be struck by the freshness of both the level design and the music all over again.

As far as replay value goes, fear not. After you finish the story mode of the game, another set of spray points appear throughout the city. There are also many ‘Graffiti Souls’ to collect. These unlock the spray designs you can use in your graff-tastic creations. There’s also a robust multiplayer mode, which features games like ‘taggers tag’ – knock your opponents out by spraying their backs. Pretty entertaining, but it can’t touch the single player mode.

At the end of the day, what can you say about this game? The people at Smilebit seem to thrive on making unusual games, innovative games, and more then anything else, stylish games. JSRF is yet another example of this. The game takes a simple idea, adds tons of ‘mojo’, and brings it together with a kickass soundtrack and stellar visuals. ‘Unique’ and ‘Innovative’ seem to come up whenever describing JSRF. If it weren’t for less-then-innovative control, camera woes and the lack of difficulty balance, this game would be close to perfection. As it stands, however, JSRF is a fun and unique game every Xbox gamer should give a try. I guess the only fathomable way to sum up this game would be to simply call it ‘cool’.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/02, Updated 08/12/02