Picking up Jet Set Radio HD, I was looking forward to having
some retro gaming fun, albeit through some rose-tinted glasses. Thirty minutes
of play later and I was putting the glasses back in the case. It has held up
remarkably well against the test of time, partly due to being one of the first
games to pioneer cel-shaded graphics. Anyone who hasn’t heard of the game before
probably wouldn’t guess it was originally released all the way back in 2000.
The game starts with Professor K, DJ for the pirate station,
Jet Set Radio introducing the world of Tokyo-to. A city that is on no known
maps; its districts are fought over by rival gangs spraying tags on their
territory. You play as one of the GGs members, a gang who was minding their own
business until the turf war arrived on their doorstep. You grab your spray cans
to reclaim your home, but quickly find yourself getting drawn into something
much bigger.
The gameplay is an interesting fusion of ideas. All the
characters get around using in-line skates, jumping, grinding rails, performing
tricks and boosting their way around the levels. The way characters controlled
and moved had many similarities to Tony Hawks Pro Skater which was only
released in the previous year.
On top of the skating sits a challenged based high score
element. Dotted around each stage are several red arrows. Each is a point that
needs tagging to complete the level. You need to collect enough spray cans spread
around the area to paint each tag. When you roll up and start spraying, the
camera pans out to show off your work as you limber up for some thumb
gymnastics. Each tag is completed with a number of different stick movements
and rotations displayed by a group of arrows on the UI. Get your moves wrong
and you’ll miss out on a chunk of bonus points.
Of course it’s not that simple. It doesn’t take too long for
the cops to show up, led by the insane Captain Onishima, who’ll stop at nothing
to arrest the pesky kids making a mess of the city. Each stage starts off with
you being pursued by a group of incompetent coppers that you can rings around.
However, as you spray more of the city, reinforcements are called in. Things
quickly escalate and you find yourself being pursued by tanks and attack
helicopters. They really want to keep the city clean! Each enemy will disrupt
your spraying if they catch up to you. Get hit too much, or run out of time and
it’s all over.
The game has two different tutorials to introduce the
various mechanics and ways you can move around the city. There is a lengthy
version that can be selected from the game menu, and will run through
everything you need to know. Although its directions and explanations are quite
lacking, you can easily get stuck when it asks you to move to another area
because you won’t know where it is. The second type of tutorial is an in-game
follow the leader challenge. These all come in the form of new characters who’ll
join your gang, but only if you can copy their moves. Some are compulsory for
plot reasons, which can be a bit frustrating as the game only shows you what
you need to do without explaining the button presses needed.
New characters pop-up all the way through the story, right
up until the last area. It’s a bit odd, as you don’t get much time to use these
characters in the story mode. However, once an area of the city is completed,
you open up free roaming and score attack modes. These add some extra life to
the game as the story is fairly short. I blasted through it in around four
hours, although that was with previous knowledge of the game. For someone new
to the game, it could last a good six hours.
The only other complaint I can level at the game is that
your momentum can be lost too easily. Grinding and jumping around the levels is
great fun, but some objects are larger than they appear, leading to you
accidentally clipping them and breaking your flow. Grinding can be frustrating
at times as again, momentum is important. Jump onto a rail without enough speed
and you can find yourself stuck until you finally slide of the other end, as it’s
incredibly difficult to jump off without landing back on the same rail.
A defining feature of Jet Set Radio is its soundtrack. It’s
a whole variety of genres and styles brought together, and they all fit into
this crazy world. It puts the finishing touch on the game’s unique style. At
the time, it introduced me to a lot music I wouldn’t have normally listened
too, or even known existed.
The HD lick of paint brings the game up to modern standards,
although the textures for the characters are still low-res when seen up close
in cut scenes. The PC port runs very smoothly, although there was a few
graphically glitches. A couple of textures on some levels had to flicker into
life. These are very minor problems though. Jet Set Radio is worth a look if
you haven’t played it before.
