Jet Set Radio Future

Jeeba Jabba · Post by **Jeeba Jabba** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 8:50 pm

I don't even have the time to give a full review because that is valuable time I could be using on JSRF!

I give it a 9 out of 10. Would get a 10 /10 if a few camera bugs were fixed.. and a better brake feature.

Everything else... WOW. Graphics are awesome man... i cant even explain JSRF in words... Just buy it, now

Enki-14 · Post by **Enki-14** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:02 pm

I am sooooooooooooooooo jealous! I have to keep watching the commerical untill I get my box'. hmm,.. how's the music? I heard a rumor about a remix of a song with DMX in it .. is it confirmed?

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:03 pm

The Gamecube is cheaper, but I'm definately buying an Xbox, with Jet Set Radio Future and Halo being the main reason for the purchase

Jeeba Jabba · Post by **Jeeba Jabba** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:25 pm

I haven't heard the DMX song on there but... The music rocks

LukeD · Post by **LukeD** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:42 pm

Isn't it only an Xbox exclusive for 6 months? If so I'm just going to wait seeing as that would be my main reason to give $300 to M$ if it is always an exclusive.

Heliophobe_ · Post by **Heliophobe_** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 3:00 am

It's rich and buttery. Folks, this is why I got an XBox to begin with (although Halo tided me over nicely) and I don't regret the choice.

The gameplay is like the original JSR, except that (nearly) everything that was an irritation in the original has been fixed.

Examples:
-No more getting stuck in a slow grind, performing tricks increases your speed while grinding.
-No more running out of time ten seconds before finding the last tag - levels are no longer timed.
-No more inescapable situations where you have to pull of a large tag while the enemies are on your tail. Tag combos are no more (which I don't miss) and the police/enemies only attack you in specific sections. But now you're not helpless - you can defeat your enemies by knocking into the ma nd tagging them.
-No more trying to get the rhythm right on the dash button. Now you always move about as fast as a dash, and instead of the old R trigged dash, you have a special rocket boost that costs you ten paint cans.
-It's easier to land a grind than before.
-The tag/center view buttons are no longer the same.

Now, it might sound like there challenge is gone if the police aren't attacking and you don't have a time limit. That would be true if they just applied the new rules to the old levels, but there's a wonderful synergy between the gameplay and level design in JSRF that makes it all okay. Levels are simply HUGE in this game, most of them are at least as big, if not bigger than any one of the original three districts - enforcing a time limit would be sadism.

You have a few new maneuvers now that manage to add to your repetoir without complicating the controls. Despite that fact that you use 7 buttons instead of three like in the original, it's still easy to control and you never find yourself pressing the wrong button.

The graphics take the original style of JSR, gives it a somewhat edgier style while still looking like a 3D comic book, and smooths it all to a near constant 60fps. The environements are incredibly complex and the draw in distance is incredible : at times you'll see dozens of buildings and structures in a wide vista with no fogging or popup. That, and the little touches, like the water effects.

Sound.. well, actually sound effects aren't much of an improvement. Characters are about as verbose as they were in the original, meaning not very. This means for any character there will be about three jumping/trick sound effects so you'll be hearing a lot of "Alright! Yahoo! Alright! Alright! Yeah! Yahoo! Yahoo! Yeah! Alright! Yeah! Yahoo!". You'd think they could have fit in a few more voice samples.

The music is a mixed bag, and I like most of it. Hideki Naganuma again contributes a good portion of the music, and all his tracks are gold. The Latch Brother contribute some nice tunes as well, not as catchy as Naganuma's but still appropriate to the game. There are also some remixes of the original tunes but they're fairly uninspired. Then there are a few tunes by various groups, most of which I'm not familiar with. Guitar Vader (SUPA BRUZZA!) has a couple songs on the listing as well, less annoying and more catching than their offerings in JSR (Naganuma remixed I Love Love You, or else I probably wouldn't have liked it). Then there's a song by Cibo Matto that makes my ears bleed. And yet I've grown to like it. All in all it's a touch less J-Pop and more diverse, but mostly well balanced and keeps with the spirit of the game. And nothing outrageously innapropriate like Rob Zombie this time around. Phew.

Lesser points worth mentioning: Load times are next to nothing. The GG's garage is now a large open air obstacle course you can practice in. Each graffiti soul you find gives you a new tag you can use - you can decided (before playing a level) which tags to spray, including your own tags if you dare to use the tag editor. Cube is now EVIL. You can free look at any time with the other analog stick. And there is a multiplayer mode I haven't tried because I only have one controller.

Nine out of ten is a fair rating. There are still some control issues to iron out - JSRF's better off without a grind button, but sometimes I wish there was a 'DON'T GRIND' button, and while control in the halfpipes is improved, I still find it clumsy (Maybe I'm just clumsy). I'm irritated that I can't change my preferences anywhere but in the garage, and I can't skip songs I don't want to hear. Sound (not talking about the music)is a bit dull, and while it's a great sound track, I think I liked the original better. There's a laundry list of nitpicks I had before but I just don't care about them - there's too much to like to worry about that.

The plot itself isn't exactly a sequel so much as new story inspired by the original with the original characters. In case you were wondering.

I don't think there's a DMX song... I should have unlocked all but one of the songs so far as I can tell, so unless that's the last one, it's not in there.

LukeD: Well, contractually I think it has to be an XBox exclusive for six months, but SmileBit has stated that they've done no work on other systems, and it doesn't sound like they intend to. Even if they started a port today I don't think it would be finished and published in six month's time.

Van_Lardo · Post by **Van_Lardo** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 7:33 am

Jet Set Radio is STILL my favourite game of all time... until next week when JSRF comes out in the UK.

I'm really looking forward to that... and spending almost ?500 on launch!

I'd really like to get Halo, DOA3, Project Gotham (which I will call M:SR 2 from now on!) and THPS3.

How does the CD ripping work on XBox? I know it's possible to play your own tracks on M:SR 2 and THPS3... but what's the performance like?

EDIT: Nice review, Heliphobe

Boogerman · Post by **Boogerman** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 7:40 am

Not touching the XBox.... I would only play Jet Set Radio... and as good as it is it's not worth ?300+ yet

Katana_ · Post by **Katana_** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 11:38 am

LukeD wrote: Isn't it only an Xbox exclusive for 6 months? If so I'm just going to wait seeing as that would be my main reason to give $300 to M$ if it is always an exclusive.

That version is an exclusive... but there are ways around that
like Nintendo had exclusive rights to street fighter 2 turbo, so capcom changed the name to street fighter chapionship edtion and released it on sega genesis.

So basiclly it they released it as "Jet set radio Cubed" or some such, it could be released on gamecube.

Boogerman · Post by **Boogerman** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 11:53 am

Katana wrote:
LukeD wrote: Isn't it only an Xbox exclusive for 6 months? If so I'm just going to wait seeing as that would be my main reason to give $300 to M$ if it is always an exclusive.
That version is an exclusive... but there are ways around that
like Nintendo had exclusive rights to street fighter 2 turbo, so capcom changed the name to street fighter chapionship edtion and released it on sega genesis.

So basiclly it they released it as "Jet set radio Cubed" or some such, it could be released on gamecube.

Depends on how tight the contract is though...

Heliophobe_ · Post by **Heliophobe_** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 1:32 pm

Van_Lardo wrote: How does the CD ripping work on XBox? I know it's possible to play your own tracks on M:SR 2 and THPS3... but what's the performance like?

Since I don't have any games that let you choose your own music (a feature missing from JSRF), I haven't tested that yet. But I have ripped a couple CD's onto the Xbox hard drive.

You put in the CD and go to the Music option of the Xbox menu. The music section lists available albums, including the one in the CD. You can choose which tracks to rip, and you enter in the title of the game with the controller (the onscren keyboard is a little better than PlanetWeb's, but it's still clumsy). Then it spends up tp about ten minutes copying and compressing the tracks, and you'll have it available to you in the music section. You can also go in and name tracks, change their order, move tracks between albums, etc. More than I ever needed to do.

It sounds like CD quality to me. I'm sure it's somewhat lossy but not enough that I could tell.

WiseMonkey · Post by **WiseMonkey** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 2:57 pm

[quote="Katana"]
[quote="LukeD"]
Isn't it only an [i]Xbox[/i] exclusive for 6 months? If so I'm just going to wait seeing as that would be my main reason to give $300 to M$ if it is always an exclusive.
[/quote]

That version is an exclusive... but there are ways around that
like Nintendo had exclusive rights to street fighter 2 turbo, so capcom changed the name to street fighter chapionship edtion and released it on sega genesis.

So basiclly it they released it as "Jet set radio Cubed" or some such, it could be released on gamecube.
[/quote]

um katana the gen version of street fighter wasnt just street fighet turbo it was a port of street fighter 2 championship edition and it just had the turbo mode from the snes game in there as an added bonus, hence the name "Special Championship Edition"

Jeeba Jabba · Post by **Jeeba Jabba** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 3:33 pm

Trust me, JSRF isn't going to another console. Maybe the next installment might go multiplatform, but JSRF is Xbox exclusive my friend.

therealyoshi · Post by **therealyoshi** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 4:34 pm

i could've sworn the jsr box said only on xbox?

Heliophobe_ · Post by **Heliophobe_** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 4:40 pm

therealyoshi wrote: i could've sworn the jsr box said only on xbox?

So it does.. but that doesn't mean it can't be on another system eventually. Like Halo, which is only for X-Box... until it comes out on the PC.

Boogerman · Post by **Boogerman** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 4:44 pm

And The Matrix game when it comes out on the Box and then to PC