Jet Set Radio HD Review

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DigiDragoon
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Jet Set Radio HD Review

Post by DigiDragoon »

Developer: Blit Software

Publisher: SEGA

Released: September 11[SUP]th[/SUP] (PS Plus) 18[SUP]th[/SUP] (PS3) 19[SUP]th[/SUP] (XBL/PC)

Price: £6.59(PS3)/£5.59(PC) (UK) $9.99 (US/Canada) €7.99(PS3)/€6.49(PC) (EU) 800 MSP

If you don’t know what Jet Set Radio is then you are clearing missing out. Jet Set Radio is a real gem that will have you spraying out words of praise and you’ll be rolling for hours, while also probably hating the game a little because of small things that can annoy you. Let’s start off with the stuff that you will really enjoy (While throwing the small stuff that might annoy you).

Watching the story unfold.

Jet Set Radio’s story is about a group of “Rudies” who form the gang GGs, there are many different gangs around Tokyo-to, which is where the game is set. A Rudie is a young person who roams the streets spraying and skating, through means of self expression. Rudies use a new type of skates that have come around; most rudies also get into one of the gangs of Tokyo-to. There are 4 gangs in Tokyo-to these are; The Love Shockers, an all girl gang who have had their hearts broken, expect most black colours on this gang as they skate around Shibuya-cho, which is one of the 3 sections of the city. Poison Jam, these brutish thugs who have watched way too many monster movies, they skate around Kogane-cho (Another section of Tokyo-to) wearing monster masks, gloves and ripped jumpsuits. The Noise Tanks are a gang of semi-cyborg otaku (Japanese for “Nerd&#8221 ;) these guys love technology and can be seen wearing jumpsuits with weird cyborg like masks on, they skate around Benten-cho. Shibuya-cho, Benten-cho and Kogane-cho are the 3 sections of Tokyo-to; Shibuya-cho is your shopping district with blue skies and daylight, Benten-cho is your nocturnal entertainment spot that represents night and Kogane-cho is the residential area, built on the water, where it is perpetually sunset. There’s a pirate radio station called “Jet Set Radio” in the game that is run by Professor K, he keeps the rudies pumped with music and updates them with happenings around Tokyo-to. Captain Onishima leads the police force to stop the rudies from spraying around the city, as he doesn’t like it and will stop at nothing to put them behind bars.

These controls feel smooth but yet their rough at parts.

The game gives you a tutorial to learn the controls, while they are easy to learn and you will pick up other stuff along the way that is pretty cool and will help, there were moments when I personally leaned the stick slightly to jump to a rail close to me but instead I flew off somewhere else and ended up getting hit by a car or taking failing damage. When tagging you’ll need to use the stick for a more run as it makes you do curves and six times out of ten, when you use the directional buttons you will end up failing. Tagging is a mini game; you have to go over to a green or red arrow to activate it, when tagging it will come up with arrows that you have to follow with your stick for them to spray in that direction, but tagging requires cans of paint, which you will find almost anywhere in the levels. Other than a few mishaps, you’ll end up playing like a pro in no time, if not before then after the story, you will have mastered most of what Jet Set Radio can throw at you.

Hey DJ, give me a phat beat!

All of the music from the original Jet Set Radio worldwide soundtrack is back except for three tracks but there are some tracks from Jet Set Radio Future added in there too. The music is from many different genres, J-pop, Hip-hop, Funk, Electronic Dance music, Rock, Acid Jazz, Trip hop and even Metal. Artists like Hideki Naganuma, Richard Jacques, Deavid Soul, Guitar Vader, Rob Zombie, Reps, Jurassic 5 and many more worked on the music for Jet Set Radio. The music in Jet Set Radio is always one of the things to make it most known for, nine times out of ten I always found myself bobbing my head to the music, because it’s catchy, it has that feel to it that makes you enjoy it. The whole soundtrack is almost perfect as there were only two tracks I didn’t quite like, yes the whole soundtrack won’t appeal to everyone, but they’ll always be something you like on there.

It feels like I’m playing a cartoon show!

The graphics in Jet Set Radio are also a thing that makes it well known, Its ‘Cel-Shaded’ graphics make you feel like you’re watching a cartoon that you have control of. The art style is unique and it shows that games don’t need amazing graphics to look good; Jet Set Radio’s graphics will keep you smiling from start to finish. The graffiti in the game was created by a famous graffiti artist who was hired by SEGA to make the graffiti for the game. There is a lot of graffiti in the game and in the HD port there is even more since SEGA had a competition on for people to design graffiti that would get put into the game. The graffiti ranges from many things like skulls, stereos, cartoon ghosts, dogs, Japanese writing etc.

Anything to do after the story?

There are challenges you can do after the story has been completed, also unlockables for you to unlock, such as characters, to unlock characters you go through the story and unlock most of them that way and for the others you have to “Jet” rank the levels, Jet rank being the highest one to obtain as it requires a lot of points for you to get one. You need to unlock graffiti by collecting Graffiti Souls; these are the radio logo that is on the loading screens, these are scattered around the levels and require you to find shortcuts or make tricky jumps to get them. Once the story is finished it resets so that you can play it again which counts as a “new game +” since you still have all the characters you unlocked, the graffiti souls you collected and the ratings for the levels you earned, This can be a tad annoying if you’ve Jet ranked most of the beginning levels and it’s levels later on that you need.

Is it worth it for the price?

A good game at that price is a bargin, it isn’t something you should pass up, to be honest, at the price it is, you’re going to have lots of hours of fun with this game so money shouldn’t be a problem.

Rating: Nitro uhh.. 4/5
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Post by TCB »

Like this review; the graphics for what it was is good and the music is definitely the main point why people are possibly fans of the game.
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Post by Twinny »

Reading this I can tell one of the defining aspects, if not THE defining aspect of JSR, was its music. Really showed the feel of the game and its plot as well.

Nice review BF2010! *thumbs up*
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Post by DigiDragoon »

TheChaosBlue wrote:Like this review; the graphics for what it was is good and the music is definitely the main point why people are possibly fans of the game.
Totally agree with you there, most of the time when I go on JSR it is the sole reason just to listen to the music XD while also skating around for fun.
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Post by DigiDragoon »

mtwinny wrote:Reading this I can tell one of the defining aspects, if not THE defining aspect of JSR, was its music. Really showed the feel of the game and its plot as well.

Nice review BF2010! *thumbs up*
Thanks dude, really means a lot, this took me about 8 hours to do XD seems worth it.
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Post by Whooa21 »

This is a very good review! And it deserves to be posted in the reviews section!
EDIT: http://www.radiosega.net/news/reviews/2 ... -radio-hd/
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Post by ozzypt »

great review burning!
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Post by daftmark18 »

i like to read this review and it is a really good game !!
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Post by Killer French Bread »

it's a good review of the original game i liked it, but it's not made clear how different the HD port is apart from the song selection. not trying to be too critical, just i think most people here know what JSR is like by now and the most important information would be how well the port was handled (especially after the butcherings carried out by backbone). it is a review of JSR 'HD' after all. but yeah, overall a good read.
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Post by TCB »

Killer French Bread wrote:it's a good review of the original game i liked it, but it's not made clear how different the HD port is apart from the song selection. not trying to be too critical, just i think most people here know what JSR is like by now and the most important information would be how well the port was handled (especially after the butcherings carried out by backbone). it is a review of JSR 'HD' after all. but yeah, overall a good read.
Aha; you bring up a really good point; yeah you have put up signs that this is the HD-re-release (with the PSN/XBL dates and whatnot) you haven't mentioned how polished (if it is) to the original. That is, it you have played the Dreamcast version to make such comparisons. Like controls and whatnot.
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