DJ Professor K spins the tracks while you skate and tag your way through the streets
of Tokyo and try to defeat the Rokkaku Police, Inspector Hayashi and the big man
himself Gouji in Jet Set Radio Future. JSRF is the powerful
sequel to Jet Radio Grind released on the Dreamcast a couple of years back. Excellent
cel shaded graphics, insane tricks and grinds, fast paced and innovative gameplay,
huge interactive environments, multiplayer action, a killer soundtrack, and a
unique storyline make Jet Set Radio Future a very interesting and exciting game
to play.

Gameplay

Actually getting into the game is simple and quick, based on
a short tutorial taught by Gum, Corn,
and Roboy, and whatever you still need help with you
can always head back over to Roboy for some more lessons
and to save the game. You’ll spend a bit of time in the Garage,
which is basically your hangout, where you will save, practice, and enter into
the different areas of the game. While in the garage you’ll learn how to grind,
do aerial tricks, wallride, and do hand plants. Control
is simple and should be relatively familiar if you’ve played the Dreamcast version
or other skating type games such as Aggressive Inline or Tony Hawk.
Tagging has been made simpler as you now only need
to press the right trigger when near a ‘tag icon‘ to totally spray the
area. Throughout the game you’ll also be able to talk to the other people, when
standing near them a little popup icon will appear, just press the right trigger
to begin the conversation. Not only does this add more interactivity to the game,
but is also used to give you hints on your next objective, and to bring new members
to your team.

You’ll grind up everything, stair rails, telephone poles, high tension wires,
even a dragons’ tail. The main objective of the game is to tag (graffiti)
up various parts of the city that have been tagged by rival gangs. First you collect
some spray paint cans, then start taggin’! There are different types of spray
cans as well. Yellow gives you one spray, blue
gives you five, and red will recover your stamina. You’ll
also face members of the Rokkaku Police that you will
need to defeat in order to progress. This can be made easier by implementing the
Boost Dash, which will increase your speed in exchange
for ten spray cans. Target an enemy by pressing the left trigger, then perform
a Boost Dash to eliminate him.

The streets of Tokyo are huge and filled with not only all sorts of hidden elements
for you to find, but many different interactive things as well. Things like birds,
people, moving vehicles, everything a real city has. They all react to your presence
in one way or another, and this really adds to the whole JSRF experience.
There are many different types of graffiti also, with a ton of customizations
available, creating the graffiti that’s right for you is an easy task. Speaking
of the right graffiti, you’ll also have to select the right character to play
on some of the harder levels, as each of the 12 playable characters has a different
set of attributes that will need to be called upon.

In addition to the standard gameplay, there is also a Versus Mode,
where up to four players can compete and show off their artwork in five different
missions; City Rush!, Ball Hog,
Flag, Graffiti Wars, and
Taggers’ Tag. You can have individual battles, either
against an AI opponent for practice, or one of your buddies, or if you have more
than 2 players you can make team battle. There are cool items in the Multiplayer
mode, such as grenades, place bombs, invisibility drinks and cans.

Graphics

Some of the best and most ‘fluid‘ graphics available
on the Xbox to date, JSRF uses vibrant cel shaded graphics that give
the feel of an living anime film. Smooth animations and effects. All of the characters
are extremely detailed and possess a certain style, this can be seen by standing
idle for a moment and your character will begin to dance, apparently bored of
your disinterest. The environments are beautifully imaginative, and offer a highly
interactive world that is engaging to play. The special effects while using the
Boost Dash are quite impressive, and give a good sense of speed. All in all the
cel shading for a title like this works incredibly well.

Audio

As you would expect from a title with DJ Professor K
as one of the characters, the soundtrack is an awesome collection of electro punk
style music with titles from the likes of The Latch Brothers,
The Prunes, BS 2000, Bran
Van 3000 and many more. This lively and upbeat mix, along with the
energetic dialog from the DJ, and the well rehearsed sound effects, sets the mood
just right. Boasting Dolby Digital will allow you to hear the soundtrack, and
the sometimes annoying skater voices in full surround sound.

Replay Value

With excellent graphics, and an incredible number of sometimes
near impossible challenges, you’ll find that when it’s all over, there’s always
something you missed and is worth going back for. Not to mention all the action
that’s there for the taking in the Multiplayer modes.

Overall Score

Overall Score: 9.0 [Not an Average]

Additional Comments

With rumors of this title going out of print,
we Highly Recommend you go grab it while you still can!
This isn’t a title you would want to totally miss out on.

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