Publisher: Sega

Developer: Smilebit

Release Date: 2/25/2002

Available Exclusively On

I remember hearing all about Jet Grind Radio back in the day, when I only dreamed of owning a Dreamcast. About 6 years later, I picked up JSRF off eBay for $2, and, well, you get what you pay for. I expected a lot more of this game, but really it’s just repetitive with a horrendous camera, a lame story, and a few other odds and ends.

The story is almost non-existent, where you have to stop the Poison Claw gang from taking over the city, and you basically go through the city covering their tags with yours and racing them here and there. That’s really all there is on the story side, and it’s a huge letdown. I found the best things here were the visuals and audio. The game has beautiful cel-shaded graphics with a rich hip-hop and techno-driven soundtrack. When it comes to gameplay, things are very simple and derivative. Each section has a certain number of tags you have to cover, and you do this by grinding around places and covering them up. You have to pick up spray cans lying around everyone to do this, though. Blue ones are worth ten, and yellow ones are worth one. Once you cover all the tags, you have to meet the Poison Claw gang and challenge them to a race. These are really easy and only require a little trial and error. The tags are fairly easy to locate thanks to their being dotted on your map.

I found the levels to be a bit claustrophobic, though, since your characters can defy gravity and jump 50 feet, so you’d miss your line on the building and fall all the way down. This leads to the terrible camera, which you can’t control and never stay behind the character. You always have to make circles and use the reset camera button. This ruins a lot of the game because you’ll climb all the way to the top of a high tower and then fall all the way down and have to climb the top again because you couldn’t see that open ledge. So, this is the basic concept of how you play the game; it’s just ground here, tag here, fight camera here, watch dorky Japanese characters dance around, rinse, and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, this game is pretty good, but the game is just too monotonous, and the camera ruins everything. Sometimes the police will be after you, so you knock them down and spray paint them to death. Some are too strong to knock down, so you “boost” into them.

You’re probably asking, Where is the trick system? Well, there isn’t one. The game relies on a few moves while grinding by hitting the X button and maybe a backflip here and there when you jump, and that’s about it. You do hand plants in half-pipes, but when you jump, tricks are automatically done, and there are maybe a handful of tricks. After maybe 2-3 hours of playing, you’ll get bored and irritated with the game so much that you’ll stop playing (like I did). I got maybe 90% through the game and just stopped playing because it was too annoying and repetitive.

The game was really great back in the day because of the amazing graphical style, but I think Sega concentrated too much on that. The game has some serious slowdown on the Xbox 360 and makes the game almost unplayable in certain areas. There really isn’t much in sound—just a grinding sound, grunts, moans, whooshing, and crowd sounds when you run into them. I love the visuals, Sega, but in the sequel, please upgrade the gameplay.