Retrospectus On Jet Grind Radio

1up.com has a feature up looking back at the stylized wonder that was Jet Grind Radio. From the article: "Besides the relatively basic, and surprisingly challenging "collect spray cans, tag buildings and run away from the cops" premise, another thing that elevated the Jet Grind Radio experience was its exceptional soundtrack. Brassy, and brash as hell, the vibrant beats and future funk of the game's OST rests comfortably alongside Sega's equally cutting-edge soundtracks for games like Rez and Space Channel 5."

Comments

Amazing game

[bigbigbison]

I've not played the Dreamcast game, but Jet Set Radio Future is one of my favorite games. A perfect marriage of style and substance. The rollerblading was really fun. THe ability to skate of telephone poles and across rooftops was really cool. The J-pop filled soundtrack was one of the few that I didn't immediately turn off, either.
I yearn for a sequal!

Re:Amazing game

[badasscat]

I've not played the Dreamcast game, but Jet Set Radio Future is one of my favorite games. A perfect marriage of style and substance.

If you liked JSRF, you'll love JSR/(JGR). A lot of people, myself included, thought JSRF tipped the balance a bit too far to the "style" side of the substance/style equation, and it really was a fundamentally different game. In the original game, for example, you actually had to do a series of stick movements to "write" your graffiti, and the harder the tag, the more complex your stick movements had to be. Obviously this meant that if you were being chased, you really had to be quick and precise with your control.

Sega removed this completely from JSRF, which is a lot more of a straight platformer with a distinctive visual style. (This isn't the only major change, but it's one example of the type of changes Sega made to JSRF.) JSR was really all about tagging and outwitting the cops - JSRF is more about figuring out how to get through each level. Take away the skating and JSRF is basically the exact same game as the Knuckles stages in Sonic Adventure 2. JSR was a lot different.

I think Sega probably made the changes they did to appeal to a broader audience. They still don't seem entirely confident in their games these days, now that they're without their own captive audience on their own console - everything they do these days is really overly-broad and less focused. JSR always was intended to be sort of the equivalent of an art-house film - Sega never intended to sell a lot of copies, but they did hope the game brought them a lot of attention (which it did) and that it would help cement the Dreamcast's status as the home of the most creative games around.

When JSRF moved over to the Xbox, Sega had more power to play with but they didn't quite know who their demographic was... so they basically made a standard platformer that they thought people would be able to more easily identify with. I don't personally think it worked - the game didn't review as well as the original and it didn't sell any better either.

Jet Set/Grind Radio on the Dreamcast is really cheap at this point, as is the system itself. You could pick up both for $40 or less. I really recommend doing that if you liked JSRF; you'll probably like JSR that much more.

an instant classic

[N5]

By far one of the best (IMHO the best) dreamcast games ever. Even though the celshading was limited to items and characters, the art style brought the whole thing together. The soundtrack rocked, despite being bastardized by sega of america. (rob zombie?) The sequel lacked the joystick twirling while spraying, which for me was a huge disapointment because it added something. My only other gripe was I really liked the japanese name "Jet Set Radio" and to this day cannot figure out why they changed it. I was hoping for another sequel truer to the origional game (bright colors, funky beats) but with sega's reorganisation it is unlikely to happen.

Re:Great game.

[NanoGator]

"Jet Grind Radio was enjoyable to me. I loved the controls the graphics, and everything just fit together. I hated that in the sequal they took out the twisting of the stick. It changed the gameplay and made it to simple. :-( But the music and graphics MADE it even better. Good game, great game."

(Note: This isn't exactly a direct reply to your post...)

Intersting that by the comments so far, it appears that everybody remembers the game but not the contraversy surrounding it. PPl were up in arms about a game that 'promoted vandalism'. It's sort of a low-fat version of the problems GTA is having today.

Which begs the question: Did (illegal) graffiti rise from the sale of that game? Betcha nobody's willing to admit they were wrong.

I disagree- sorta.

[Doomstalk]

I'd have to disagree with the article on one point: I don't think JSRF had better controls than the original. Some of it was improved, they got rid of the horrendous problems that arose from having camera center and spray on the same button (imagine spontaneously stopping to spraypaint while you're trying to run like hell); but a couple new issues arose. They made the phone/power lines "stickier" - if you landed within a fairly wide radius of a power line, you were automatically drawn towards it - which turned out to be a very mixed blessing. If you weren't moving fast enough, it was literally impossible to get off. They also got rid of the "swirl" control scheme for paining tags, which made the game faster, but less involved. Both games are still fantastic, though.

Retrospectus?

[Tim Browse]

It's a perfectly cromulent word!

Re:Original Soundtrack?

[Doomstalk]

The real meat of both soundtracks- I own them both on CD, where the licensed content was largely omitted -was composed by Hideki Naganuma. None of it is available anywhere except in the game or on the OST, so I think it qualifies as original. Hell, I can't even find anything by him in CDDB or FreeDB. While some of the soundtrack may be licensed, enough of it isn't that I think it counts as original.

Re:Jet Grind Radio soundtrack

[badasscat]

The game's soundtrack has one a track which has to be among those most annoying, yet strangely attractive songs, ever; I am obviously referring to Birthday Cake,

Birthday Cake by Cibo Matto is not on the Jet Grind Radio soundtrack. It's on the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack. These are two different games with two different soundtracks. It's a matter of taste which you like better, but most people put the original soundtrack up there with the best ever... JSRF's soundtrack is usually not spoken of with quite the same reverence.

btw, here is Wikipedia's page on Cibo Matto. I actually saw them live before they even put an album out at a Lush concert in NYC (where they were based). They were an interesting band... really just two girls with a Casio keyboard at the time I saw them. Their ideas really came out more in the studio.

Re:Damn it

[InsideTheAsylum]

http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26 /sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html#000141 What, this?

Re:Sega's Biggest Mistake

[rohlfinator]

I don't know if it's fair to assume that games like JSRF and Panzer Dragoon Orta would have sold better on the Cube, but I agree that Sega really hurt themselves by splitting their game library. They should have just picked one of the big three and gone exclusive, instead of splitting their fanbase.

Personally, I agree that the GameCube would have been the best fit. Obviously the Sega sports lineup fit the Xbox userbase better, but in retrospect Sega probably should have stayed out of sports this generation anyway. I'm not sure if JSRF, PDO, Otogi, Gunvalkyrie, ToeJam & Earl, or Crazy Taxi would have been hits on the GC, but from what I understand, none of them sold too well on the Xbox. Given the success of Sonic, SMB, and PSO on Nintendo's console, I think the overall benefit would have been greater than a multiconsole split. Sega's games could have given the GC a much-needed "mature" edge, and they probably would have been given more attention by the media.

Although, Sega's games would have undoubtedly seen moderate success on the PS2. But as others have pointed out, the Dreamcast had just been hyped to death by Sony's marketing department and Sega would never have given up to Sony that quickly or easily.

Re:Original Soundtrack?

[DeadScreenSky]

It is original. Hideki Naganuma works at Wavemaster, which is Sega's music (and sound?) development team. He's a Sega employee. And I have to agree that his songs were the meat of the soundtracks, especially for Future (which was kind of uneven, really in every area).