You know I never really played any stunt focused games before. Well there was Rollerdrome, but I would consider it more of an arcade shooter rather than stunt focused. Rollerdrome is fantastic by the way and you should all go play it. What I’m saying is that stunt focused games aren’t my thing, but I respect them. The chill out experience is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater which rewards you for mastering each level layout and stringing together combos. The OlliOlli series which is quite literally that but in a 2D format. Then there’s Jet Set Radio, a stylistic open world stunt focused game that just screams for the early 2000s. It was developed by Smilebit and published by Sega, and it was one of the more experimental titles Sega put out back then. A showcase of what the Sega Dreamcast could handle and how to mix 2D and 3D art styles together. It was a cool game. One I don’t know very much about, but it’s maintained its cult status for more than two decades and it’s easy to understand why. The series only ever got two entries, the first and second, and ever since then Jet Set Radio was never heard from again. It was a product made for a specific time period, and fans begged for Sega to return to series one day which they didn’t. Thankfully indie games exist and we have small devs creating spiritual successors to games we like.
Starting development before the 2020s was Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, a love letter to Jet Set Radio and developed by Team Reptile who had previously worked on Lethal League. They wanted the next big project in store to be more experimental, so they aimed for something niche and gave small updates as development went further. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk spent almost five years in the works. I remember seeing early development footage for it online, and it looked a bit rough as to what we have known. As time went on things got better, and when Team Reptile unveiled in the midst of 2020 it got a lot of people hyped. Especially those old school Jet Set Radio fans who’ve been dying for another entry in the series. Wasn’t exactly a Jet Set Radio game, but it contained the energy and soul of one. The final product was released in 2023, and high expectations were put onto this game. Would it live up to Jet Set Radio and improve upon a 20 year old formula? The answer was yes as Bomb Rush Cyberfunk released with flying colors. There were a couple of complaints aimed towards performance and stability, but otherwise players were pleased with the end results. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a game that felt great to play, satisfying to master, and respected the player’s time. It had a killer soundtrack and even managed to get Hideki Naganuma on board. The man who served as the lead composer for the Jet Set Radio games.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is stellar and I’m very happy I finally checked it out. I wanted to get this game when it originally came out, but announced shortly afterwards they’d be releasing physical copies of the game and I decided to wait. Then I waited a little too long and it’s been sitting on my check out list for a very long time. Bought a copy during a sale, played it recently to help clear out the sour taste Mass Effect 3 left me, and it cured me of my pains. This game, despite owing a lot of its personality to a game that came before, stands out as one of the most unique indie games I’ve played from last year. The art style, music, and smooth flowing gameplay helps make a game that knows how to challenge you without having to do anything at all. It’s a slick and stylish game and I think a lot of people will enjoy it whether they like stunt focused games or not. Let’s talk about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and why it deserves your attention.
Story
The game takes place a little bit into the future in the techno city of New Amsterdam. A place well known for a series of gangs known as Writers. Individuals who compete over which group can cover the whole city in their own graffiti and achieve what they call “All City.” The police don’t like the Writers and for months now they’ve been attempting to devise a plan on how to get rid of them once and for all. Whether that’s by using tame laws, or violent and corrupt methods. Recently they managed to capture two Writers from two separate gangs. One of them is a young man named Faux, who is locked away behind thick steel walls. He’s rescued by Tryce who is the second Writer imprisoned there with him, and make their way to the rooftop of the prison. They beat the head of police in battle, Tryce thinks of having Faux join his gang, and the two leap off the rooftop. That’s when a CD comes out of nowhere and cuts off Faux’s head.
The head disappears and the body plummets to the street below. That is not the end of our story. The body is taken back to Tryce’s place where he and his friends mount a cybernetic head onto it. The head is its own being, but has the physical capabilities of Faux. This head is deemed Red, and he is the newest addition to the Bomb Rush Crew. A gang only consisting of Tryce and the phone addicting woman Bel. The two of them explain what’s going on and what was significant about Faux. There are many gangs and Writers in New Amsterdam, but none were more popular than the Big 3. Those being Felix, DJ Cyber, and Faux. The three of them worked well together, but one day the group disbanded with Felix being missing for weeks. Now the whole city is in chaos over who’ll be the best gang, and the police are sending out more heavy enforcement than usual. However, Tryce believes there is hope as with Faux’s limber body they can cover the city in their graffiti and be the next gang to achieve “All City.” That and they can locate the person who cut off and stole Faux’s head who they quickly narrowed down to DJ Cyber. Red agrees to help and along the way he gets memories of the past. A dark secret waiting to be unveiled and a truth as to why things are the way they are.
Gameplay
The world of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is split into multiple sectors. Miniature sandboxes or think of it as courses as you will. Each contains railing to grind on, walls to ride along, slopes, loops, and most important graffiti spots. Each sector has a different gang ruling it, so their sectors will be covered in their graffiti marking their territory. Your goal is to cover enough of their territory in your graffiti and gain enough req points to face them off in challenges. The more graffiti you spray about the more req you get. A member of the rival gang will then appear and dance in the area you are in. Approach them to start a challenge. These challenges include performing a set of skills and maneuvers they show you, racing them to a certain point, or trying to gain more points than them. In fact, these challenges and graffiti spots lying around are prepping you up for when you have a showdown after completing all the challenges. You, your crew, and the rivals will compete over who can score the most points within a given period of time. The crew who has the most points will win the showdown. This is the only way to progress through the story and if not you won’t be able to move on from the battle. So be prepared when you decide to initiate these showdowns. Know the layout of an area, master your tricks, know what spots will help nab you the most points, and use careful precision so you don’t touch the ground and lose your combo.
Combos and tricks are quite simple to pull off, but maintaining a combo streak is difficult. You gain points whenever you do something stylish. Sliding along the ground, grinding rails, riding walls, flipping through the air, performing tricks on walls, and leaning into corners whenever you grind. Tricks give you minimal points, but switching between different moves will not only grant you more points but boost your score multiplier. The higher this multiplier is the more points you will score from alternating between moves. This score multiplier will break if you don’t keep it up enough or touch the ground. One thing that sets Bomb Rush Cyberfunk apart from many other stunt focused games is the booster pack. It allows you to accelerate your speed whether you are riding along a rail, on the ground, or in the air. When used correctly it can help you maintain a combo streak. Boost across the air to reach another rail or ridable wall. Boost along the ground or rail and perform tricks while doing so to get points for boost tricks. Boosting will consume a bit of energy though and energy can only be obtained by picking up booster canisters, spraying away at graffiti spots, or doing tricks but the last option doesn’t give you much energy back. The trick system is simple to wrap your head around, but difficult to master. That’s why it’s important to practice and master the layout of an area. Besides that there’s not much else for me to say. Let’s just hope you can claim each district, find your previous head, and achieve “All City.”
Thoughts
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a game I had a lot of fun with despite it coming from a style of games I don’t particularly like. It is a game with a high skill ceiling that is fun to work towards, but never punishes you for a lacking performance. It’s forgiving, gets you back up on your feet when you fail, and tells you can always do better on another attempt. Whether I’d say it’s a game a ton of people will enjoy is difficult. Some people might not click with this game, but that’s the joy of having these niche games. They appeal to a certain audience and do specific things well, and to me this game does what it specifically wants to do really well. First thing I really like about this game and I’ve given it away already is how it paces you into the difficulty curve. The first two hours of the game are basically a rundown of how the movement system works. How you grind on rails, move between different spots, score points, and keep the score multiplier going. It does not throw too much at the player at once, because introducing too much in an otherwise simple game to play is a bad move to pull off. Instead it allows the player to figure that out themselves when it comes to the showdowns at the end of each area, and this is where the player’s creativity is put to the test. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn't very good at the first two showdowns in the game. I was still wrapping my head around the combo system and trying to get good at transitioning to different spots. Once I did pick it up though those showdowns were much easier to a point where it became trivial. This is a game where once you really understand how it works it’s easy.
That can be seen as somewhat of a complaint. The difficulty curve falls apart around the 3rd area and I passed most showdowns on my first attempt afterwards. However, I don’t see this as much of a problem because it means the game paced me into the rules well I blew off from there. The movement is fun to master and for a game like this you need tight controls. Your character moves towards where you point rather than lean along with forward momentum, which I like because leaning or steering isn’t always very accurate in my opinion. I never felt like I over or undershot a jump, and the game has good detection and collision. I like the graffiti system. There’s a lot of prints you can unlock throughout the game, and you can utilize the world to your liking with the collection you have. You just choose the drawing pattern you want and the graffiti is laid out. Fun, snappy, and the stylish animation doing so never kills the flow of gameplay. Which brings me onto the art direction, one of the main selling points for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. There’s not much but praise for it. Blending 3D models and 2D animation together to create a game that pops out towards the eyes and feels like you’re playing a comic or cartoon. This and Hi-Fi Rush are considered the best PS2 games to come out last year, and it thoroughly deserves the title.
The story I wasn’t expecting much from seeing as this is a mainly gameplay driven experience, but it ended up being pretty great. I don’t know if I’d say it’s a significant story because there’s not much to take away from it, and there’s some video gamey moments. However, there’s a lot of fun twists that’ll keep you at the edge of your seat and the central mystery is enough to push you forward. The mysteries surrounding Faux, the Big 3, Red, the visions you keep happening, and trying to understand more of the world. The main characters are memorable, have fun designs, and will stand out even during the end of the journey for their fun personalities and quirks. The music is stellar, I mean the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio is considered one of the best in gaming so you need a good soundtrack for a game that takes heavy influence from it. A lot of bopping tunes and beats, and it’s shocking they managed to get Hideki Naganuma on board. I do have some minor complaints. The flip phone you open up to view messages and check graffiti designs is not the best and I wish they gave you the option to open them up in a menu. You can do it for each map, so why not for messages or graffiti designs? There’s a chapter midway through the game where you have to find an NPC to help a friend. The thing is though he’s no longer in the area you formerly found him in, so it leads you backtracking to find NPCs in other areas until you pin down his secret new location. Not bad, but it doesn’t get a little annoying after a bit.
My final complaint is that this game did not need combat. Once you get enough rep in each area the game starts deploying law enforcement to hunt you down, and fighting them feels more like a waste of time. In fact, it is a waste of time because outside of major story segments you can just jet past them. They’re not particularly hard to fight either. Most of the time you just button mash with the occasional jump when too many surround you. The only two enemy types I’d say are a tad bit fun to fight are the helicopters and walking tanks. Mainly because they make use of your movement as you try to figure out how the spray paints them in their face. Even then it still feels like a waste of time to go deal with them. I can forgive this though, because combat was not the main focus of the game and they still give you the option to ignore it. The game took me around seven or eight hours to beat, which is a perfect runtime. I always prefer smaller tightly designed sandboxes compared to big ones with a ton of copy pasted activities, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is another great example of why these kinds of games work better and are more fun. I strongly recommend this game to anyone who loves stylish games that reward player mastery and want a cool chill out experience. In the end I give Bomb Rush Cyberfunk a 9/10 for excellence at best.
