Set in the Japan-like Tokyo-to, rival in-line skating gang members are fighting for territory using graffiti. You play as the GG's starting out with 2 characters; Beat and Gum.
There are three types of levels. The main levels involve navigating an area, finding all the areas marked with the red arrows and spraying them with graffiti. As you near your goal, more and more police forces show up and they really take their vandalism law seriously! You will be pursued by swat teams, helicopters, even tanks! These are led by Officer Onishima who chases after you with his oversized pistol.
You start off with zero spray cans, and must keep looking out for spray cans that are across the level to keep your supplies up. Each character has a different limit that they can carry, so some characters are more awkward to use than others. Some graffiti spots only require one spray can, whereas the larger ones require several and are completed with Quick Time Events.
These QTE's are done with the control stick only, and it feels awkward because you don't get much feedback if the movements are registering. You are put under pressure by being chased by enemies. Sometimes you will have to flee, goad them away from the spot; then return to complete your artwork.
Navigating the levels can be a bit of a pain because obstacles are often inconveniently placed in order to slow you down. There's many areas where you are required to make a jump, and it's a chore to get back up; a spiral staircase, slow moving lift, or a long detour. Then with the pressure and inconvenience of the police force, this task becomes even more awkward. I often found the characters were slow to accelerate but their top speed (when chaining multiple grinds) can be too fast.
The controls can get in the way too, with the jumping physics being really floaty which often means you overshoot the rails when you want to grind from one rail to another. The thing is, there were times where you try and leap off a rail, but the game seems to try and home you in on the rail, so it seems like a feature that only works when you don't want it to.
You may think the game includes Tony Hawk style gameplay, but although there are tricks; they are automatic. Leaping high triggers a trick, and grinding requires no balance so you can never fall from a rail.
As you progress through the game, new characters will challenge you to either copy their run through a city, or race to a specific location. The runs usually involve several parts, but they are small, so require little memorisation. The races involve you familiarising with the track and finding a shortcut – simply following your rival will cause you to fail. It seemed weird that if your rival is ahead by the halfway-point, then they will wait for you; rendering the first half almost pointless (I say almost because you can gain an advantage by this point). Beating these challenges adds that character as a playable character.
The third type of mission involves chasing three gang members through an area, and you have to spray each one ten times. They follow a set pattern and just repeat it when they get to the end, meaning you can be following their same movements for around 10 minutes. Spraying them is incredibly awkward given that the prompt doesn't show up most of the time, and you take damage if you touch them; yet you pretty much need to get in touching distance to spray them. Part of the problem is that the same button that is used for tagging also centers the camera. I found I could only complete these stages by choosing a character with high-health, and spotting an area that is more enclosed where they slow down. Sometimes you can spray them multiple times in these locations.
You will revisit the same locations throughout the game, but the second time around, they will be chained together in one big level. The annoying thing about these levels is that the map screen only shows you one area at a time, and doesn't mark the transitions between them. This led to repeated attempts to clear it as I was familiarising with the level layout.
On the smaller levels these transition areas give you a warning that you are about to exit the level if you carry on. However, no confirmation is given; you are simply taken to the level selection screen. If you are travelling at a standard speed, you can turn around. Travelling fast or reaching these areas from a jump means you are unable to turn in time. One time I did successfully turn, only for a car to hit me and I was unable to dislodge myself.
The graphics are very nice as I am a big fan of cel-shading. The 90's Hip-Hop aesthetic works well too.
The gameplay in Jet Set Radio is too simplistic, then the mechanics are often awkward and not fun to play. It's like the game designers tried to make the game as annoying as possible. It's weird how people think this is a classic because it is hard to imagine people had fun playing this back in the day.