Roller Skating and Graffiti, what a great combo!
The story is set in Tokyo as a gang of graffiti artists have joined up to fight this oppresive government, also known as the Rokkaku Group. Basically it's run by this dictator known as Gouji. So this game is like a group of people trying to bring down "The Man" if you want to call it like that. The game has you skating around, in roller skates, just tagging up different areas. Along the way you will eventually have to battle people, like the Rokkaku Police. They will use everything while all you have is just a can of spray paint. There will also be various times where you will be able to race against another character in the game, and the only way to unlock them is to win that race or keep up with them. You will start off playing with a guy named Yo Yo who just joined the GG group, but along the way you'll meet other characters that you can use in your adventures.
The cel-shaded graphics are amazing on the Xbox and every level you visit is so detailed with cel-shading. It really makes everything more appealing.
The music is another great thing. Jet Set Radio Future has a number of great techno songs for you to listen to while you are grinding and tagging up areas. You can choose which song to listen to while you are practicing in the garage area.
The controls are very easy as one quick read through the instruction manual will have you playing the game in less than 5 minutes. The game is very long, clocking in at about 50+ hours of gameplay.
When you are not tagging up the walls in the city, you can be doing plenty of other things as well. The game allows you to create your own graffiti which you will be able to use in the game. But certain graffiti work with certain graffiti. There are five types of graffiti. Super Small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large. Known as SS, S, M, L, XL. So if you were to create a graffiti for Super Small sized graffiti, you cannot use it on the Extra Large one.
There is this feature called practice mode which basically lets you practice whatever tricks you've learned and you feel like you need to perfect them. If you feel the need to perfect your skills than that is the place to do it all in.
The game is very open to you. When you enter a level, you aren't given a set amount of time to accomplish a goal. Each levels goals are usually to tag up all of the spots you can find. The game is pretty easy for the first half but when you get farther into the game it becomes more harder and more challenging for you. When you aren't vandalising, you can just cruise around looking for bonus tapes.
There is at least one cassette tape in each level. When you obtain that cassette, you can find out hints about where to find the hidden Graffiti Souls. Finding Graffiti Souls allow you to use even more different types of graffiti so if you want all you can get out of this game, you will most likely be chasing down those cassette tapes.
There is a VS Mode where you can play several mini games with another person. There are 5 different missions for you to do. All of them pit you against the other player which is pretty much the whole point of VS Mode. One mission will have you racing around while another will have you trying to tag up as much of the place as you can. Because there are only five, it will get boring and repetitive after a while, but you can try to increase the fun by adding teams consisting of two players on a team.
While the game does have some very cool features, there are some things that really make this game less appealing. First of all, there is this points system in which you try to do combos and you get points. However, when you stop a combo, the points vanish, and there really isn't anything you can do with them either. So I'd say that it's a pretty useless feature in this game.
Another thing that really makes the game less fun is the lack of online play. There is no Xbox Live so you really can't play with different people of different skill levels and you really can't share your created graffiti with anyone.
Although the music may be good, there will be a time when you would like to listen to your own music. But unfortunately, this game does not support custom soundtrack.
Overall the game is quite enjoyable with funny scenes and serious scenes. The game is fun and you definitely should pick it up. But if you are looking for a game with some online play, this game is not it as it features absolutely no online play.