This idea of mastery continues to be represented through the way that the enemies within the game are handled, initially seeming like pointless distractions that serve to frustrate and slow you down, but actually being utilised as a clever way to further force the player to understand the levels and plan their routes carefully from the start. It all contributes to a feeling that the game is less interested in seeing you merely beat the stages, and instead wants you to absolutely master them. Jumps are spaced in such a way that you'll be finding yourself effortlessly perfectly positioning yourself to barely slow down after a while, it goes from something that feels like it's fighting against the player to something that feels incredibly intuitive, but then also satisfying due to the player knowing how much they had struggled at first to make even the most basic of manoeuvres. Grind rails, secret areas and just your general avenues of traversal tend to be spaced out in such a way where you can flow naturally from one location to another as long as you have a general idea of where everything is. However, with a bit of time, once you get used to it all, it becomes increasingly clear how so many of the mobility quirks that you have lend themselves perfectly to the level design.įor a movement system that practically requires the player to be getting a bit of a running start to properly gain momentum and actually reach a lot of higher locations, not to mention maintaining this speed for a pretty long time whether you want to or not since rollerskates just tend to do that, it needs to be complemented by level design that supports this, and here's where Jet Set Radio largely shines. This feels especially true for this game however, as getting into it proves to be a bit rough due to the control scheme feeling incredibly loose and difficult to handle, with a wide turn radius and a constant sense of momentum that means you can't immediately slow down making it really difficult to start off with as even the most simple obstacles feel like fighting against the game. While Nintendo tended to approach games largely from the perspective of having a player understand the majority of the game's systems immediately and intuitively to make for something inviting and accessible, Sega consistently seemed to more go for the approach of "Hey, the first few hours of this are going to suck but once it clicks it's the best stuff ever". At its core, JSR is also a game that felt as if it allowed me to better understand certain dichotomies between the game design approach between Nintendo and Sega and how they were able to cultivate a lot of experiences that felt remarkably distinct, each with their own pros and cons to them. Fortunately I ended up sticking with it, because with a bit more time I finally started to see this as an absolutely fantastic little experience. For the first hour or so of playing Jet Set Radio, I was fully considering dropping the game soon after.
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