August 20, 2023
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is the treat I and everyone else knew it would be, bless!
tight, fluid gameplay, banging tunes, strong aesthetic.. and to my surprise there's a bit of a story here and it's pretty interesting too!
it very faithfully and lovingly captures almost all the things that people enjoy about its inspiration and while it absolutely has its differences it doesn't seem to have any pretenses about being real different in the sense that it feels like it knows the devs and the fans basically wanted another JSR game in some form and it delivered.
In particular I was surprised by how i love the graffiti system. feedback when spraying with how your character flashily traces across the wall and strikes a pose to finish the tag is excellent, and I love that what tag you throw up is based on what pattern you trace when spraying, instead of only spraying preset tags. it's more involved than Future's implementation but not quite as intensive as JSR1's - they managed to nail a fun take on spraying that both looks stylish and makes you feel cool pulling off.
the most glaring "omission" that reminds you it won't be Exactly like a game you once loved is the lack of a DJ Professor K, which unfortunately is big and felt if you have played JSR! other squads are narrated to you through unvoiced dialogue from your friends, and music takes the form of mixtapes from the city DJ that you play on your phone. these things serve their purpose but the lack of something like the Professor's flavorful narration certainly makes it feel like there isn't quite as much "life" from an otherwise gorgeous presentation.
another thing is that unlike the originals there are a lot of cutscenes! surprisingly cinematic ones at that, with heavy use of differing camera angles and framing. my thing is the models come off as jarring here instead, not being nearly as lively as they are in gameplay and the game focusing on their unemotive faces more than a few times as you read text. the story content I think is actually really cool too, so I just find it a little saddening because the visual style doesn't seem to really bolster that specific aspect and arguably hampers the narrative presentation.
i only mention these things because the game otherwise nails everything it's shooting for, scratching all the right itches and then some, and I can't wait to return to it 😌
oh yeah and there's a group of tagging seniors just known as the Oldheads and one of them is a robot that goes 👈 YOOOO