Bomb Rush Cyberfunk thoughts
Last entry I said I wanted to talk about my new favorite game: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, published by Team Reptile. So here we go!
I'm not intending to write this as a review or anything. This is just a ramble on something I really really like. And because of how much I've been loving this game it might be a bit incoherent and all over the place, so sorry in advance! :^P I'll try my best to organize my thoughts!
Two points before I really get into it:
there will be spoilers for the plot! You'll get ample warning before I dig deep into it, but please take this as a warning as well. If this game looks at all interesting to you, I highly encourage closing this tab and playing it for yourself!
I have not played Jet Set Radio or Jet Set Radio Future. I've seen people call Bomb Rush the spiritual successor to JSR/JSRF's and while I understand and see why, I can't like...point out specific critics or praise from the perspective of a JSR/JSRF fan. One day I'll play those games, I'm sure! They look so fun!! But right now, it's BRC time >:^)
ok, first of all: aesthetic.
I am such a sucker for anything with this?? idk??? Skaterpunk/streetpunk-neo-toyko/futuristic aesthetic thing going on. I have no idea what to call it, if it even has a name. The moment I saw Bomb Rush, I was obsessed.
All of the characters have very memorable designs. There's also something so special to me about the character proportions/stylization. It's the big hands and large shoes, there's something about the big hands and large shoes for me.
I also really love that it looks like an old school game. The blocky character models that clip into themselves are so charming.
Every area is very unique as well. They all have their own vibe with different color palettes and some perpetually in specific times of the day (such as it always being nighttime while you're in the big city of Mataan)
The music is fantastic, nothing but bops! The collectable music you can manually play via your phone can get a bit repetitive if you're not actively looking for them and collecting, but this isn't a huge deal for me since I don't play super long sessions. I do hope more music gets added in possible updates and/or DLC.
Characters
I can see people calling the characters "simple". And...yeah they are! But they don't really need to be anything more, imo. And I really like them regardless. Bel is a fun sweetheart, Tryce is the cool sensible one that I'd probably get along with the most, Solace is a bit of a weirdo that I ended up loving so much, Red is unintentionally very silly to me and has very satisfying voice lines...and all of the extra side characters that your collect along the way are awesome!
Maybe it just works for me because I naturally inject headcanons into games and characters as I go, but I had no issue falling in love with these characters.
Game mechanics
Once again emphasizing that I have not played JSR/JSRF. So maybe my opinion would be a lot different if I had, but very generally, I don't have a huge issue with the skating/trick system.
I can totally see where people are coming from when they critique Bomb Rush for kinda just being a combo fest rather than focusing on the tricks you're doing. And I hope that if there ever is a Bomb Rush sequel (and boy do I hope there will be one!) they expand and improve the skating. But as it stands, I'm not too bothered by it. It does what it needs to do!
I do have some very small critiques. Like certain map layouts and hit boxes for collectables. But nothing crazy that I can justify going too in-depth with it.
Plot
Ok. Opening the flood gates. Spoilers ahead because I'm not sure if I can hold back lol
I loved the story.
It's wacky. It's wild. I kinda didn't know what direction it was taking and that was half the fun of it. But it was surprisingly very heartfelt.
The opening sucked me in immediately. The whole time I was skating around the police station, figuring out the controls I was wondering to myself "ok so...what's up with the red...helmet? Does Faux get that later or something?" and then bam my question gets answered immediately and I'm sitting there staring at my screen like:
"...oh."
I thought the reveal of who Red really is was pretty neat too. Since finishing the main story I've realized the game hinted at it from the very beginning, like Red's initial boot-up after the um....scuffle...with the police in the opening, you can see on his HUD he doesn't have an AI like a Cyberhead would have. Or the fact that in the opening when you play as Faux, you're using skates, but once you start playing as Red, you're using a skateboard like Felix does. I love little stuff like that!
Defeating each crew was challenging at times, but it was very satisfying when the combo mechanics clicked for me. Or when I figured out the best route to take during the crew battles. I have this slight direction/map blindness, so I get lost pretty easily, both IRL and in video games. So its especially satisfying for me when I finally map out that perfect route.
A big critique I have though, is the final boss. I had a lot of trouble with it because the camera controls changed to this static side angle. It unreasonably bumped up the difficulty because in this boss battle you have two rails next to each other in a coil shape that you can jump between to avoid attacks. The camera angle made it unreasonably difficult to judge my jumps and I fell off the map more times than I'd like to admit. There are several other smaller rails along these coils that provide you with shortcuts across the coil or upwards to the top, but I barely found myself using these since they were sometimes just as difficult to land on. Maybe it was just my dyslexia/issues mapping out/judging 3D spaces in video games, but I really don't like how the final boss was handled.
Despite that though, I love this game! I've actually decided to 100% it, something I very rarely do. It'll be a slow process for me, but I feel motivated!! (I got the Baller achievement earlier today...guh...don't ask me how long that took.)
This is absolutely my game of the year.
Which is all kinda wild to think about considering one of my most anticipated games, TOTK also came out this year. I absolutely did not expect it to get knocked down a peg by this fun little acab skating game. And y'know what? Right behind Bomb Rush is Hi-fi Rush, that's another wonderful little game that deserves way more love!
Ok, hopefully I hit all the main points I wanted to talk about! Because right now I wanna wrap this up and post it. I've been writing for too long lol