Now Playing: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

In my Steam Summer Sale: Damage Report post I described Bomb Rush Cyberfunk as ‘like someone got bored waiting for Sega to make a new Jet Set Radio so they decided to do it themselves’. Because that’s exactly what BRC is – a shameless JSR clone. And that’s kind of a shame, because as I also said in my Sale post – ‘I don’t just want off-brand JSR. I hope this game has some good ideas of its own.’

Unfortunately, BRC is essentially just an ‘off-brand’ JSR and doesn’t really offer much beyond that. I don’t take issue with a developer taking ‘inspiration’ from another game. I don’t mind them paying ‘homage’ to something they like. But BRC isn’t just ‘inspired’ by or paying ‘homage’ to JSR – it’s a blatant rip-off. It’s a really good rip-off, but the real problem BRC has is that it lacks a strong identity of its own.

As much as I enjoyed my time with BRC I only really enjoyed it because it . . . reminded me of JSR. It’s not as good as JSR – let’s just get that fact out of the way now. Playing BRC is like playing a worse version of JSR. It’s still good. It’s still fun. But I couldn’t ever shake the feeling that I could just go and play a better version of BRC called . . . JSR.

Like I said, it’s a shame because BRC could have forged its own style and identity and built its own ‘brand’ that made it stand apart with its own original and unique vibe. Something that would make me excited to see more games in a possible BRC series. But it doesn’t, so I’m not.

That’s why I’m so on the fence with regard to praising the game. How can I praise BRC for its visuals, animation style, structure and progression when it’s all entirely stolen from – sorry, ‘inspired’ by – another game? Yes, I’m aware lots of games borrow ideas, styles and systems, but not to this degree. BRC is JSR one for one. Even the story scenes in the way characters speak, to the way they’re directed and animated are identical.

The character designs look like JSR rejects. Even the level design is eerily familiar. The addition of alternatives to skates in the form of skateboards and bikes is nice, but they all handle identically in terms of how they play. Music, such an important part of JSR, is pretty weak. There’s a small selection of tracks that you can only expand by discovering more tracks hidden throughout the world.

The problem is, until you do find those hidden tracks you’re going to be stuck with a very small selection that repeats so often you’ll soon get sick of it. Some of the tracks drag on for way too long, are too repetitive and at one point I got so tired of it I told the game to ‘shut the f**k up’ and just shut off the music entirely.

I then put the JSR soundtrack on in the background and had a much better time of it. Because to this day, I still listen to the JSR soundtrack. I still remember the levels and the characters and the style all these years later. I can’t say the same will be true of BRC because the game lacks any identity of its own.

The police system in BRC is more annoying than in JSR. It triggers and escalates far too early and quickly for one, and some of the police systems feel designed to just frustrate you – such as the turrets that shoot out chains to grab you and drag you back – even passing through solid scenery. Who the f*k thought that would be fun?

There are some poor attempts at ‘boss’ fights that don’t really work – particularly the last fight which decides to make you grind lots of rails above a void and then sets the camera to a very unhelpful distant side view making it hard to judge the angle or distance of your jumps.

The trick system is fine, but I didn’t like it enough to waste my time going for high scores. Level design is also fine, but some levels are a little too big and open with too much empty space. I like the taxi guy who can fast travel you between locations because he actually felt like a proper homage to Crazy Taxi rather than just another rip-off.

The story is okay but the game lacks strong characters. Like I said, it’s like someone pulled them all from a pile of characters rejected from JSR. If you’ve not played JSR or JSR Future you might be wondering what the f**k I’m even talking about in this review and why it’s not really about BRC as much as it is why BRC isn’t as good as JSR.

But what else can I say? Maybe I’m being too harsh. I don’t believe the developers of BRC ripped off JSR in a cynical way – oh no, BRC is clearly a labour of love with a great deal of respect for JSR. The problem is, it copies JSR so closely, so precisely and so thoroughly that it results in BRC lacking its own identity and that’s a damn shame.

7/10