Jet Grind Radio User Reviews (GBA)

by sneakman
from , ,

Jun 3, 2008

This is Tokyo's most off the chain pirate radio bringing you another lame review. This time, we're on the small screen of the GBA, but we're still bringing the heat. The storyline is the same as the original: rudies live by expressing themselves with grafitti and the Rokakku group just is very desperate to put them behind bars, and if you thought those guys ran funny on the Dreamcast, wait till you see them on the GBA. Oh yeah.. I forgot the title of the game: JET GRIND RADIO!!! Rudies also have constant territory wars to deal with. This remake (we can't call it a port because a port has to be released at the same time and not like 5 years later) does a nice job of bringing the original script back with a couple of new twists (including sucky ones like eliminating the "Mr. Osaki" letters) that add to the storyline in ways or are just "there."

Now for the actual review. First of all, the graphics are very true to the cel-shading of the original, and they look amazing. We would like to have seen that love with some of the sprites, however (let's put it like this: Gum looks like a man). The areas are very similar to their original Dreamcast versions (the bus terminal is exactly right on the dot accurate of the original and Park Street is pretty much the same) but have also been revamped (like some of Benten, Kogane, and Central Street of Shibuya-cho). Also, they combined Bantam Street and Grind Square together to form a singular Grind City area, but it's still fun.

Next is the sound. The bad news: there's only 6 songs. The good news: they put a lot of hard work into those six songs so that they sound EXACTLY like the Dreamcast versions pretty much (that's pretty dang impressive for a GBA game) and they still kept the characters' voices. We also would have liked to see Grace and Glory, however, because it just doesn't seem like a last level without it.

Unfortunately, there are some more bad points to the game that can ruin replay value entirely. First off, that damn isometric viewpoint isn't helping anyone because at times as it's very hard to tell where in heck you're going to land because sometimes you can't even see your shadow. Next off is how hard it is to get jets on certain missions, but hey, they just might have did that to add to replay value.

Another positive before we get to the last negatives is they also remade the old grafitti system, and if you do it fast enough with the GBA's control pad, you'll develop an excellent callous in your left thumb.

However, the biggest problem with this game that will probably ruin it for most is the lack of controls. Basically, it goes like this: push up to move, left and right to turn, and down to stop. While it may get easier after a while, it can still make enjoying parts of the game frustrating, and if you never figure out the physics of the controls, you won't be able to complete the harder missions in the game (and it's not just because of the obscenely short time limits they give to you to finish them), but if you somehow do manage to figure it out, it's quite rewarding. However, it's the combination of controls and viewpoint that will screw you over in the end. Also, some character challenges use this combined with off the top challenges to annoy you (Garam), while others just do the tricks they did on the original (it can still be annoying, and they pretty much leave no room for error).

Other than that, it has a multiplayer feature and the character you unlock when you finish the game might surprise you. Overall, it gets a 4 out of 5 (once again, I don't use decimals in actual reviews).