All the style in the world doesn’t help Bomb Rush Cyberfunk live up to its inspiration.
Image: Team Reptile
Red, the protagonist of the vibrantly colored skating game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, literally loses his head in the tutorial. After his decapitation by flying record, Red gets a shiny new robot head, along with the burning question of who exactly he was before becoming part machine.
As he discovers more about who he used to be, Red tries to forge his own identity and break free from the tethers of his complicated legacy. If only Bomb Rush Cyberfunk could do the same.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is an homage/spiritual sequel to cult classic Jet Set Radio and its sequel, Jet Set Radio Future. Set in the funky futuristic city of Tokyo-to, Jet Set Radio starred a memorable cast of skaters, graffiti artists, and DJs all battling for tagging dominance and evading the extremely trigger-happy police along the way.
Replace “Tokyo-to” with “New Amsterdam,” and that describes Bomb Rush Cyberfunk as well.
The trouble is, Jet Set Radio was all about its one-of-a-kind style, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk doesn’t do much to stand out on its own.
If you’ve played its predecessor, you know how to play Bomb Rush Cyberfunk already. The game is broken up into multiple neighborhoods, each run by its own resident gang. Your job is to skate or bike your way through, pulling off impossible stunt combos and covering the streets with graffiti until you gain enough of a reputation to claim it as your own turf.
Each stage plays out in a predictable format. Your first order of business is to find where each neighborhood’s gang has already tagged and cover their art with your own. This earns you Rep, which you need a growing