Indie spiritual successors to games made by large studios are a crapshoot. Often, the smaller team won’t have the budget and experience to actually create a game that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its inspiration or be able to actually nail the details. As you’ll see in our review, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is the rare spiritual successor to do both of these things. While expecting it to be an equal to Jet Set Radio Future isn’t fair, Team Reptile has made a title that successfully captures much of that game’s charm, aesthetic, and gameplay, all while putting a fun spin on its ideas.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has a surprisingly interesting story. You start the game playing as a man named Faux, as he’s escaping from jail with the help of Tryce. The two make a swift getaway, only for Faux to find his head separated from the rest of his body by one DJ Cyber. Afterward, Faux’s body wakes up with a red machine head attached to the neck. A run-in with DJ Cyber sets the general goal: players need to battle with five gangs by tagging and tricking to take over five of the city’s boroughs in order to challenge the DJ and get Faux’s head back. But, the story has a lot of surprising twists and turns where parts are taken in a different direction than you may be expecting.
The game looks almost exactly like Jet Set Radio Future, down to nearly every aspect. Character designs, the general features of many of the areas, and even the level geometry screams Jet Set Radio. On one hand, I love being able to immerse myself in this style again, especially at a high resolution and framerate. On the other, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk denies itself the ability to create its own visual identity. Seeing as the entire push behind the game is to make a sequel to JSRF minus the brand, Team Reptile probably couldn’t have done a better job.
The sincerest form of flattery
It’s still kind of weird, though. Some of the game’s areas are clearly modelled after JSRF‘s to an almost shocking degree. The bus terminal area here looks strikingly similar to the bus terminal area in JSRF. Just like that game, most progress comes down to tagging graffiti spots in these areas to challenge a rival crew. All the while, you’ll find collectibles while performing tricks on rails and find ways to keep your combos going. However, there are some major differences, of course. You don’t need to collect spray paint and the way tagging works is entirely the opposite.
I’m actually not a fan of the tagging here, honestly. You approach a spot, press a button, and then you can choose which piece of graffiti to put up by inputting the correct string via selecting nodes. This requires you to memorise them. There are so many that I didn’t even try to do this and instead just moved the control stick until I got something random. It doesn’t help that there’s a needless bright flash every time you select a node.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk isn’t simply “go to this area, challenge its crew” all the time, though. On occasion, you’ll find other objectives. A particularly baffling one requires you to go to a specific area and find a member of a certain crew. The game gives you no indication of how to do this. You’re just supposed find them tricking out in the world and then catch up with them to talk, but many people will find it difficult to figure this out. It’s a strange pivot for a game that usually just tells you who to talk to.
Get on your bikes and ride
Another major difference is the fact that you can pick from skates, a skateboard, or BMX. You can change characters via dance pads out in the world (but weirdly not in your crew’s hub) and there are characters to unlock as you progress the story. Importantly, the skating and tricking feel pitch perfect. It’s easy to rack up giant combos and movement feels fantastic. There’s even combat where you fight crooked, overzealous cops in mandatory battles and after they start chasing you in certain areas if you’ve racked up heat by doing tags.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a pretty great game, but I would’ve liked to have seen it diverge more from its inspiration, as it can feel like a rethread at times. At others, though, it makes for a compelling experience on its own merits, such as with the story or the satisfying platforming challenges of the game’s dream sequences. Some signposting and a lack of basic map features (you can’t find the character swap areas or outfit change areas on the mini map) can weaken the experience, but the game does an awesome job of bringing some truly classic gameplay back from the dead.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk: Team Reptile has made a title that successfully captures much of its inspiration's charm, aesthetic, and gameplay, all while putting a fun spin on its ideas. – Andrew Farrell
Check out more reviews:
Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition review – Slowly We RotT | Dragon Quest Treasures PC review – Get Rich or Die Trying | Sludge Life 2 review – Smoke if you got ’em | Nimbus Infinity review – Wrong Turn |
