Jet Set Radio

Description

Jet Set Radio follows the GG’s, a group of “rudies” who skate through districts like Shibuya‑cho and Benten‑cho, spraying graffiti to claim turf. Rival gangs such as Poison Jam and the Love Shockers compete for dominance, while Captain Onishima and the Rokkaku police escalate their pursuit with riot squads, attack dogs, and even helicopters as your tagging spree grows. Set in a stylised version of Tokyo, the first game to use cel‑shaded graphics, giving it a bold, cartoon‑like look that stood out dramatically at the time.

Gameplay is structured around missions where you must locate and tag designated spots while skating, grinding rails, and performing tricks. Spray cans are collected around the level, with different colours representing single sprays, multiple sprays, or health recovery. Larger tags require analogue stick motions to complete, adding a physical rhythm to the act of graffiti. Characters are unlocked by outperforming them in skating challenges, gradually expanding the GG’s roster. Each has different stats for speed, graffiti, and technique, encouraging experimentation. Scoring is based on speed, style, and tagging efficiency, with the highest “Jet” rank unlocking hidden characters. The inbuilt web browser (common to many Dreamcast titles) was customised to enable downloading of images to the Visual Memory that could be loaded as custom tags in the game. A very cool feature at the time.

The presentation is what made Jet Set Radio iconic. Its cel‑shaded visuals gave it a comic‑book vibrancy, while the soundtrack led by Hideki Naganuma, joined by Richard Jacques and others, blended J‑pop, hip‑hop, funk, and electronic music into a rebellious, high‑energy mix. The pirate radio host DJ Professor K narrates events, tying the game’s anarchic energy together.

If you played Jet Set Radio upon its launch it was highly original with a distinctive art direction and music that hadn’t been seen before. It won awards and is often cited as one of the Dreamcast’s defining titles. It received a sequel upon the launch of the Xbox. The game’s influence has been lasting, inspiring many and particularly seen its art style adopted by a large range of games in the subsequent decades.