Jet Set Radio Is Pretty In HD, But Might Not Sound The Same

I got to play a build of Jet Set Radio running on Xbox 360 and it is pretty even though the HD re-release wasn’t complete. The first thing I noticed is Jet Set Radio took up the whole screen unlike the windowed Sonic Adventure Dreamcast port. I skated down the streets of Shibuya-cho with Tab, one of Beat’s buddies. The goal of Jet Set Radio is to control turf by coloring spots with colorful graffiti. There’s a mix of platforming since you need enough speed to reach high areas and some planning involved. After you tag so many spots police officers dressed in SWAT gear storm the area and try to hug your skater to death. Other stages that weren’t available in the demo have players tag rival gang members (gotta love the Noise Tanks) and later in the game you have to skate away from tanks.

Sega made one modern change to Jet Set Radio. You can use the right analog stick to manually control the camera. Oh, and the game will have eighteen new tags from the on-going Jet Set Radio custom graffiti contest. (The demo actually had a custom tag to remind people about the contest.) The bad news is a Sega employee explained Jet Set Radio won’t have online tag sharing even though the Dreamcast release let players download new tags through SegaNet.

We also confirmed Jet Set Radio for PSN and XBLA will have the extra levels added to the North America version – Batam Street and Grind Square. However, the music from Jurassic 5 and Rob Zombie may not be in the game. A Sega representative explained to Siliconera, right now they have 70% of the music from the Dreamcast game confirmed for this version. Songs from B.B. Rights, Guitar Vader, and Hideki Naganuma will be in this version of Jet Set Radio. Sega is trying to track down rights for other songs, some of which have changed hands over the last decade.

Jet Set Radio is slated for release this summer.