Jet Set Radio

Year: 2000
Developer: Smilebit
Publisher: Sega
Platform: Dreamcast (originally); now available on Game Boy Advance, PC, PSN, XBLA, Android and iOS
Metacritic score: 94 (original DC version only)
VGChartz sales to date:  Unknown

WHAT MADE IT GREAT
Some games are are bogged down by their idiosyncrasies, letting their quirkiness and unique kinks distract so much from the actual gameplay that they can be more enjoyable to watch then play.  It's a rare game that can embrace those idiosyncrasies without being overwhelmed by them, and Jet Set Radio is just such a game.  Originally released as Jet Grind Radio in the U.S. because of copyright issues, the game was quick to grab attention from both the press and gamers when it was first revealed.  With it's bright cel-shaded animation, funky soundtrack loaded with catchy beats and fast-paced graffiti tagging gameplay this is a title that definitely stands out from a crowd.  Graffiti tagging is really the soul of the game, but it's focus on constant motion through grinding and pulling off tricks adds a welcome dose of frenzied action to the equation.  Jet Set Radio is in many ways a great game because of it's flaws, not in spite of them.

Developed by Sega's in-house studio Smilebit, JSR wasn't technically the first game to use cel-shading, but it was arguably the first to do it well and it set a standard still felt in games like No More Heroes and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.  At the time there was nothing else that looked quite like it, combining traditional polygons with a style of flat animation that gave the impression of a comic book come alive.  This style perfectly matched the game's focus on graffiti art and made for a natural connection between what your character was doing onscreen and how you experienced it.  Despite the stern warning screen on startup, graffiti tagging isn't seen as a crime but a form of artistic expression which was a fairly radical idea back before anyone heard of Banksy or Sheperd Fairey.  Skating around collecting spray cans and tagging the level doesn't deface it, but adds more color and vibrancy to the area.  Smaller tags can be sprayed while performing tricks, but bigger murals trigger a series of analog stick gestures you need to match.  Screw up and it will cost you extra paint, while getting the rhythm of it right will net bigger scores.  Completing the package is the truly enjoyable soundtrack composed of a fun mix of funk, hip hop, J-pop, rock and jazz elements.  The Tony Hawk series may have given you licensed tunes, but the huge number of in-house tracks found in JSR prove to be far less annoying and repetitive over an extended gaming session.                

This is gonna take a lot of paint

The story takes place in the city of Tokyo-to which for some reason is described as an "unknown Asian country" in the introduction's English translation, despite most of the in-game billboards being in Japanese and advertising prices in Yen.  Within this country that is totally not Japan, young punks called "Rudies" are put down by the fuzz for just wanting to express themselves through skating, graffiti and some really kick-ass tunes.    In Jet Set Radio's version of the world, inline skating is still cool and street gangs mostly limit themselves to acts of vandalism and public disturbance.  Despite the noticeable lack of drive-by shootings and crack dealing, the authorities take the rather extreme response of sending in everything from riot police to attack choppers to try and shut down all the dangerously youthful self-expression going on.  As the founding member of the GG gang, your goal is to grow your gang, defend your turf and spray over tags from rival gangs, all of which is helpfully narrated by Professor K, DJ of the eponymous Jet Set Radio which acts as a sort of gangland Walter Cronkite, not unlike the DJ from the classic film The Warriors.  Also there's some complicated backstory involving a magical record and a greedy businessman trying to take over the world, but I might have been hallucinating that aspect of the game given how little impact it has.

Look I know it must suck for the guy whose car you just tagged, but I think this is a little overkill

The game starts off with you controlling main protagonist Beat as he recruits new members Gum and Tab in a brief tutorial.  Each stage consists of a few square blocks of city streets comprising a variety of landscapes that include surface streets, parks and sewer systems.  Each of the three city sectors have their own feel with your home turf Shibuya-cho being a typical downtown cityscape while Benten-cho is a late night entertainment district and Kogane-cho is a seaside town at sunset.  Playing as any unlocked member of your crew, your goal is to find and tag the designated spots before the timer runs out.  Attempting to thwart your wanton destruction of property is the trigger-happy Captain Onishima and he won't hesitate to call in the big guns for backup as you tag more spots.  There's no way to fight back, but you can outrun them by grinding on rails and other environmental objects and using your speed boost.  The boost has a limited amount of juice, but can be recharged by pulling tricks by jumping while grinding.  If you take too many hits it can end your run early, so keep an eye out for health pick ups that (confusingly) look just like spray cans.  Unlike the paint, these health kits don't respawn so try not to spend too much time eating pavement.  

Make sure you get some distance on the goon squad chasing you before starting a tag, they aren't about to politely wait until you finish

WHAT WENT WRONG
Raise you hand if you owned a Dreamcast?  If the five of you who raised your hands would like to form a support group in the comments please go right ahead.  As we've previously discussed there were a number of factors that conspired to limit sales of the Dreamcast.  That's a damn shame because Sega's swan song was an incredibly fun console that foreshadowed much of today's gaming landscape.  It also means that a lot of gamers missed out on a lot of really great titles that were Dreamcast exclusives, including Jet Set Radio.  Reviews at the time praised the game for it's style and concept, but also raised some criticism over the somewhat wonky physics and the simplistic controls. Reviewers cited both these issues, comparing them unfavorably to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater which debuted the previous year.  This may be why even accounting for the limited install base, JSR didn't sell as well as other hit Dreamcast games.    

While most reviewers didn't let the control issues impact their overall impressions too strongly, this is one area where the game hasn't aged gracefully.  With just one button to perform tricks there's little depth and it can be hard to chain grinds together because of hiccups in transitioning from one object to another.  It's a shame because the level design lends itself naturally to free-flowing and continuous grinding when the controls don't get in the way.  Aside from this shortcoming, my only real gripe with the game is when a passing car hits you and you land on it's hood, forcing you to watch helplessly you're zipped out the level's exit.  Experiencing this again triggered flashbacks of hurled controllers, quite a danger with the Dreamcast especially when they were fully loaded with two VMU's.

You could do some serious damage with one of these bad boys

WILL WE SEE IT AGAIN

It's safe to say anyone with a JSR itch can find plenty of ways to scratch it.  When Sega quit the console business for good in 2001 they wisely opted to continue profiting from their existing software lineup even though it meant doing business with their former rivals.  This has been a boon for all those long-distance admirers of JSR because after many long years it's now available on just about every platform out there.  A downsized port came to Game Boy Advance in 2003 but was a far cry from it's namesake.  It wasn't until 2012 that we got a proper HD remake available on PSN, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam along with mobile versions for iOS and Android.  Though still saddled with cumbersome controls (and some bugs reported in the mobile versions) the game has never looked so good.  While some older cartoon-styled games like Sega's own Crazy Taxi look dated, JSR still looks fresh and eye-popping despite being released around the same time.
  
It's not all happy fun times though, as JSR has been absent from new titles outside of a few cameo appearances in other Sega games.  There was a sequel that came out for Xbox in 2002 but it sold poorly despite good reviews.  Smilebit now exists as Sega Sports Japan and mainly churns out Mario & Sonic Olympic tie-in games.  If we do see another Jet Set game it will need to reinvent its mechanics without harming its unique style.  There have simply been too many good skating games released to ignore the improvements they've made in physics and trick controls.  But Sega has shown a willingness to dip into their catalog before, so maybe if the HD remake does well the series will get another shot.  Surely they can find a better use for Beat and Gum then just mash-up sports games, right?      

Er...right.  Moving on then...

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Power Stone 2

Year: 2000
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platform: Dreamcast
Metacritic score: 87
VGChartz sales to date: Unknown

WHAT MADE IT GREAT
The follow-up to the successful arcade fighter and Dreamcast launch title, Power Stone 2 is a frantic fighting game known for its fully 3D interactive stages and colorful, fast-paced mayhem.  Released less than a year after the console launch of its predecessor, Power Stone 2 was designed to improve on every facet of a game that was genuinely good but ultimately outshone by the competition.  The series stood out for its interactive 3D stages at a time when most stuck ardently to 2D design.  It also eschewed the long input chains and strict timing demanded in most of those games, instead using a basic set of moves whose input remained constant but effects varied by character.  Power Stone was Capcom's answer to Nintendo's incredible Super Smash Bros. but without the world famous mascots.  What at first appears to be a very basic fighting mechanic can, in the hands of an experienced player, offer a surprising amount nuance to experiment with.

Clever use of the environment is a must.  Failing to maintain a tactical advantage can be punished with a facefull of turret fire.

Make no mistake, this is still a fighter that appeals more to the button-mashers among us, but it also delivers a strategic depth and replay value that was lacking in the original.  For starters, up to four players could fight at once instead of just one-on-one and multiple new game modes were introduced. They also bumped the roster to 14 characters, significantly expanded the number of weapons and power-ups (you can even create your own), and vastly improved the scope of the interactive stages.  That's a lot of changes, but the core of this game is still about frenzied action.  Trivialities such as blocking and countering have been cast aside, fights consist of relentless attacking and using the environment to outmaneuver your opponents.  The random appearance of weapons and items can drastically swing the flow of battle, especially the eponymous Power Stones.  You'll quickly be conditioned to start salivating whenever one of these gem-like objects pops into existence since collecting three of them causes your character to transform and grants the use of massively powerful special attacks until the boosted power bar is depleted.  

Let your opponent collect three Power Stones and you're in for a world of hurt.

The classic 1v1 story mode returns and is expanded upon with the new Arcade mode that serves up a series of 4-player fights in which the top two survive to the next stage.  There is also an Original mode (essentially a Free Play multiplayer mode) and Adventure mode which offers the bulk of the replay value.  Adventure mode lets you unlock new items, earn cash to purchase unlockables from the shop, and also collect cards that can be used to mix unlocked items to create new ones.  Anything you unlock can be used in the other game modes and they're often superior to the stock weapons and power-ups which gives an added incentive to keep playing long after you've seen each character's ending.

Perhaps Power Stone's biggest innovation in the genre is the hugely interactive 3D arenas each consisting of multiple sub-stages that change over the course of battle.  One of my favorite stages begins atop a massive warplane that is gradually destroyed by the chaos, sending everyone into a free fall to Earth.  Rather then interrupt the fighting, players continue to slug it out until reaching the platform floating below.  Each stage is also packed with unique environmental objects ranging from simple chairs up to airships that can be used to upset the balance.  These backdrops look gorgeous thanks to Sega's excellent NAOMI engine whose shared architecture with the Dreamcast made porting arcade hits to the console a breeze.  Super Smash Bros. may have the star power of Nintendo's stable of mascots, but nothing can touch Power Stone 2 in terms of fast, fun and frenetic four-player fighting.  

Just because you're all plummeting to your death doesn't mean you should stop beating on each other.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Did you own a Dreamcast?  Well, neither did anybody else.  Sega's missteps in launching the Dreamcast have been well documented and their surprise decision to push the North American launch to coincide with 9/9/99 (desperately trying to beat the PS2 to market) didn't fare much better.  You'd think getting a console early would be a good thing, but Sega managed to piss off retailers, developers, and publishers who were caught off guard by Sega's grand surprise.  The Dreamcast put up record sales in the few months before the PS2's released killed demand and Sega only managed to sell around 10.5 million Dreamcasts before production ended in 2001, a mere two years after its North American release.  To put that in perspective, it's widely rumored Sony still produces new PS2's over a decade after launch and has shipped a record-setting 150 million units globally.  The smaller your player base, the harder it is to launch a successful game since it requires that practically everyone who bought the console also purchase the game.  

With the odds already stacked against it, Capcom further ensured the Power Stone franchise would become a cult classic by releasing it alongside their own Capcom vs. Marvel arcade fighter.  Just like Power Stone and many other Dreamcast games, MvC was originally a visually stunning arcade-only title that made its console debut during the Dreamcast launch.  Unlike Power Stone, MvC appeals to the hardcore fighter crowd and has a massive stable of well-known characters with huge fanbases among both Western and Japanese gamers.  If that wasn't bad enough, there was even more competition thanks to the Dreamcast's other groundbreaking 3D-fighter: Soulcalibur.  I can't recall another time when three incredible fighting series were launched in the same year, let alone on the same day!  Despite positive reviews, gamers flocked to the more hardcore-oriented Soulcalibur and MvC which outsold poor Power Stone by a margin of over 2:1.  Capcom immediately went to work refining what they knew was a winning formula, but it was already too late.  The missteps launching the series effectively killed any chance of building a solid fanbase and thanks to the phenomenal PS2 launch just a month earlier the writing was already on the wall for the Dreamcast faithful.

The Temple of Doom inspired boulder chase isn't just an example of inventive stage design, it's also a fitting metaphor for what it felt like to be a Dreamcast fan in the days after the PS2 launch.

WHAT IF IT RELEASED TODAY
Sad to say, but I'm afraid this series is well and truly dead.  It's not that fighting games can't succeed in the era of the FPS, there will always be a small but dedicated market for people looking to wail on strangers.  Power Stone's own litter mates Soulcalibur and MvC outlived their console of origin and continue to find success with new iterations as well as HD and collector's edition re-releases of their classics.  Even the brawler sub-genre has proven it's staying power as evidenced by Nintendo's critically acclaimed Super Smash Bros. series and Sony's joining the mix with their upcoming Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale.  But humble Power Stone remains the black sheep among Capcom's extensive roster of fighting games.  An attempt to re-energize the series was made in 2006 when both original games were merged to become Power Stone Collection for the PSP, but only 80,000 copies were sold worldwide.  

An outspoken minority continues to stalk Capcom's forums with pleas for a Power Stone 3, or even some HD reissues for download on PSN and Xbox Live.  A quick YouTube search returns dozens of fan-made trailers and pleas all hoping to spark a renewed interest in the franchise but hopes are fading.  The realities of game development today are fairly hostile towards new and unproven IPs, and Power Stone simply lacks the brand recognition enjoyed by its now well-established competitors.  Capcom could take steps to breathe new life into the series, for instance including some of the Power Stone cast in the roster of their crossover fighting games.  But they passed on the opportunity with the recently released Marvel vs Capcom 3 (and it's even more recent "Ultimate" re-release) despite including characters from relatively unknown series such as Darkstalkers and Final Fight.  It seems that even Capcom is content to pretend the Power Stone series never existed at all, and that's a real shame for all the people who enjoyed it and everyone who never got the chance.  

A fun cast of characters, but not a Mario or Kratos in the bunch.

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