Word Vomit: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Succeeds!

August 18th arrived, and Team Reptile’s Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is released to PC and Nintendo Switch audiences. The developer behind the addictive, competitive Lethal League series makes their next game to celebrate both a strange period in video gaming, and an often underlooked segment of pop-culture. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a 3D platformer modeled after SEGA’s cult-hit Jet Set Radio franchise to an almost obsessive degree — from the lush, eye-catching usage of cel-shaded graphics to the high-octane action and snappy traversal that has rarely been emulated by others. Yet after playing the game it feels unfair to me to hover the burden of being a spiritual successor over this game’s head. What Team Reptile has done with Bomb Rush Cyberfunk feels more like an expression of the developers’ own interests rather than chasing the highs of Jet Set or its sequel, Jet Set Radio Future. As fond as I am of SEGA’s Jet Set series there’s no mistaking that narrative strength was not the reason why I held such a strong attachment to it. The plotline of the game was as clear as day; vibrant, exaggerated characters in a world where b-boy style and street art is entrenched in every corner of the player space. For a lot of people that’s all good with them — hell as a kid growing up with these games, I didn’t think much of it either. Bomb Rush Cyberpunk is an antithesis of one of its inspirations and you notice it almost immediately in the narrative. The game opens with the player character literally getting their head cut off by one of the game’s antagonists, leaving their body replaced with a cybernetic head for the rest of the game. Throughout each chapter the game tells the story through traditional cutscenes, dialogue prompts and the like to slowly unravel the world and the mystery beneath the player character’s identity, as well as the antagonists. The role that the oppressive police force plays in the game constantly ramps more and more up until the fated climax of the final chapter.  <a href="https://thesilkiest.medium.com/word-vomit-bomb-rush-cyberfunk-succeeds-b885e2690916">Website</a>