Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a love letter to Jet Set Radio

But not Jet Set Radio Future – Bomb Rush Cyberfunk will thankfully feature tagging! (It’s a whole thing, don’t even worry about it.)

There are always video games where you look back on them fondly and think, why hasn’t someone made another one of those yet? Sometimes you’ll get an official follow-up – like this year’s brilliant Streets of Rage 4, a sequel some 26-years coming – but more often than not, we have to make do with so-called “spiritual successors”, like Monster Boy or Two Point Hospital.

(I hate that phrase, incidentally. It’s often used as a simple elevator pitch for a concept, to ground it in something familiar, but can also be used to try and cling onto the coattails of what went before without any effort or legitimacy. Beware anyone who uses it as their sole marketing gambit!)

That being said… doesn’t Bomb Rush Cyberfunk look like a spiritual successor loving homage to Jet Set Radio?

'Bomb Rush Cyberfunk' pic.twitter.com/OzHK5bhYQi

— Team Reptile (@ReptileGames) July 22, 2020

It’s all there, right? The chunky, funky visuals, the sliding and grinding, the graffiti tagging and, of course, the music. Now here’s where Bomb Rush Cyberfunk earns its spurs as a spiritual successor: the game is “set to the musical brainwaves of Hideki Naganuma”, composer of the Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future soundtracks.

We’ve seen gifs of this one floating around on social media for a little while and, now that it has officially popped its head over the parapet, we are pleased to say Bomb Rush Cyberfunk looks awesome.

Don’t expect to see Bomb Rush Cyberfunk release this year – this year is “unlucky” according to the developer – but we’ll see it in the future. Literally and stylistically.