So I played this little fun Jet Set Radio clone (don't worry, it ties into the iceberg, so I wasnt technically procrastinating with video games-)
And the thing that stuck out besides the expected and fun is how the story was bad. In a surprising way - not as "oh I didnt expect it to suck so much!!!" But nah, what I mean is that it failed in a interesting way.
So what do I mean?
Well lets start with the whole setup "Oh yeah, you get your head chopper of and are actually just a random scrap metal robot controling a should-be lifeless body."
This is weird enough, but the fact that there is that much head switching and body stitching is just strange, you wouldnt really expect that from a skating game - hell it makes the casual light-bulb eye-switching from Naruto look tame in comparison.
Still, one could guess that its just a quirky thing (or more disturbingly that some of the developers gets off from it, like not the weirdest thing that exist) - just some funny detail to get attention and stand out.
But not, this thing actually is the crux of the whole "theme" and "charachter arc"
And its weird that this kind of game trys that, like if mario struggled with alcholism as a framing decice for generic platformer #64. Cause why do something that is overly ambitious and will fail?
Like this game sadly failed - the whole search for "roots" just felt kinda unatural and as if the people were living in a different world from you (like ok I get it the society literally is that much weirder, but I mean in a sense of just procecing information and emotions differently than a standard human would)
Just the fact that the charachters feel empty and you dont really connect with them or their relationships makes everything hollow - yet its weird that they tried at all - cause yeah in the end in Jet Set Radio, nobody gives a shit about that stuff, we just wanna ride the line with carefull cartoon charicatures.
Yet still the story decided to introduce plot twist, thematic foils, villians with pseudo-arcs, drama etc.
But somehow it doesnt get how at the same time it just doesnt work on a basic level - like after its revealed that not only that Faux guy killed Felix for a petty reason but also is about to kill all other Graffiti pals, its kinda irellevant that his "big secret" was "Oh your dad kept you out of trouble"
Yet the game plays that up as some final all revealing shocker, and even gives Faux a death mirroring Felix initial fall.
Also the whole arc of Felix is both weird and at the same time something that seems to be trying to say something - from starting as some random smart hair-dryer, to it being revealed that he secretly was a legendary skater with amnesia, and the whole "you are both now"-
I get kinda that they tried to say "look he died partly because of his arrogance and not letting others be close may sparked Faux's psychopathy", but still at the end it just doesnt click, you know what Im saying - the first thing after coming to life with no memory is "Oh I wanna paint the city, yeah why not and find my original head even if its not really mine" and then "Oh I guess I learned the power of friendship, even if we interacted minimally and in the end only the final thematic attack showed the use of bonds"
Like yeah, it showed literally moments how without other people he would be dead but still it was so subdued that its weird to do a whole story like that.
Especially a story as whacky as it - with a evil skater head taking over the police and brainwashing everyone to do his biding while becoming a giant centipede monster.
But the weirdest part is that it even had the whole meta-commentary about how yeah it IS a rip-off and one cant escape that, but like, we are totally something new too guys!
But guess the only really clever writting was the set up of that weirdo with angel wings actually having a absurd but believable reason for overhearing everything lol.
Yet other things just go nowhere - the sniper kinda disapears from the story, there are obvious times where you are just sent in circles for padding, etc.
And that last thing is kinda what leads me to my attempt to reverse engineer the story -
I would guess they started with the wacky desing of the main guy and someone though "but why do he be having that crazy head thou?"
And from that it sparked the idea, well he lost the head - and that connected with the whole "identity" thing especially when they had to think if they were making something creative or just puppetering the corpse of a dead, head-team less corpse of a faux legendary franchise (I dunno why I said faux, I like JSR, but I had to tie in the names)
The details came later, hence why DJ Cybers Mask is supposedly Felix's, even though it doesnt fit the latter - cause yeah the charachter designs werent made like that originally.
And thats why there is some weird padding and moments - cause of budget reasons some things had to be stretched, or maybe some things had to be used in a way to maximise what one has done and to not throw away some cool concepts, even if they clash.
Also, Im not knocking this associative way of coming up with storys, just speculating if thats how it all came together.
Still, the fact that the story isnt just "Yeah we are rebels and here are police, lets fight!" without any of the before mentioned window dressing is surprising.
And, being non-generic is a positive surprise, no matter the execution - so see, this "essay" wasnt shitting on this game afterall.
(also contrast for a simmilar story that is unsurprisingly bad - Gravity Rush - but I'll save that for another time, man I wish that games creative direction was done by someone else, cause the gameplay itself has moments of being more fun than a lot of things...)
Oh also the proof that this all relates back to the Soul Eater iceberg - see what I found (sadly not first, cause I googled and some redditor noticed 2 months ago, alas if I played this game way back I would have had this eternal glory, not shame😔):
