Team Reptile is rounding up work on its upcoming Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and the game looks set to be one of the more promising releases of the year. With its release date quickly approaching, the time seems ripe to take a look at the game and list down 13 points that might help in making an informed decision about purchasing the game. We have a lot to cover, so let’s get right into it.
Story
While Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s story might not be the reason you would want to pick up this game, the developers seem to have done a mostly good job of crafting a tale that will guide you through this adventure with reasonable motivations and conflicts. You will be stepping into the shoes of Red who used to spray graffiti on walls across the city, but now he has a replacement AI head in place of his face for some reason. The story revolves around trying to find the culprit who took Red’s head in the first place, which will take you through different districts of the city as you spray graffiti and grind on rails to get to the bottom of it all. Again, it’s not a story that’s going to win any awards – but it just might be interesting enough to keep you going through to the end credits.
Art Style & Inspirations
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is heavily inspired by SEGA’s work on the Jet Set franchise, and the complete absence of that franchise for decades at this point makes this the perfect remedy for those wanting to quench the thirst for similar games. And much like Jet Set Radio, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk also uses a cel-shaded art style to depict its funky world – complete with all the popping colours and cartoony character models that come together to make for some absolutely gorgeous visuals. While it might not compare to many current-gen releases in terms of raw fidelity, it certainly has an inherent charm that makes it stand out against the crowd.
Grinding Mechanics
As you can already gauge from the trailers and gameplay footage, the moment-to-moment gameplay revolves around grinding on rails as you try to build momentum and perform all sorts of tricks by chaining acrobatic moves with one another. Furthermore, you can also run alongside walls, slide for great distances, or even do a swift dash in the air to cover large gaps. Suffice it to say it looks absolutely slick, and Team Reptile has done a great job of nailing the game feel in this aspect – and everything from the animations to the feedback works in cohesion to create a smooth-flowing gameplay loop that’s just enjoyable at its core.
Gameplay Variety
Of course, just grinding on rails whilst wearing your regular inline skates is bound to get boring after a while. Thankfully, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk features 3 different modes of movement – namely inline skates, skateboards, and BMX-style bikes. You can use any of the three options to glide across the environments, and stunts for each will be different with unique animations that should help keep things interesting and induce a level of variety in the gameplay as well.
The REP System
As fun as just grinding through environments and spraying graffiti on walls might be, doing it over and over again wouldn’t make much sense unless you are working towards a larger goal. And that’s where the REP system kicks in. As you keep on furthering your influence in the game by spraying graffiti and making swift escapes thereafter, your REP score will increase accordingly. And once it reaches a certain threshold, you will be able to challenge rival crews to a Crew Battle which will be climactic fights that will move the story forwards.
Bomb Rush Mode
As mentioned previously, the main goal of the movement system is to let players go haywire with all sorts of tricks and chain combos. And once you get down with the basics and start performing long combos, you will soon gain the ability to enter Bomb Rush Mode. This is a power-up that gives you an infinite boost for a short amount of time, and you can use it to cover great distances in a short span of time or help out with a last-ditch escape in a finicky situation.
Environments
The game is set against the backdrop of New Amsterdam, which is divided into five distinct zones or as the game calls them “boroughs”. Each of these boroughs presents new opportunities to cash and obstacles to cross, and you can expect major differences between these zones on a visual front as well. The environments themselves look to be pretty open-ended, which should allow you to freely grind your way as you try to reach the objective or just perform some cool-looking combos.
Collectibles
Exploration will play an important role in the game, and player progression is largely tied to how thoroughly players check out every nook and cranny of each borough. You can find new pieces of clothing, and graffiti pieces all across the city – and collecting these will help you express yourself better. And if you’re going for 100% completion, collecting these goodies will be a quintessential part of the experience.
Recruiting New Members
Another thing that you can collect during your exploration is new crewmates who will help you join your cause and make your quest a bit easier. Once you spot any skater NPC who looks like a good fit for your crew, you just need to go up to them and have a short interaction following which they will become an integral part of your ever-growing Bomb Rush Crew.
Police Response System
Since tagging walls with graffiti isn’t a legal activity, it’s only obvious that players will eventually attract heat as they go about this business. Of course, you will have to be swift in your moves and evade the police by breaking their line of sight and creating some distance between you and the opposition. But Bomb Rush Cyberfunk will also have a dynamic police response system, which basically means that the strength of the opposition will directly correlate with the amount of vandalism you cause to the city environment. So continually spraying graffiti will result in stronger military units being deployed to stop you, or maybe the cooldown period might get increased.
PC requirements
Those wondering what it will take to run Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on PC would be relieved to know that it’s a game that’s pretty light on requirements. The Steam page for the game states that you need to have at least a Core i3 running at 2.5 GHz, 4 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 to run this game at comfortable framerates. This means that hopefully even entry-level desktops and handhelds like Steam Deck can easily run the game without any compromises in terms of fidelity or framerates.
Release Date And Platforms
Over on the release front, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is slated to release on 18 August, 2023 for Nintendo Switch and PC. It’s a digital-only release, and there’s only a standard edition of the game available to purchase at the moment. It’s quite possible that the game ends up being ported to PlayStation and Xbox consoles if it manages to garner some critical and commercial acclaim, but that’s more of a hopeful assumption than a concrete opinion backed by actual facts – so keep your expectations in check accordingly.
