SEGA DREAMCAST iNFO Preservation games

Jet Set Radio/Jet Grind Radio Dreamcast (28 avril 2000 E3 prototype)

Jet Set Radio was developed by Smilebit , a Sega subsidiary made up of ex-members of Team Andromeda , creators of the Panzer Dragoon series on the Sega Saturn . Initially made up of 3 members, the team will grow to reach 25 developers. They were young, the average age was around 25 - 27 years old.

Sega had placed their trust in them, hoping that this youth could breathe new life into the industry. Bet won since during its presentation at the TGS , the press acclaimed the design and the quality of the game. Jet Set Radio was born from a desire to shake up the codes and bring a breath of fresh air to the industry.

Jet Set Radio was not a commercial success, sales did not follow. It will remain in posterity and inspired many other games that will use its graphic concept. This roller-skating game with a pop and hip-hop aesthetic inspired by Tokyo at the end of the 90s marked an entire generation of players, 20 years later, everyone is hoping for a reboot or a sequel to this Dreamcast hit!

“We are too old and experienced to make a new Jet Set Radio . If other people need to create a new  Jet , they have to be young daredevils like we were back then.”

Jet Set Radio is 100% speed and 200% fun!

Jet Set Radio or Jet Grind Radio was innovative in its graphic aspect which used a rendering technique unheard of in video games, Cel Shading . This technique consisted of giving a non-photorealistic rendering, a cartoon aspect to the game in question. This is the first time that this process has been used for a video game, Jet Set Radio made an impression with its graphics. We were playing a cartoon for the first time. It was a game like only Sega could make!

The game begins in 2000 and is introduced by Professor K , the DJ of a Tokyo-to- based pirate radio station, who explains the basics of the life of a " Rudie ", the term used to refer to young people who roam the the streets on rollerblades looking for walls to tag.

The city is divided into three parts: Shibuya-cho , Benten-cho and Kogane-cho , each corresponding to a different time of day. Shibuya is a daytime shopping area, Benten is a nighttime entertainment area, and Kogane is a district.  residential, built over water, at sunset.

The government was trying to curb the activities of young people in Tokyo-to ….Rollers on their feet and with the help of a team of broken arms, the  mission was to tag the walls, roofs, buses… of the city of Tokyo-to to mark its territory. To help the player, the pirate radio station Jet Set Radio and its DJ Professor K , provided information on the position of the police who were chasing the riders. It was also necessary to fight against rival bands which also wanted to take possession of the various districts of the city.

The game features a host of playable characters with three different attributes: Power, Technique, and Graffiti. Power determines a character's health, Technique determines the number of points a character earns when performing tricks and the character's overall speed, and Graffiti determines the number of points earned by performing tricks and the difficulty in accomplishing them.

The main characters form the GG gang, housed in a garage in Shibuya-cho .

Photo from "French Dreamcast Asset" to be found on the Asset, Press Kit, Dreamcast Documents page .

The specifics of the Debug Menu:

By using the GD-Rom Explorer program, the build is named Jet Set Radio E3 . It is dated April 28, 2000, approximately 1 month before the final Japanese version.

The prototype starts on a Debug Menu. The 3 selections TGS SIBUYA , TGS KOGANE and TGS BENTEN undoubtedly correspond to demonstrations of the game used during a Tokyo Game Show . To play them, you have to activate them and then start the game by going to the "Goto Garage". The zones will then appear on the Tokyo-to map.

The other options of the debug menu are basic, very simple. They allow :

• Stage : To choose the area of the map to play

• Mission : To choose the mission to play

• Charactor : To play the character of your choice

• Vs Charactor : To select the character to face during duels

• Event : Activates or deactivates the explanatory scenes of the missions

• Goto Garage : Go to the map area selection map (to be used to activate the 3 TGS options)

• Goto Game : Directly launches the game with the modified data from the debug menu

• Goto Demo : This option does not work, there is a black screen

• Goto Title : The game starts normally

This prototype offers 15 playable characters, here they are:

Beat (Ereki) (final name Beat)

Gum (correct name)

Corn (final Tab name)

Combo (correct name)

Code (Slate final name)

Nuts (final name Piranha)

Reco (final name Cube)

Bis (final name Mew)

Yo_Yo (correct name)

Plug (Pench) (final name Garam)

Character 11 (Poison Jam final name)

Character 12 (final name Love Shockers

Character 13 (final name Noise Tank)

Poison Jam Black (new character?)

Keydata

Characters not loading for certain missions, another " Rudie " appears in its place. " Pots " a kind of dog on rollerblades and " Goji "  are not present. " Poison Jam Black " is certainly a new character and specific to this prototype (to be confirmed). The names of some Riders in the Debug Menu are certainly tentative.

The zones, "Stage", are 5 in number. They include 3 districts of Tokyo-to ( Sibuya , Kogan and Benten ), stage 5 and the final level. Each environment has 12 different missions. Missions can have a short explanatory scene in Japanese and sometimes in English, they can also directly start the controller part in hand. "Stage 05" does not work, player spawns in "Final Stage" instead. There are no missions for "Final Stage" and "Stage 05" even when choosing one. Mission numbers can block the game on loading for these 2 places to visit.

Considering that "Stage 5" is present in the stage selection of the debug menu, it is possible that the goal was to release the Japanese version with the same content as the US/EU version. In a way, the Japanese version may be an unfinished product. Maybe the level couldn't be put in the Japanese version because it wasn't finished and the studio couldn't delay the game's release.

I had started documenting each mission for each area like I had for Shenmue 2 (Us) . Unfortunately, it's too complicated to explain and make myself understood in my own words.

The particularities of the prototype:

Event prototypes ( E3 , TGS , Toy Fair etc.) are the most complicated to analyze. The game is often mounted especially for the occasion or 70% of the content is locked.

• This prototype is a mixture of English and Japanese.

• The screen warning about the illegality of the practice of graffiti  does not yet exist.

• Launching the game normally, once you get to the title screen, a  commentator usually shouts " Jet Set Radio ".  There are no voices on this window.

• At the titled screen, pressing Start should bring up several game modes and features. In this build, the game launches directly onto a mini stage designed, in my opinion, especially for the E3 show.

• By not touching any key for a certain period of time, in the middle of the game, the game will reset automatically without going through the Debug Menu.

• Debug Menu missions have no music, only sound effects. Sounds are missing, for example the meowing of cats when passing close to them  or the sound of water when skating in the sewers of " Kogane ". The sound of rolling rollerblades is sometimes continuous.

• During scenes before the missions, the text displayed on the screen does not correspond to the final version.

• On the pause menu minimap, in some missions (mainly those without intros),  the locations of the places where the graffiti to be drawn are located are not marked with a G. No indications appear on the map.

• In the sewers of " Kogane ", while riding in the water, there is no splash effect under the rollerblades.

• The " Graffiti Soul " items (the ones resembling the loading times logo) are not implemented.

• During a game, mini-scenes between cut missions (explosion, appearance of enemies etc.). These intermediate kinematics do not appear on this prototype.

• Road traffic is cut in some missions (Benten M08 for example). By playing Benten M12, the cars parked on the side of the road are no longer there.

• There are no more pedestrians in some missions, try Kogan M12.

• When you leave the mission areas, an arrow with Exit written appears at the top of the screen. We return in principle to the garage.  By choosing mission 8 of Sibuya, it is possible to continue playing outside the authorized zone and reach other parts of the city ( see the video at 8:58 ). Some exits from the map are unfinished and delimited by buildings, instead there is blue sky.

Differences with comparative photos:

Comparisons were made with another prototype  by Jet Set Radio Dreamcast dated August 22, 2000. This does not necessarily represent the reality. We can see the progression of the development of the game between the few months separating the 2 prototypes. Photos on the left were taken with the E3 build, those on the right from the Hidden Palace Project Deluge beta. These are just a few examples!

Taxi color (Sibuya M01)

Less detailed stair textures (Sibuya M01)

The Darkness of the Car (Sibuya M01)

The location of the excavator (Sibuya M04)

The buildings in the background, the enemies on the catwalks (Sibuya M04)

Background of the city, arrangement of buildings (Benten M01)

The audio of this build:

The game offered an eclectic soundtrack mixing hip-hop, rap and even metal, all animated by the local DJ who created a crazy atmosphere. The work done on the soundscape was really remarkable and some music is still in our heads. This prototype has possibly unpublished sound tracks.

Songs found only in this prototype:

BB_M.ADX

BB_R.ADX

BB_R_SJ1.ADX

CLR_HARL.ADX

CLR_RICH.ADX

DUN_RIC1.ADX

FANT_SJ1.ADX

FANTA_M1.ADX

FANTA_M2.ADX

FANTA_R.ADX

HAR_ROC1.ADX

HARLE_F.ADX

HARLE_M1.ADX

HARLE_M2.ADX

HARLE_R1.ADX

KAO_BB1.ADX

KAO_M1.ADX

KAO_M2.ADX

KAO_M3.ADX

MAG_HAR1.ADX

NOI_STJ1.ADX

RICH_F.ADX

RICH_M.ADX

RICH_R.ADX

RICH_R1.ADX

RICH_SJ1.ADX

ROC_FAN1.ADX

SCRATCH1.ADX

SCRATCH2.ADX

SCRATCH3.ADX

SCRATCH4.ADX

SCRATCH5.ADX

SCRATCH6.ADX

SCRATCH7.ADX

SJ1_MAGI.ADX

STATION1.ADX

T_NOISE3.ADX

THA_DUN1.ADX

THAT_M.ADX

The songs including those of the  JP version are extended:

CLR_DUN.ADX

CLR_MAGI.ADX

CLR_ROCK.ADX

T_NOISE2.ADX

Regarding " THAT_SJ1.ADX ", the sound is similar to the Japanese version but the data does not match.

Other tracks are not in this E3 build. We can however listen to them in the final Japanese and American version.

We believe the song names were changed during development. During the creation of this E3 build, some music was not finalized, once the song was finished, the developers named it something else to differentiate them. Some examples found:

• (E3) BB_M.ADX and (JP) FUNKY_M sound the same but FUNKY_M seems to be of higher quality.  The data stream is completely different, but it's essentially the same track.

• (E3) RICH_M and (JP) EVERY_M1 , track (E3) RICH_F looks like (JP) EVERY_F1 and (JP) EVERY_F2 put together.

It would be necessary to analyze in detail all the songs in order to find unpublished ones, it would be a long and tedious work.

You can download a comparative Excel table of music below

Jet Set Radio Music Comparison Excel Table (Japanese Prototype-Final Version)

Additional analysis from a friend:

Finding Japanese prototypes is rare. It is however the most interesting for multi-zone games.Tim Ritiau extracted the  models of characters and scenes from game data. Here is the result of this research (on the left the prototype, on the right the final Japanese version):

The grass box is larger in the E3 version compared to the JP version (location unknown)

These 3 trees have been removed from the JP version and are only in E3

The crane has a different position and the model is reversed between versions

According to Tim Ritiau , a  remarkable things is that this version has English subtitles for DJ Prof K's speech on the demo. The JP version has Japanese subtitles.

You can download the build of JET SET RADIO E3 Dreamcast below