Is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk the Jet Set Radio heart transplant we've been searching for?

I am a part of an exclusive club of individuals. We had the joy of experiencing Jet Set Radio Future on the original Xbox in our youth and have yet to find anything truly better, or in many ways, even close.

We get our hopes up every now and then. Games like Mirror’s Edge satiate some of our futuristic free running needs. Titles like Hover: Revolt of Gamers tempt us with their clear homage styling. But none are quite right.

The next in our series of hope raising games is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and I hate to say it but I’m cautiously pretty freaking optimistic.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is being developed by Team Reptile, who made well received and similarly styled sports vs game Lethal League Blaze. Like LLB, BRC looks a lot like Jet Set Radio Future, and very purposefully so. Especially in the newest trailer.

Honestly, if someone had told me that this was some sort of incredibly late DLC for Jet Set Radio Future, I might believe them. The style is bang on, and even the music composed by famed JSRF composer and Twitter shitposter Hideki Naganuma just hits straight into my graffiti soul.

There’s little touches in the trailer that make me think Team Reptile really gets it. Like the snake sculpture a character grinds over which feels similar to the large dragon from JSRF’s 99th street level.

The trailer also shows off some new touches. Like being able to grind upside down and a new graffiti system that seems to meld the original Jet Grind Radio with JSRF into something more modern.

But, like I said, we’ve had our hopes raised before. Hover: Revolt of Gamers, for instance, also incorporated some of Naganuma’s music which was of course excellent, but the game itself never truly scratched the itch.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk looks like the answer to my Jet Set prayers. I think I'm ready to believe again.