The Ascent is a twin-stick shooter RPG set in an almost painfully detailed cyberpunk world, and the most striking thing about it is that world. The game takes place in one of those arcology things that I first heard about in SimCity 2000, on a distant, dystopian planet called Veles, and once you’ve fought your way out of the first location (a deep, industrial area teeming with mutated “ferals”), this arcology is artistically and impressively realised.
Different ammo types are effective against different bad guys. Against robot baddies like this guy you’ll need energy weapons to take them down effectively.
A city built on multiple layers, metal walkways, piled rubbish, alleyways with bars and shops with detailed interiors, hordes of NPCs hanging around or walking here and there, dancing holograms, passing hover-cars, shining neon lights, and crazy-looking alien races, there’s something to look at everywhere you go in this game. You’re very much encouraged to explore every corner, too, with side-quests and hunts for upgrade parts taking you behind every dumpster and inside every high-tech, equipment-strewn laboratory. The Ascent’s world and ambience is an amazing achievement, but I never felt fully compelled to uncover every area and interact with every NPC, and found myself glazing over when any of those odd-looking alien fellows tried to lay any kind of lore on me.
It might be because of the pacing. The world is large and sprawling, and while there are fast-travel options, they are limited and come with some hefty load-times. Also, whenever you try to walk anywhere you’ll find yourself constantly attacked by veritable hordes of tooled-up cyber-assholes to an immersion-breaking extent. It does get annoying, and it gets you to wondering where the heck The Ascent’s equivalent of MAX-TAC are. These streets are absurdly lawless, and wandering NPCs are constantly strolling into the line of fire and getting themselves spectacularly dismembered. It’s too much and it’s all the time, and it took me out of the world.
There is a story with loads of lore to back it up, but I couldn’t drum up much interest and found myself checking my phone, sipping my root beer, or staring into my lime and coconut-scented candle during cutscenes.
As for the gameplay, it’s pretty good. The violence unfolds in satisfying fashion when you’re not overloaded by the non-stop backtracking encounters, and there are loads of weapon-types and techy skills and upgrades to fiddle about with until you find a character build you like. It does feel clunky sometimes, though, and there are some frustrating difficulty spikes to the point that on one or two occasions I felt that I had to cheese my way through. It was that, or grind a few levels, and I wasn’t enjoying the combat enough (and nor was it mindless enough) for me to go grinding.
It was the atmosphere that kept me coming back until I beat the campaign.
The Ascent is undoubtedly a good game, and the environments are nothing short of stunning, but some frustrating battles, user-unfriendly fast-travel and world design, long load-times and occasional slowdown all hold it back from being as great as its visual design deserves. I found myself wishing it was a little bit more linear and a little bit more action-coded. A bit more of a quickie, if you will.
I bet it’s a lot of fun to play cooperatively, though! If your pals can put up with the load-times and constant wandering around, that is.
I haven’t posted anything in a while. I don’t really know if there’s anyone out there who looks at this site regularly, but I have been getting a few comments lately so I feel like I should at least put something up before the month is over. I’ve been going through some stuff in my personal life, and when I have had the time and/or mental capacity to write I’ve been prioritising my reviews for Sega Mania Issue 10. However, I’ve still been finishing games, with Sonic Rush, Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake, and Transformers: Devastation among the handful of games I’ve knocked on the head this year, all while being in the wrong state of mind to write about the experience. Most recently, though, I finished the indie love letter to Jet Set Radio that is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, so lets see if I can think of some things to write about that.
Despite being an ardent and loyal Sega soldier right up until the original blue brand bowed out of the console market I’d never actually played Jet Set Radio. At the time I was vehemently anti-skater culture and was more interested in RPGs. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was released in 2023 and dropped to a budget price pretty quickly, and by this time I was more interested in gaming history and checking out classics that I’d missed. I didn’t want to spend the money on the Xbox or Dreamcast Jet Set Radio games (not yet, anyway), so Bomb Rush Cyberfunk seemed like a cheap and cheerful alternative. It was developed by Team Reptile and wears its inspiration clearly and proudly. Too proudly, some have said, because this game apes Jet Set Radio to the point of obsession right down to the verbal rhythm when you say the name. Still, it was completely original to me.
This is Bel, she’s the Gum of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. That’s a sentence that would sound really strange to the average person.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bomb Rush Cyberfunk or its inspiration, the aim of the game is to skate your way around a colourful, futuristic city that basically acts as a giant skaters’ playground, taking on the authorities and rival crews, and tagging specific areas with your gang’s graffiti tag. There’s a mad story in which you play as a character who’s head has been cut off and replaced with a robot head and no one seems even remotely fazed by this, up to and including the decapitated character himself. Thanks to the fact that I started this game in 2024, played it a bit more in the summer of 2025, and finally finished it this year, though, I couldn’t really follow the story that well, and when the big reveal of the protagonist’s identity happened I didn’t really understand what was going on, but that was on me.
While free roaming, you’ll be exploring, rail-riding and tricking with impunity and it feels pretty good just to skate, slide, or bike around without the pressure of finding out what happened to your head weighing you down. You’ll also be seeking out and collecting outfits, graffiti designs, and music tracks, and tagging specific spots throughout the neighbourhoods to increase Bomb Rush Crew’s rep. Partaking in this last activity will attract the interest of the local constabulary, and that’s bad, because combat is the game’s weakest aspect and fighting off the law is an annoying distraction at best.
The stylised, clean, near-future aesthetic is very appealing.
The fighting feels like an afterthought, almost completely devoid of impact or feedback, and certain types of opponent, like the riot shield-wielding lawman and the turret that shoots chains with handcuffs, are especially frustrating to deal with. I found myself avoiding combat altogether until the heat got too high to manage, and then it was time to find the nearest Portaloo to get changed into a different coloured outfit so that the police no longer recognised me, similarly to how avoiding the law works in real life. There are also boss fights, but I generally found these to be pretty fun as they tended to incorporate the rail grinding mechanic.
When not mooching around the city or fighting back against oppressors you’ll be taking on other crews in various missions, which can take the form of races, trick challenges, or following specific stunt courses without falling down to street level or losing your trick combo. Building up this trick combo is super important to the challenges, because if you lose the combo early on your opponent will almost always run away with an insurmountable lead. These trick challenges can fluctuate in difficulty depending on the area you’re in and how many rails and ramps you’ve got to play with. In general, though, a combination of corner tricks on rails and hitting tricks while boosting will get you through.
When you’re looking at the in-game phone display to check out the map or look at messages and collectibles, the character models will get their phone out. It’s a neat touch.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is absolutely at its best when you’re in the zone, sliding around on railings and skating along giant sculptures, soaking up the cool future city atmosphere and vibing with the music. The soundtrack is excellent, and the developers managed to get Jet Set Radio composer, Hideki Naganuma, on board for a few tracks. These are the highlights of what is a dynamic set of tunes that often perfectly supplement the on-screen action. I did find a couple of the tracks a bit grating, but it’s easy enough to skip them.
The visuals are cool too, featuring ultra-stylised, cel-shaded characters and locations. The characters are well designed but they aren’t very expressive, and I do think that they’re a little too minimalistic visually. The art style works fantastically with the environments, though, and the city is really memorable. My favourite location was the affluent downtown area known as Mataan, which is fully explored during the late game, and features outrageous rail networks linking the tops of skyscrapers with night-time city streets glittering below.
The alternative outfits that you can find for the characters are just recolours. The police still fall for it though.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is still the only “skating” game I’ve ever played (no, I’ve never tried any of the Tony Hawks games either), but it’s definitely opened my eyes to a genre I’ve neglected. If I find some reasonably priced copies of Jet Set Radio or Jet Set Radio Future, or if Sega ever release that new one they revealed a couple of years back, I’d definitely be keen to get into that series. As for Tony Hawks? Well, maybe, but I’d rather listen to Hideki Naganuma’s music than anything by early 2000’s punk bands, that’s for sure.
Wait! I have played another skating game! Remember Skitchin’ on the Mega Drive? Maybe I’ll review that on here one day.
