TheYanger said:
JSRF is a far superior game. While the tagging aspects were original and cool in the original, they slowed the piss out of the game, and didn't really make it any more 'fun'. I did everything in both games many times, and while I loved JGR, JSRF blew it away, the emphasis on platforming (let's face it, grinding around IS platforming in these games) was much more satisfying and the level design is impeccable.
And now to quote him and repl-
TheYanger said:
JSRF is a far superior game. While the tagging aspects were original and cool in the original, they slowed the piss out of the game, and didn't really make it any more 'fun'. I did everything in both games many times, and while I loved JGR, JSRF blew it away, the emphasis on platforming (let's face it, grinding around IS platforming in these games) was much more satisfying and the level design is impeccable. The challenges added a lot of fun to each area and taught you the routes and how to be a better player very fluidly, much moreso than simply repeating the entire game over and over trying to get JET on everything. I liked the charm of a lot of the original designs vs the harder edged JSRF versions, however. And I REALLY liked the old noise tank and poison jam sections (Benten and Kogane? it's been years) in the first. However the sewer levels in Future are still stronger, and while highway zero is a bore, almost every other level really rewards you for learning them inside and out.
OVER HALF YOUR POST, GHOST-EDITED IN.
I thought JSRF's level design was generally pretty bland. Often getting between subsections of areas required finding a very specific route, and with how big the levels could be, often it wasn't clear where to start looking for it.
I also hated the level where you're stuck on top of, I want to say shipping containers, or tons of tin shanty roofs. It was gigantic, it was bland, and easy to get lost in (I remember the game's map system being confusing). There were some high-up wires to grind, but they were a pain to get up to if you fell off or jumped down. There were also some underground tunnels you took to move between around the area, but they could turn you around pretty badly, and leave you wandering again until you could find a landmark. I was stuck there for a while, and it just made me not want to play the game any more. (I did though, later on started from scratch and played to the end.)
Oh yeah, I'm just remembering, that Egyptian-styled hotel, or some city level, where you have to make tons of huge, and sometimes blind jumps to these far-off buildings with bottomless pits between them, and if you didn't have boost you were SOL? Oh, those were fun.