Hover Reviews
No one on God's green Earth loves Jet Set Radio as much as the developers of Hover, and it shows in every strand of its DNA. The fast, trick-focused movement model is pure Dreamcast, and with spray-painting, challenging races and an anti-authoritarian attitude, this is probably the closest we'll ever get to a full franchise revival. The problem is the elements it brings to the mix - such as its shared online world, the variety of its mission types and the crux of its story - never manage to live up to the legacy of an 18-year-old game.
Hover had all the right qualities to be the true successor to the Jet Set Radio games, with solid high-speed parkour action, a stylish presentation, and an excellent soundtrack. Sadly, these do little to alleviate some of the game's biggest issues, such as unfocused narrative and bad mission design, issues that prevent the game from being nothing more than an acceptable title.
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Hover could have been something more ambitious, thanks to its concept and interesting art style. Unfortunately its flaws and errors end up making this a repetitive and lacklustre experience, with the game's framerate problems, camera issues and tiresome navigation adding up to Hover's shortcomings.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Hover is a game with fundamental design and movement flaws that limit theoverall appeal of the game. However, surrounding these problems is a great universe that is matched by solid mission variety, a unique level-up system, and interesting energy mechanics. In addition, the game's robust basketball-parkour mode, Gameball, is an absolute highlight, and offered the most fun Hover has to offer. Depending on how much these design issues affect your enjoyment will largely depend on what you prioritize in games, and as such, Hover is difficult to give a blanket recommendation.
Overall, Hover is an enjoyable game that gives the player a lot to do. I would recommend it, and say it is worth its current price of $24.99. If nothing so far about the game seems to interest you enough to spend that much, I would wait for a sale before giving it a go.
Despite having several problems in its plot, design and performance, it is impossible not to have fun with Hover, either alone or with friends through the online mode. The game had potential to be much better, but this can be solved with a possible sequel. Still, Hover is definitely a title that will entertain fans of the Jet Set Radio series that until today expect a new game of the franchise.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Hover ultimately feels like a sincere effort by passionate developers to recapture the spirit of a long dead concept. Unfortunately, whether it was a matter of time, resources, or talent, they simply didn't have access to the means to fulfill that desire.
Hover hits all the right notes: it's bright and colourful, with a sort of hip-hop cyberpunk aesthetic and catchy techno soundtrack. But it misses all the marks on the most crucial elements, with a game that's constantly let down by its physics and controls and a story about "Gamers" fighting back against "anti-leisure laws" that seems to entirely miss the point of anti-authoritarianism as a concept.
Midgar Studio & Fusty Games have created an interesting game with Hover: Revolt of Gamers. It mixes elements from different types of game to produce something original that's a lot of fun to play and has an incredibly high replay value.
It may never reach the highs of a Mirror’s Edge or even a Jet Set Radio game, but Hover offers an entertaining parkour-skating racer to Nintendo Switch owners. The menu system needs to be fixed, the camera isn’t perfect, and the frame-rate can be a bit rough at times, but there is still fun to be had with Hover.
For those craving the colorful parkour experience, you’ve come to the right place. Hover: Revolt of Gamers plays fantastically and it has a kicking soundtrack. While there are some issues with the structure of the game, it doesn’t ruin the overall experience.
Aside from that mode probably Hover’s worst problem is an overall lack of meaningful structure and motivation. There’s a ton of stuff you can choose to do, whether trying to find posters to spray your grafitti on, taking out powered signs, or even finding what are essentially small Gameboy units hidden about. You’ll be able to unlock new areas and characters by completing missions and diligently moving through things. You do have opportunities to then level up and enhance your character but this is all done very incrementally, improving your stats in some key areas but it's mostly number crunching, tweaking up by a few percentage points, rather than something truly of interest. The problem is that after a bit no matter how great the movement in the game may be or having access to a new area to do tricks around there’s not much that’s compelling aside from just randomly moving around and having random fun. I suppose that could be the point, and it can be entertaining in bursts, but overall Hover just doesn’t quite feel fully realized when it comes to purpose. If you’re really jonesing for something that has elements of the classic Jet Set Radio Hover will no doubt help satisfy your itch, just understand that for the most part the satisfaction is only temporary.