If you like Jet Set Radio, you should play Butterflies. But why should you play Butterflies? That might take a little time to explain. The game from indie dev LeCrew, led by LeCapitaine, has released on Steam, which is pretty cool to see years after I tried the first demo. While it's obviously not a project to the scale of something like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, it still does well at trying to capture the feeling of the Jet Set Radio games. So let's talk about why I think it's worth your time. Revisiting Butterflies has been interesting for me to say the least. It's been almost 5 years since I received the demo and put out the video on the first version of the game. As a proof of concept, it was definitely a bit rough, but I like the potential I saw in the game. Fast forward a few years, and 3 episodes later, Butterflies is starting to spread its wings, both in gameplay and in world building. It is starting to spread its wings, both in gameplay and in world building. It's cool to see it grow, knowing that the development team is pretty small. The releases on itch.io are great, but seeing Butterflies on Steam is a sign of the game's evolution. Plus, it's that much more accessible to players who enjoyed action games like Jet Set Radio and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The question on my mind right away was how Butterflies would compare to what I played before. Well, actually, the game worked right out of the box. Sort of. Butterflies is divided into three episodes with the latest one, Welcome to the Jungle, having just been released over a month ago before the Steam launch. You'll notice the store page says that the game is free, but that's only for the game launcher, which doesn't really do anything until you buy one of the episodes, which are listed as DLC, because they're all individual executable files. It's a little bit weird, but it's not that bad once you have the episodes downloaded. You launch the game, you pick one of them, and go from there. After I figured out that situation, setup was a breeze. It auto-detected my settings and recognized my Xbox 360 controller. Butterflies is definitely a controller-based game. It says that straight away as you're loading up. It has similar controls to the original Jet Set Radio, with some pretty crazy gravity. That being said, Butterflies does have some differences. For one thing, you don't need to collect spray cans for graffiti or health. You restore your health through trick combos, and you can tag walls as you like. Each episode has a number of graffiti spots, with the option to spray quickly just for points or take some time to make a true mural. I thought I would miss the resource management of spray cans, but turns out I don't. It's nice because it just lets me freely explore. Aside from the main objective, the game also has some side missions that really play kind of like a mission in Tony Hawk. As you're running around spraying the green X's for graffiti tags, you'll notice blue X's that activate missions. Usually it varies from a combo line, a speed challenge, or a graffiti challenge. They're all pretty doable within a couple tries. It's not too hard. You can also track the missions via the main menu, which was helpful. Add in the option to wall ride basically anywhere, as well as spawn teleport around the level. And I think there's a few features here I really wish were in the Jet Set Radio games. But learning how to play the game can take some time. All this information I gave you was from having played the first demo, and then all three episodes. It's not included in the game. It can be kind of daunting because you just get dropped right into the game in a new world without any direction, especially if you're used to a tutorial from a similar kind of game. I wonder if maybe having a tips and tricks menu or maybe like an objective tracker might be helpful for players who are just starting out. But once you get going with Butterflies, you'll really start to notice the world around you. The story centers around teenage skaters, known as Rooties, trying to show some self-expression while under the watchful eye of the militant state of General Sakamoto. But usually some spray paint will get you some privacy. There's even a nice intro in Episode 3 narrated by a radio DJ. Sound familiar? Obviously there's lots of allusions to Jet Set Radio. The game's description talks about people who used to skate and do graffiti, but not anymore. Maybe in some weird headcanon, this is the timeline where Rokkaku wins? Let's just hope it's not as complicated as the Zelda timeline. The references continue on in the game itself, and I will say, I do really like the aesthetic of Butterflies. There's a nice color balance between characters and objects, all accompanied by that iconic cell shading you know and love with some really cool low poly grittiness. It may not be the most refined look, but Jet Set Radio was known for pushing visual boundaries over conforming to rigid standards, so I like the experimentation. The UI has also seen some polish from the last time I played the game too. Episode 3 looks really cool, and some of these visual changes have made their way to the first two episodes as well to improve the overall experience. There's lots to see, hear, and do in Butterflies now, and it kept me hooked and wanting to play more. When I wasn't on a mission, I was messing around with combo lines, seeing where I could grind or wall ride, or trying to collect music CDs in episodes 2 and 3, all while listening to more great music. There's a lot more to the soundtrack of Butterflies, and I found a few artists I really like. Episode 3 also features a track from my pal Shido, which is pretty cool. The songs aren't mixed together in a DJ set style like Jet Set Radio, but you can change your track on the fly, so I think the trade-off is okay. There's also been some cutscene voice acting added in episodes 2 and 3. There's not a lot, but it works with the presentation. I think there could be a little more compression and rebalancing with the dialogue audio, especially since the game music is so loud and compressed, but that's really a small critique. And I don't want to go overboard on critiquing Butterflies because I appreciate the hard work that went into making this game and I had a lot of fun exploring around this world. But there are a few things holding this game back from truly being able to soar. Right off the bat, you gotta add bindable controls, or even a control list in the menu to reference. You can't tweak the controls, and you also have to kinda trial and error your way through moving in the game. Now, if there's an emphasis on gamepad use over using a keyboard, that's fine. It would just be good to have the ability to change things up control-wise. I asked LeCapitan about this, They're gonna try to look into it, but it was mostly due to some errors in the game engine. Stay tuned. Hopefully this gets patched and hopefully you'll have some bindable controls soon. Another thing with controlling the game, I found the camera controls were fine, but a little clunky. Sometimes I could get it to reset to my character if I held down the camera reset button, but sometimes it was trial and error with getting it to play nicely. sometimes it would just fly everywhere. Just know, the camera is very sensitive and it definitely likes to wander. Hopefully it's not just me being really weird at controlling video games, I don't know, but it was just, it was doing some walky stuff. Some of the aspects of the game can definitely take some getting used to, so I think maybe some more explanation, like I said before, in-game tips and tricks would be helpful for new players. The mini-map in Episode 3 works decently well, especially compared to the Jet Set Radio maps. I'm just hoping we can also get a mini-map for Episodes 1 and 2. I had some trouble finding some of the graffiti spots, so definitely not a bad addition in Episode 3. Would like to see it in Episode 1 and 2. finding some of the graffiti spots. So definitely not a bad addition in episode three. Would like to see it in episode one and two. The only other thing I'd like to see would be having the secret characters from the latest episode be able to run around the first two levels or just, you know, bringing those maps right into the multiplayer section of episode three. The game also does feature split screen multiplayer. You can also have someone remote play join a session with you and you can play together. So they don't even really need to own the game, which is pretty cool. This would have been great to talk about if I had any friends who wanted to play games with me. No, that's a hint to my friends to buy Butterflies. Anyway, Butterflies is a love letter for action games like Jet Set Radio and its ties to Sega's rollerblading adventure are no secret. It's had a lot of ups and downs, but I'm glad to finally see this game grow and fly on its own. Even if it's slowed down by some issues, this game has a lot to offer if you like fast-paced action platforming combined with cool sights and sounds. So yeah, if you like Jet Set Radio, I think you should play Butterflies. You can check out the Steam page for the game and get the episodes individually or buy all three as a bundle. I'll link all the ways you can support the Butterflies project in the description. If you liked this video, I wouldn't mind if you stuck around and subscribed, that'd be pretty cool. You can also check out my social media, but that's really going to do it for this time. Thanks so much for tuning in, I hope the rest of your day goes well, I'm Falseproof, and I'll see you later. Bye!