Wearing your influences up your sleeves proudly can either come off as a copycat or an inspired choice. Developer Wabisabi Games is hoping that it comes across as the latter with their new game Hyperyuki: Snowboard Syndicate, which is undoubtedly inspired by the greatest snowboarding racing game series to hit the 2000s, SSX.
Published by the recently resurrected publisher Acclaim, Hyperyuki: Snowboard Syndicate just released a new gameplay trailer, showing how much it got inspired by the SSX series, as well as Jet Set Radio in its aesthetics.
Hyperyuki has a roster of quirky snowboarders to race as, with upgradable stats and a selection of snowboards (each with different stats) to choose from. Each character even has their own personal logo, something you’d associate these days with VTubers but that was just a thing of character-driven racing games 20 or so years ago.
The track design and the way you trick in Hyperyuki are also undoubtedly inspired from SSX. We have crazy downhill jams, including a snow-covered Tokyo, and big jumps with big airs, big enough that your snowboarder can pull crazy tricks that require them to unstrap the snowboard so it can be flipped around. The UI should have SSX oldheads feel at home, shoutout to the big vertical boost bar on the right side of the screen.
The Jet Set Radio influences comes from the aesthetic style Hyperyuki employs. It has a specific style of cel-shading, colour usage and font selection that evokes the Y2K streets of Tokyo-to, instead of the more pristine, clean and at-the-time peak realistic graphics of the first trilogy of SSX games. If this aesthetic seems familiar, then yes, you’ve seen in the recent indie game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (which is getting a sequel), that’s also inspired from Jet Set Radio.
“We are thrilled, and honored by the reception of Hyperyuki,” said Anwar Noriega, CEO and cofounder of Wabisabi Games. “It has been incredible to see players who grew up with 90s and early 2000s classics revisiting those ‘good old days’ through our game. Even more rewarding is watching a new generation, who never experienced that era firsthand, enjoy our title so much.”
Hyperyuki: Snowboard Syndicate has no release date yet, but it’s coming to PC (Steam).