The level design is really not complementary with the gameplay/mechanics.
Tedious life bar combined with timer and amo pickup.
Long timer means that you start again fucker when you fail, loosing up to sixteen minutes.
Exits to the levels through which you can be dragged by cars, making you start again sucker.
Ennemis that appear as you progress, practically locking you out of some objectives if you do not know the proper order you should be completing them in.
Levels that can't be finished with some characters because of their stats, but it won't tell you that.
No restart button during the long races, you wait or you go through multiple load screens.
Absolutely no defense against ennemis that plow you as if you were a running back (had to look it up).
Floaty, unresponsive controls that make it very hard to land where intended.

Makes it one of the most frustrating and punishing game I ever played.
Still.
There is something to it that makes me like it, even if it's mostly grating.
And it's fairly short, less five hours even if you suck at it.

The release of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk made me remeber that I need to play this game. Tried for the first time on the old Dreamcast and I found it barely playable: the character goes anywhere, never lands properly and never faces the right direction.

I still decided to give the game a proper chance, so I turned to the mighty PlayStation 3 to see if the dualshock 3 would at least allow for some camera controls. Turns out the game's pretty good! I do think having a time bar, combined with a life bar, combined with the need to pick up spray paint is a very tedious design choice that shows the age of the game though.

I rented this game a long time ago. I've never forgotten it, because it's got so much style. It's got that arcade style of Sega, but it's got some crazy art-house quality going for it. I also started this game up every now and then on the Xbox 360 because...that music, man. The whole game had this atmosphere that couldn't quite be replicated anywhere else. I mean, the controls suck. But no other game is really like it. I guess Tony Hawk established the skateboard-grinding controls and maps, but Jet Set Radio went in a whole different direction with the art style, controls, and ridiculous mischief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeKq7vseMSE

It is a game not unlike Tony Hawk. It has a good artstyle with a lot of flavor, I just didn't feel it aged well. It wasn't that fun now-a-days. Sure its one of the best games on the Dreamcast, but there are better games out there with similar gameplays.

No, Jet Set Radio is not the greatest game of all time. However, it still has the most atmospheric music and visuals that I've ever seen for a game. Jet Set Radio literally set the art standard for Japanese games in the new millennium by establishing a brightly colored, cel-shaded 3D graphics engine for polygons. Jet Set Radio always felt like it was ahead of its time, showing all the possible angles for developing 3D maps. The bizarre cartoon police violence is a bit ridiculous in this game and the controls could use a lot more work, but these are minor flaws in a standard-setting cult classic. Bottom line, it's an incredibly cool snapshot of the counter-culture movement in Japan that just hasn't been replicated the same way in any other game.

Despite what you've played and what you've heard, Jet Grind Radio is only tangentially about skating and graffiti.

One of the most unique platformers I've ever encountered.