Okay I beat this game. Uhh yeah it was cool to finish this after listening to the soundtrack here and there for like a decade… tho I had to consult a walkthrough a few times.
The thing that struck me most about the game is it’s kind of “90s Cool Japan: The Game”. You know, that period where Akira and Ghost in the Shell were brought over to America as Japanimation and the popularity of those films + anime in general + video games were finally starting to get noticed in Japanese pop culture. The idea that if what we’re sending overseas is considered cool, maybe it can be even cooler here in Japan. So you have a game making fun of JRPGs, full of Shibuya Liquid Room-ass techno and rock, CGI mixed with photography, an entire city built around Japanese tech romanticism, and a caricature of an American father that loves Japan and manga.