How sensitive is tagging on the PC version?

Question

I have noticed that Jet Set Radio is now available on Steam as Jet Set Radio HD. I was wondering how well this works on a PC using a keyboard - the reason I ask, I have played this game extensively on a Dreamcast, and one of the key points of the game is to 'tag' various parts of the environment (such as busses, walls, gates, etc) with your art.

On the Dreamcast, this was done with the analogue sticks, and if you didn't do exactly the arrangement as prompted on screen you had to start again. This is shown in the screenshot below;

On the Dreamcast this would have involved rotating the analogue stick clockwise, and then anti-clockwise, in quick succession.

Since a PC keyboard is not capable of making these movements, how does tagging work on the PC version of Jet Set Radio? Has it been tweaked to make it less sensitive to failure or would I need an analogue gamepad in order to play this game on PC?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, the keyboard controls for Jet Set Radio are pretty terrible. Upon launching the game, you're met with the following pop-up:

This, unfortunately, isn't very intuitive when it comes to tagging sites in the actual game.

After some trial and error, I discovered the solution for tagging areas such as the one in your screen shot.

Right before this screenshot was taken, I had a single down arrow. I managed to complete it by pressing S. However, upon completing that, I was met with what you see here. My first two attempts at this ended in complete failure. Eventually, I learned that the appropriate pattern for this particular arrow was: S > D > W. If I didn't do it fast enough, it failed, wasting a can of paint. If I did it too fast, it failed, wasting yet another can of paint.

So, long story short (too late!), the keybindings for keyboard use during tagging is horrible. While it doesn't require a gamepad to play, you would probably find your experience much more enjoyable if you used one.