Sunset Overdrive is above all about Style. That’s capital-T Style, the jagged meter in the top-right corner of the display. An absent-minded scientist named Floyd starts schooling you on Style early in the adventure. Generally, Style is built up by pulling off stylish and heroic actions, shredding the rails, roofs, wires, and sheer walls of Sunset City while taking out the OD mutants, Scab looters, and Fizzco security slaughtering the citizenry.
Style is built most efficiently (and maintained) by pulling off consecutive kills and traversals one after another without ever simply standing on the ground, and without ever going more than a few seconds between traversals or kills. If three OD (that’s “Overcharge drinkers,” Sunset City citizens who tried an advance batch of a new Fizzco energy drink that mutated them into murderous freaks) rush you on the ground and you simply shoot or swat them one by one, then sure you’ll kill them, but you won’t get any Style out of it. And you’ll be much more vulnerable too. But if instead you bounce or pole swing up to a rail above the OD, start grinding, then aim down and blow those three OD away from above, you’ll build Style fast with a Combo Counter of at least x5 and growing. This will probably trigger Style level 1. Plus, enemies have a much harder time hitting you if you string together traversal moves.
What’s a Traversal?
A traversal is a maneuver that takes your hero from one background element to another without stopping. String traversals together and you’ll create acrobatic sequences like bouncing from a car to a power line, grinding the line then jumping into a facing building to wall run along, before jumping off the wall and vaulting onto a nearby rooftop.
Traversals
(increase Combo Counter):
• Handspring from dodge roll (while grounded, push left analog in some direction plus X, then A while rolling)
• Bounce (fall or jump onto a bounce-ready object, like cars, tarped containers and truckbeds, skylights, air vents with fans, boats, etc.)
• Vault (tap or hold A while falling near a graspable lip or edge)
• Pole Swing (X approaching perpendicular to an appropriate horizontal bar or pole)
• Grind and undergrind (X approaching parallel to an appropriate surface, like power lines, pipes, rails, ledges, and so on)
• Wall Run (X while approaching a suitably straight and lengthy wall at a sharp angle)
• Wall Corner (X when approaching a corner during wall run)
• Wall Jump (A during wall run)
• Wall Jump (away from wall plus A when jumping into wall)
• Not initially available: Water Dash (X just before landing on water), super bounce (A while hitting a bounce-ready object), air dash (RB once per jump), slam bounce (A upon landing from a dive bomb attack)
Not Traversals
(do not increase Combo Counter):
• Walk, Run*
• Dodge Roll*
• Jump / Flip Jump
• Double jumping off a wall (not during wall run)
• Air Control (guiding your aerial hero with the left analog stick)
• Reversing direction while grinding/undergrinding (left analog stick opposite the direction of movement plus X)
• Swapping from grind to undergrind (or vice versa; X)
• Boost (RB)
• Aim (right analog stick)
*Jumping and flip jumping (jumping immediately after swapping from undergrind to grind) are not traversal moves for the sake of Style. But as long as you’re airborne, you’re not at risk for your Combo to suddenly end. If you simply land flat-footed, though, your Combo is over. There are exceptions to this, though: You can also press X just before landing to dodge roll on contact, then press A to handspring before the roll ends. Find another traversal spot during this jump period and you’ll get away with touching down, since you tumbled and sprang right back into the air, never idling at a normal standing state. Another exception applies if you just killed an enemy during your Combo, which gives you a tiny grace period on the ground. You’ll benefit from this grace period more frequently if you often use deployable weapons, which can generate kills without your help, sometimes salvaging what seem like lost Style Combos. You also have some leniency if you plunge from the air with a dive bomb attack that kills an enemy, allowing your Combo to continue if you immediately jump back onto some traversal object.
As the Style meter fills up, you’ll get to level 1, 2, 3, and then maxed level. Increasing Style activates Amps, which power up the behavior of your weapons and your hero in various ways. It’s a positive feedback loop: as you build Style, you grow both less vulnerable and more powerful. Different Amp types activate at different Style levels. Some Amps amplify ground melee combos or aerial melee dive bombs, while other Amps activate when you bounce or grind through the city. Some Amps can be attached to specific weapons, adding all kinds of insane effects: you can have a flaming shotgun that has a chance to shock other enemies near the blast victim, or a machine gun that has a chance to turn defeated enemies into bouncing teddy bear explosives. Basically, play stylishly for ridiculous (and ridiculously powerful) results. Aside from the occasional task that sees you stopping to talk to a person or to interact with some object, it’s possible (and encouraged) to play all of Sunset Overdrive in a near-constant Style Combo, constantly on the move while dropping all sorts of outrageous weaponry into the monsters clambering after you.
