Our review of Denshattack!, developed by Undercoders. Available now for PS5 (reviewed), Xbox S, Switch 2, and Windows/Steam.

WHAT IS IT?

It’s basically one of those mobile endless runner games, stewed together with some Tony Hawk and Jet Set Radio, and also Train Simulator but also Sonic Adventure and, like, Crazy Taxi?

IS IT GOOD?

It’s a lot of goofy fun, though it risks running out of steam after your thirtieth or fortieth train race.

WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?

Miles Tails Prower.

OVER THE HOOD

Denshattack! is a delightful example of one of those games which came out of nowhere, entertained a whole lot of gamers with its trailer, and then absolutely delivered on its initial premise.

It’s easy to understand Denshattack!’s appeal: the cel-shaded visuals which pop off the screen, the goofy sense of humour, and the rail-grind, trick-heavy gameplay call to mind some of the greats of the Dreamcast generation – games like Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, and, of course, Jet Set Radio, to which this game is most indebted.

So what is D!, anyway? Well, the official logline from the website mostly does it justice:

Flip, trick and grind your train in a fast-paced, off-the-rails ride through a colourful Japanese dystopia. Outmatch rival gangs, wreck a shady megacorp, and take back the tracks with nothing but skill, speed, and style.

It is, in other words, a game about trick-riding trains. As in, actual, passenger/subway/cargo-style trains which, through the grace of D!’s magical physics system, are capable of leaping off the tracks, spinning and flipping mid-air, hopping back and forth between rails. Would this game make more sense if it featured, say, a roller blader or a lombax? Sure. But then it wouldn’t be half as silly.

THROUGH THE STREETS, ER, TRACKS

There is a lot of Denshattack!. There is a lot to Denshattack!.

While it starts off fairly explicable – insofar as a “backflip this train off this near-future Tokyo track five times” tutorial goes – it soon gets delightfully, wildly out of control, with increasingly convoluted levels which play more like digital roller coasters than anything remotely resembling a real-world train track.

The controls are… manageable, albeit fairly complex. You’ll need to learn the correct button-presses and timing to drift through corners; when to hop between parallel rails to avoid objects (or to explore quasi-hidden alternate routes); how far to push your tricks without overdoing it. The game has an admittedly steep learning curve – even the early tracks can be tough, and by the end you’ll be managing a whirlwind of techniques in order to stay just barely alive.

RIGHT INTO YOUR BRAIN

Denshattack!’s story is fine, albeit one of those things where you’re surprised that so much effort was put into it. It’s a game about trains which can ollie and heelflip and basically do all the tricks you learned in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. That’s not something which requires a lengthy, anime-inflected storyline about rebellious teenagers in a dystopian Japan, but so be it. (I found myself regularly skipping dialogue scenes just so I could get back to the action.)

Really, the meat and potatoes of D! is learning how to chain together your increasingly improbable “train tricks”. Button inputs need to be precise, with (fairly) little room for error. If you’ve spent any amount of time in Street Fighter, a lot of it will feel familiar: forward, down, down-forward, forward to activate a trick; rotate the analog-stick 360 degrees, Zangief-style, for an even more complex trick. Wall-riding is, of course, essential to the experience.

As are boss fights. I never thought I’d write the phrase “Tokyo Train Mega-Boss” in a review, but here we are. These train-villains aren’t quite Transformers-style anthropomorphic enemies, but close to it, with gimmicks – and yes, transformations – that enliven the experience every few levels, so you’re never growing too tired of just completing track after track.

The level design is also wonderful. Honestly, I’m not convinced D! would work without its diversity of stages, since half the fun is looping through all the wildly designed spaces. The screenshots in this review give some hint at it, but really – again, like Tony Hawk – if you were jumping and flipping through a bare environment, it just wouldn’t work as well.

While one can’t quite escape the feeling this is basically a gussied-up take on, say, Temple Run, it’s still an enjoyable riff on a genre we fell in love with all the way back in our beloved Dreamcast days.

***
Final score: 8/10 graffiti tags in impossible locations.

Visit the official website for Denshattack! here.