Denshattack! Review – The Dreamcast Spirit Lives On

Denshattack! Review

There were a lot of us out there who saw the trailer for Denshattack!, and reacted by thinking “I don’t know what that game’s gonna be like, but I want it in my life”. It looked like an extreme sports game, akin to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or SSX, with visuals like Jet Grind Radio, where the player controls a bus. The whole vibe looked absolutely nuts. This description is not far from the end product. And I’m happy to report that Denshattack! greatly exceeded my expectations.

Denshattack!’s story is about a future Japan, where everyone lives in geodesic domes that are connected by railroads. Everything outside has been destroyed by some great catastrophe. Our protagonist is Emi Araki, a ramen delivery person who uses a train to make her deliveries. Early on in the story she’s told about Denshattack, a league of train drivers that race and perform tricks for fun. She immediately wants in.

Fun World Building

Denshattack!’s progression has Emi travelling to several prefectures of Japan. Each region has 10 tracks or so, and ends in a boss battle against that region’s gang leader. The narrative takes a backseat to Denshattack!’s world-building. But it makes a perfectly fine vehicle for the game to progress. The story isn’t complex, but the dialogue and cutscenes never overstay their welcome. The story complements the gameplay well.

The world building is also complemented by the game’s incredible aesthetics. Normally I write about graphics and music towards the end of my reviews, but they’re such an immediate and captivating part of Denshattack!. The game has a modern Japanese cell-shaded anime graffiti aesthetic, reminiscent of series like Jet Set Radio and Persona. Every level and menu is radiating style and color. There’s definitely a SEGA Dreamcast-era palette influence that brings to mind games like Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure. There are even animated 2D cutscenes. The music is a collection of gorgeous jazzy synth tracks inspired by 90s SEGA arcade games. The aesthetics really couldn’t be more impressive, especially when taking into account that Denshattack! is an indie title.

Truly Unique

Denshattack!’s gameplay is as unique as its visuals. At first, it seems like an extreme sports or racing game, but a lot of the gameplay has the player reacting to prompts. The end result is a combination of racing, tricks, and platforming that plays out like a rhythm game. It’s a truly unique combination of gameplay variety, and it had me flashing back to my days of playing Amplitude for PS2. Needless to say, I loved Denshattack!’s gameplay.

To move the player’s vehicle forwards, they just have to press X once at the start of a level. To destroy obstacles, the player has to press R3. Break is L2. The player drifts around corners by pressing L2, which has to be held when the drift bar appears. The drift meter goes from red on the edges, into yellow, and is green in the middle. Release on the green sweet spot in the center of the meter to get a speed boost. Tracks sometimes split, and the player has to point the left joystick in a chosen direction, but also drift during turns.

Smooth Moves

Sometimes there will be obstacles on a track, and the player has to press the left joystick horizontally to move to another track. Hold R2 and release to jump. The player can switch tracks while jumping. Some sections of the track will prompt the player to grind instead of boost through turns. A grind meter appears and the player has to move the left joystick horizontally to keep the cursor in the middle of a meter, like they’re balancing. Sometimes, the player will jump and have to move downwards quickly, so a ground pound is performed by pressing L2 and R2 at the same time while airborne.

Tricks are performed by jumping, then moving the right joystick in fighting game-like movements, such as left, followed by a half circle turn. Tricks earn the player points. The pause menu has a “Tricktionary”, which is a list of inputs for all the basic, medium, advanced, and hardcore tricks. The player can manual by holding up or down on the left joystick when landing a trick. This keeps a combo going. The player can chain tricks by landing into a manual, and performing another trick out of it, then landing another manual, and so on.

Aim for the Top

Drifting is needed to build speed, in order to jump, so the player can perform tricks more easily. There’s a scoring system based on speed and points. Gaining enough points will level up the player. Each level also has challenges called “Dares”. These include general challenges, like “perform 5 perfect drifts”, and level-specific challenges, like “trick over the Moai heads”. The player crashes every time they miss a turn or jump. They’re sent back to generous checkpoints throughout levels, like in a platform game. This makes levels easy get through, but extremely difficult to beat without crashing. Crashes cost the player precious time and end combos.

Denshattack! is a difficult game, with a steep learning curve. There are so many mechanics to keep track of, and the track speed is incredible. New obstacles pop up fast. The game incentivizes trick use immediately, and a lot of bonuses are locked behind points gained from tricks. I highly recommend focusing on getting familiar with courses and timing first. Getting through the tracks is easy enough, but it’s impressively hard to get even a bronze rating for speed.

Level Variety

There are some non-linear levels, where the player has to take different paths, and complete objectives, like horn honking to smash certain objects around the track. There are also levels designed to be more like trick playgrounds. Even though they’re still on-rails, there are more jumps, and the player’s goal is to get a maximum trick score within a time limit. Some levels also have unique sections where the player performs wacky actions such as riding a Ferris Wheel. These sections are usually comparatively easy, but provide a fun spectacle and often feature bonus dares. Boss levels often feature or introduce new mechanics. The gameplay and controls remain the same, but the player will be dodging attacks, and trying to crash into their opponent. Boss fights are a real treat.

If I had one complaint about the gameplay, it’s that the visuals are so wacky that it can be difficult to tell what prompt is coming up. The game tracks throw prompts at the player very quickly, and it can be hard to decipher a red change lanes symbol from a red jump symbol in the heat of the moment. The only real way to combat this is track memorization. Denshattack! is designed for players to replay levels over and over. If players don’t care about scores and unlockables, the narrative really doesn’t have fail states due to all the level check points. It’ll just hurt the player’s pride. But this is a real nitpick by me, and I thoroughly loved the gameplay.

World Map

Between levels there’s a world map where the player can select levels. From this map, players can also check their scores, check the Tricktionary, or use the garage. There are different vehicles that can be unlocked. Most of Denshattack!’s unlockables are cosmetics for vehicles. These include different colors, patterns for the colors, and graffiti stickers to go over top. There’s also a zine that the player can unlock sections of. There are new chapters for each region of the map, and there are lots of sections of pages to open up. These include images, character bios, boss info, region history, etc. The zine makes for a great supplement that would make a great collectable in a physical edition of the game.

Denshattack! is a phenomenal single player experience, but it seems like a missed opportunity that there’s no multiplayer of any kind. As a partial racing game, it would have been amazing to see a variation of gameplay that focuses on timing, and offers split screen competitive racing. There’s also no online functionality, so, again, there’s no multiplayer. But even a feature like online leaderboards would have added obvious value to Denshattack!’s package. The only other issue I had is that the music volume isn’t balanced in menus and in levels. The volume levels in cutscenes, and on the world map, are way quieter than they should be.

Everyone Should Experience

Denshattack! is a wholly unique experience. It stands out, looking like a wacky anime bus racing game, but calling it a racing game doesn’t even begin to cover its mechanics. There are elements of extreme sports, platform, and music rhythm gameplay. The tracks also have an incredibly fast pace. There are tons of unique, epic set pieces and level variety to break up gameplay. If you’re at all curious about Denshattack!, then absolutely play it. Its only glaring flaw is that it seems like it should have multiplayer options. The single-player experience is loaded with content, though. It’s refreshing to play a game this original in every aspect. I loved the game so much that I’m going to pick up a physical copy if one is announced.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher***