Sometimes, you can tell how much fun a game is by simply just looking at gameplay in 5 seconds. Denshattack! is that kind of game. A ludicrous concept, treated sincerely, making use of familiar stylings seen other influential games to execute a simple yet awesome idea: what if you can kickflip a train at high speeds?
Denshattack! (a portmanteau of the Japanese word for train, “Densha,” and “attack,”) is part high-speed platformer, part action sports with a stick-wiggling-based trick system, part rhythm game, part beautiful homage to Japan that culminates into a whole lot of hype-inducing “hell yeah” moments delivered in snackable chunks of five minutes or less.
Developer Undercoders are clearly proud of the games that influenced their taste, and made a game that isn’t afraid of wearing said influences up their sleeves. But when the taste itself is exquisitely informed, and the execution is nigh-on perfect, Denshattack! isn’t railroaded to a fate of being a terrible tossed salad like many “like Game A meets Game B,” but rather a delicately cohesive experience that is more than the sum of its parts.
Presentation
Denshattack! is the platonic ideal of what the meme image of “I want shorter games with worse graphics” featuring Sonic The Hedgehog, stands for. It’s not that a good number of gamers want terrible or shoddy games, but rather they want to see smaller scoped games (the rest of the quote also argue for better paid workers with less work burden).
Presentation-wise, Denshattack! embodies the spirit of a PS2-era game, or rather a Dreamcast-era game, given its influences. The cel-shaded graphics are blocky and isn’t bloated with polygons, just enough to be readable and distinguishable. Environmental objects don’t have much intricate detail, because they don’t need to, you’ll be driving through them full speed ahead anyways. The UI stylings, with the scrolling texts and textured background and an announcer that greets you not in the menu screen as well as being the hype-person that quips regularly when you’re driving the wheels off that train. All good stuff.
3D character models exists, but only used sparingly and mostly out of focus. The cinematics are purposely presented more like an animatic, as in with minimal animation, with the budget pinpointed in making sure the 2D drawings of the colour cast of characters remain unique, stand out and full of life despite appearing mostly still. The vivid, strong contrasting colours and a good amount of halftones being used really gives Denshattack! that comic book/manga feel to it, so having characters not animated as much, either in their 3D or 2D guises, feels like a natural artistic choice even if it’s likely due to the game’s small budget/scope.
Train Set Radio
What Denshattack! doesn’t skimp out on its budget, however, is on its soundtrack. And boy howdy, what a soundtrack it is. The game already has a who’s who list of composers announced at the time of writing, but they’re some surprise names I didn’t expect to appear that just killed it with their contributions to this album that effectively brings back the early Y2K soundscapes of Sega games.
There’s a good reason it’s specifically evoke a Sega sound: a good number of guest composers here are or were part of the Sega Sound Team or the Atlus Sound team, directly or as a contributor, that worked on games like Sonic R, Daytona USA and Persona 3. This star-studded list of veterans are complemented, and led, by the new wave of independent composers on the Denshattack! soundtrack, with some having cut their teeth in homaging the sounds of Sonic The Hedgehog and Jet Set Radio.
At least one song directly samples “Diamonds In The Sky” from Sonic R that I had to do a double take if it’s for real (it is.) At least one song during a racing level has the vocals that gives off Daytona USA vibes (that was indeed sung by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi). At least one rapping verse sound so smooth I said to myself “they couldn’t have gotten freaking Lotus Juice, could they?” Sure enough, Lotus Juice is in the credits. There’s at least one song that follows the playbook of Jet Set Radio’s more iconic tracks, with its sampling of an important, historic speech for use in a sick-ass grooving beat.
That’s not to say every contributor to the Denshattack! soundtrack plays it safe. 2 Mello, the independent composer famous for not one, but two albums of music that are direct homages to Jet Set Radio, brings out his experience in composing video game soundtracks with “Riot Academy,” that has this sneaky, subtle, playful yet suave and thrilling ambience that fits the theme of the level its played in. Kohta Takahashi, the ex-Namco composer famous for his work in Ridge Racer Type 4 (and even made a Ridge Racer tribute album independently) doesn’t bring out the jazz or drum n bass stylings of he’s known in zeitgeist today, but brought out a J-Rock shonen anthemic structure infused with traditional Japanese instrumentals through the track “Typhoon Of Chugoku.” Main composer Tee Lopes made his mark in the video game world with the chiptune sounds in Sonic Mania, but in Denshattack! his music cannot be contained to one style of genre or instruments, but all a good listen. At the time of writing, the full soundtrack isn’t published yet, but somehow, Shoji Meguro also contributed to the Denshattack! soundtrack, as per the game’s credits. The guy known for the hip-hop beats of Persona 3, the uplifting J-Rock and J-Pop of Persona 4, the acid jazz of Persona 5, the supremely unconventional yet inspired orchestra of Metaphor: ReFantazio. I can’t tell what song he did! And this is a compliment: some of these composers didn’t just their familiar, trademark sounds and they still came up with primo music.
Yet with all the different musical talents featured and the range of genres they are, somehow, the music of Denshattack! feels coherent and cohesive. There’s one underlying theme to the musical soundscape: it has this forward momentum, it wants to make you move, schmooving, even. The songs have motion, as they say today. It also helps that in some songs, the constant record scratches gives them that “chugga-chugga-chugga” feel of a locomotive actively and constantly chugging forward at speed. You feel like you want to go at speed in the music made for each of the 65 levels. This contrasts ever so lovingly so with the more downbeat tunes you hear in the menus and the more relaxed parts of the game. Sean Bialo killed it with the menu tunes.
And yes, you can totally experience Denshattack! as just a music album. All of these songs are straight heaters that will keep that coal train schmooving.
That said, because the priority (and budget) was emphasised on the soundtrack, the sound effects do be a little lacking. The game makes some notes how some train engines are supposed to electric and some run on diesel, but I couldn’t tell by just listening. I get why though, Denshattack! is already a sensory overload of a game as it is already, with the speed lines, the (appropriately applied) motion blur, the comically erratic animations of the train when it is jumping, flipping, grinding and such.
Denshattack! features voice acting both in English and Japanese, and they all have good performances throughout. It’s a shame that the voices are saved for cutscenes and in-level chatter, the pre-and-post-level texts are not voiced.
Playing on a PS5, performance-wise Denshattack! has a good lock of 60 FPS, or at least that’s how my eyes perceive it. There are no noticeable framerate drop or hitches throughout my play time.
Overall, Undercoders picked the right options on what to prioritise their resources in to make the presentation of Denshattack! pop. The game looks fresh, despite it being inspired by games of 20+ years ago. The music really shines through the presentation package, it really made the game more fun as an experience thanks to amazing contributions of its large assembly of music composers and talents.
Gameplay
In Denshattack!, you play as Emi, a ramen delivery driver who drives a train to deliver ramen in a post-climate-disaster Japan which sees the ultra-rich live in domed cities while the rest are left to live out in the ruins of what’s left from said catastrophe. Out of the domes, there are rebels who engage in the art of Denshattack, and thanks to an acquaintance in the form of aspiring journalist Fernando, Emi jumps and thrusts herself into an adventure to beat the other Denshattack gangs across the country and later fight the ruling corporation.
Put a pin on the worldbuilding that comes part of that synopsis for later. Let’s first discuss how Denshattack! plays.
If you watch a sliver of gameplay footage of Denshattack! you either go “yoooo that’s awesome!” or “what the heck are we doing that’s so much going on!” and both are correct. There’s so much going on to keep the train on track (and deliberately go off-track) but thankfully, the onboarding is just nice.
First off, you just learn how to take corners, by braking (and essentially drifting) through them, press the brake button and letting go at the right time. Then comes the lane switching ala Subway Surfers (but you’re actually on a train now). Then the jumps and the mid-air lane switching. Then the tricking system where you wiggle the left stick a certain ala Skate and OlliOlli World. Then you start doing… grinds? Wall rides? Summon the 8 Million Road?? Multi-track—well of course a game like Denshattack! has to have multi-track drifting of all things so that’s not a surprise. But yes, there are a lot of what I call traversal mechanics that you need to be on top of.
Slowly but surely, you will treat the train as a skateboard. Even the trick names are derived out of skateboarding tricks, you literally can do a kickflip, with the train flipping in the exact direction of what the analog stick input is supposed to emulate: the “kick” of a skater riding in regular, which causes the board (train) to rotate clockwise, by flicking the stick to the left. Or rather, imagine giant fingers flipping that train. The game rewards your tricking prowess. Similar to SSX, tricks in Denshattack! will fill up a vertical bar. But this bar doesn’t unlock unlimited boost and uber tricks. Rather, this unlocks the Yaoyorozudo: the 8 Million Roads. A play on the concept of the 8 Million Gods, Yaoyorozudo gives you the extra sense to see hidden roads, basically unlocking new, secret paths in the level manifested in the form of rainbow railroads. Shout out to Mario Kart.
As much as Denshattack! appears to be like Tony Hawk’s Pro Train Conductor with its tricking system, the vibe is more Parappa The Rapper. In that seminal rhythm game, you’re mostly supposed to press buttons on the beat, but you can riff and add extra buttons if you’re flamboyant enough that these extra inputs you’re adding won’t mess with the actual, more important aspect of the gameplay.
In other words, while tricking is the meat of Denshattack!, the bone that holds said meat is that it’s a 3D high-speed platformer.
Densha De-Agogo, Baby!
For those unfamiliar with the term high-speed platformer, it’s a sub-genre based of platforming, games where you move around a lot, more often in the form of jumping from one platform to another. A typical 3D platformer, like the Super Mario games, let you roam around and explore at your own will. Contrast that to a Sonic The Hedgehog game, both in their 2D and 3D varieties, where the levels are mostly linear and you just gotta go through it fast. There are route branches and secrets, sure, but the main goal is to make it to the finish as fast as possible, usually without really knowing what to expect what’s coming ahead (or behind) when you first play that level. That’s the spirit of high-speed platformers.
And in this regard, Denshattack! not only got the memo, it did the homework, went to cram classes and take on extra credit work when it comes to executing a high-speed platformer.
You go fast, but not necessarily in velocity. Rather, every level feels like it can take your breath away, mouth agape just witnessing the audacity of it all. So much spectacle, so much splendour, so much hype, so many buttons to accurately press, all in less than 5 minutes per level. Almost every level in Denshattack! is a showstopper. If it’s not some giant set-piece, it’s an unexpected one-off gimmick. If it’s not either, than it’s a skill check to see if you remember the new traversal mechanic just introduced. And if it’s not that, it’s the sheer beauty and scale of the landscapes. And if it’s still not that, then it’s the banging soundtrack that somehow has a unique song for each of the 65 levels.
The audio-visual assault to the sense is a pleasant one, and one that makes it feel like you really don’t have much time to smell the roses. Lock in and nail those jumps and slides to keep the train on and off track.
You’re not forced to react on reflex thankfully. Denshattack! borrowed the design sensibilities of rally games and actual train operations by having visual and audible cues. You see a signage and a little chime when there’s a turn ahead, where you need to be ready to hit the brakes and drift or risk derailment. A caution sign gets thrown as well as a more alarming chime to signal you when to jump or switch lanes due to the rail terminating.
Denshattack! won’t set you to fail, but when the amount of what you need to do when you hear and see a warning starts growing from these two to a good handful, things get wild, and as your brain tries its best to process the information you’re sensing and react correctly, the game starts to feel fast. Not because the train itself starts punching through the speed of sound. But your brain trying to catch up with its decision-making process as the timing window gets shorter and shorter on each subsequent level. Think of riding an actual train. It feels fast, because it can be all rattly and shaky and the senses gives this slightly alert feel, but unless you’re riding on a High Speed Rail or a shinkansen the speed isn’t that too crazy. You get used to it, but if you think about it really feels unnerving.
The last high-speed platformer I played was Sonic X Shadow Generations, the new levels for Shadow Generations had a really good flow to them. From what I can tell, this sub-genre has been flourishing in the indie side of things. I’ve even heard good things about Bubsy 4D. Add Denshattack! to that growing list of great indie high-speed platformers.
Denshattack! has the razzle-dazzle to make you perk up and lock in, but none of it distracting from the many, many traversal mechanics you need to remember and react to. Expect to crash regularly if you’re not at speedrunning levels of platforming competency as I am. But it’s consistent enough that you can learn the rhythm of it all.
Hey, if a racing game can be considered a rhythm game, where mastery is learning to make the exact input each run, surely a high-speed platformer is the same. There’s one level that really makes this connection clear: hats off to the designers that made the connection between rhythm games and racing/platforming games and presented in the most spectacular way.
When I said consistent enough, I do mean by that, because if you somehow do something slightly off-mark and you’ll see the seams of a game almost breaking. The way the collision detection in Denshattack! works means that I’ve seen a good number of trains phasing through the ground and long enough to see the entire skybox from beneath the level before the respawn trigger. There’s nothing game-breaking or anything that severe, but Denshattack! isn’t severely polished to the point that you won’t see any sign of oddities unless you purposely looking for one.
A little janky, in the charming way like a Giant smashing you sky-high off the face of Skyrim. It’ll buff out in a post-launch patch or two, but don’t expect the mechanics to be as robust if you decide to do something unexpected.
Keep On Training
The level design is amazing. When you think that there is more than 50 different levels, each with its own little gimmick/set-piece/big feature/traversal mechanic test, and all of them feel fun to blast through. It’s crazy that Denshattack! has boss fight levels, a game that doesn’t really have a core combat mechanic. But that makes the boss fights so memorable. Each of them are gimmicky, but these are gimmicks that are spectacular (let me vaguely praise that one rhythm game influence, it’s the best) but its one-and-done mechanics are easy enough to pick up in a few tries.
Yes, these levels only run about 3-5 minutes long, maybe close to 10 if you’re really struggling, but this is the case of quantity matters. You can’t really do the same track design trick over and over. The gimmicks are only fun in short bursts. So having more and shorter levels that can throw on new ideas and recall previous ones actually works in the game’s favour. The designers understand how to pace a high-speed platformer, and the gradual addition of traversal mechanics feel natural and never overwhelming. The game escalates its level of challenge and also its variety well, that will hook you into seeing it through. There are stakes at play and there’s a chance you’ll be invested in the story.
All in all, Denshattack! delivers in its high-speed platforming with a trick system promise. The traversal mechanics are plenty and will require practice and mastery, the levels are fun, creative and a spectacle to behold. And it’s just plain out fun when you nail a track perfectly, especially if you keep retrying over and over again. Like a good platformer/rhythm game/time trial-based racing game should.
Content
Denshattack! isn’t a long game. It only took me 6 hours to see the credits roll and that’s with at least an hour of retrying previously levels. If you simply steamrolling through the levels, you can complete the game in 5 hours or less. Short game, but remember that “I want shorter games with worse graphics” meme.
Because of the run time, Denshattack! doesn’t overstay its welcome like a slow train that has to stop multiple times to give way to another train moving in the opposite direction because the other tracks are being upgraded, scheduled to finish in three more years time.
The game doesn’t run out track to keep players engaged with its gimmicks. Some are reserved for just one level, making them very special. The pace-changers that comes from Trick levels (set a high score in 2 minutes time, yes, the first level is set at a hangar—okay, so Denshattack! does literally becomes Tony Hawk’s Pro Train Conductor in specific levels) and Racing levels (finish on the podium in a three-lap race) are much-welcomed reprieve I anticipate with every new region. And the short length of each level makes it more than worth your time in retrying them to improve scores, complete dares (side objectives) and collect collectibles. It all feels just nice, not stretched out too thin, not leaving potential on the table.
It’s time to address that pin: the worldbuilding. Denshattack! surprisingly made its world fleshed out and fascinating. The whole post-climate disaster thing is intriguing especially when most of Japan outside of the domes still look, to an extent, beautiful. The world map is divided accurately into the eight mainland regions of Japan, and levels are spread across the many prefectures that lie within them. You wouldn’t expect a game like Denshattack! to be a game that can be used as virtual tourism, yet beneath the outlandish sci-fi and anime tropes lies a respectful representation of the country’s cultural heritage. I recognise Dogo Onsen and Matsuyama Castle as featured and name dropped in Civilization VII, but here I see them in situ, if you will, in Denshattack! The one tidbit about Japan I learned from Forza Horizon 6 was Tohoku has some amazing paper lantern-making, guess what you’ll see when you reach the penultimate region? As a fan of motorsports, I definitely know of Fuji Speedway, the track overlooking Mt. Fuji. Guess where the racing level in Chubu region is located?
The worldbuilding is compelling enough that I feel motivated to go collect those collectibles that unlocks new page snippets of Fernando’s fanzine. There’s some lore behind the characters, the history of the world and also real-world, cultural lore of the many regions you visit around japan.
Have I mentioned that Undercoders are based in Spain? It’s always cool to see a development team covering another culture: the way Denshattack! presents Japan can feel a little touristy, but it’s all done with respect.
The storytelling in Denshattack!, while predictably follows the arc of a shounen media, is told well. Emi could’ve easily been a Mary Sue but the writing team makes this girl wonder who just entered the Denshattack scene out of nowhere and already starting to challenge the status quo out of nowhere to go have a Hero’s Journey, setbacks and all. The assemble cast of various mismatched peer groups, we’re talking a rich gyaru girl hanging out with a balding bosozoku old-timer levels of mismatch, got enough screen time and interaction with each other making them all loveable in some manner. The story bravely touches on the topical theme of AI making soulless slop. Even if it’s all tropey and derivative, the execution of it feels like a well-crafted shounen anime, with all of its different acts and fillers ultimately concludes in a satisfying manner.
You can unlock new trains, and to an extent customise them with different preset colours, patterns and stickers. Some of the trains even change the behavior of gameplay mechanics, like faster jump charges or having no way to slam from not balancing on a rail grind, with equal amounts of trade-offs. Though I don’t really find most of the compelling outside a few choices. I tend to just stick to a few trains to swap around between rather than make use of the good number of selection available. The trade-offs really demands you to change playstyles altogether, which I don’t really feel like doing in this style of games. Customisation is limited to three predefined colours and patterns per engine.
Denshattack! isn’t a game you’ll be sinking in hours for months, probably something you’d complete in a weekend. But that weekend you spent to complete it the first time will likely linger in your thoughts. Such is the mark of a well-crafted video game.
Personal Enjoyment
Personally, I won’t describe myself as a big Sega guy. I don’t really grow up being influenced much by the then console-maker’s works. But clearly, many folks in the industry are, and we are seeing more often than not video games that evokes the games from the 6th generation of consoles, the last hurrah of Sega as a console maker with the Dreamcast. If it’s not clear as day already, Denshattack! has rather obvious influences to the Dreamcast-era of games.
But come to think of it, maybe I am secretly a big Sega guy, thanks to the influence of other Sega guys and gals.
I like games where you go fast. I have an affinity to trick-based action sports games. I’ve been rediscovering the cool Y2K aesthetics of video games of that era, an era I grew up and rightfully since it’s 20 years ago already, have started to gain a nostalgic movement. I’m not a Jet Set Radio fan per se, but I am a fan of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and the Memories Of Tokyo-to music album.
As such, Denshattack! just does it for me. The concept of a high-speed platformer with trains and a trick system is already a killer idea already, thank goodness it’s not another roguelike deckbuilder. The execution of that concept is what really seals it. When I got the groove in Denshattack!, the game just flows. It definitely gets you into that flow state. It’s also a game where I restart a level over and over and over again, done not out of frustration or rage, but of seeking perfection. It’s the same drive behind restarting a Trackmania run, or a Gran Turismo license test. Getting those gold medal times has been a rewarding chase.
And it’s also just a nice breath of fresh air. So many games are playing it safe and as a result, becoming homogenous. Even in the indie space. So many times I keep getting pitches of indie games that really just has a different theme but based on the same genre hybrid. Not enough to really hook me in, to really prove that it’s a game unlike any other.
Denshattack! isn’t entirely original. It has so many references to anime and its tropes—would you be surprised if I say you need to deliver tofu or see an Akira slide?—but the way it combines these established ideas is what made it stand out. It feels new and novel enough. And I really needed something fresh like this right now. It helps that I also do have a certain affinity in Japan as a country.
That should explain why I really resonated with Denshattack! If you’re in the same boat as I am, someone who’s interested in Y2K video games, Y2K aesthetics, Sega games, action sports games, high-speed platformers, and looking for something different that other games don’t offer, then this is the game for you. And I understand completely if you don’t rate this much if you find some of the things mentioned here is not for you.
Verdict
Denshattack! is a showcase of how indie games can create magical titles that a small-scoped project can successfully achieve. The combination of action sports tricking and high-speed platforming produces exhilarating fun in short bursts. The presentation of this stylised title that evokes the spirit of Dreamcast-era games is extremely on point. The soundtrack is something you’d pay money for how good it is. And the execution of its story and worldbuilding, all involving Japan and both its pop culture and historical culture, are done with respect.
If you see 5 seconds of gameplay for Denshattack!, you already know if it’s for you or not. If you think it’s for you, don’t hesitate. Like your local public transportation services, indie games like this you shouldn’t be thinking twice in supporting, or the corporations get the wrong idea and fund more slop instead.
So go, wait on the train platformer platform for Denshattack! Get on board the hype train. Because the hype is real.
Played on PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher.
Denshattack!
Denshattack! is a showcase of how indie games can create magical titles that a small-scoped project can successfully achieve.
- Presentation 9.5
- Gameplay 9
- Content 9
- Personal Enjoyment 10