“Clutch kicking into the corner of the apex, the back-end feels loose as you try to initiate a tandem drift with the Skyline ahead. The roads aren’t fully closed off, so the traffic welcomes you as your Fairlady Z slides in.”
Demos are always a great way to judge how a game would play before it’s full release, be it a closed/open beta or even being a part of a demo event that can help showcase your stuff onto a bunch of people before releasing it towards the public. It was like that back in the day, and the same can be mostly said for the here and now as well.
JDM, or Japanese Drift Masters, has already done a Demo of sorts last year during the Steam Next Fest, but this one is more of a beefer Prologue. This has some story bits, a Drifting School to master and even most of the game’s map now unlocked to drive around.
What Does DK Stand For Anyway?
To be the town’s Drift King, you must master the controls and handling of the car.
So how is the driving model, you say? Well, it does feel quite easy to slide the car around the Japanese mountain roads like that one racing anime, and will grip up during the turns should you want to send the car driving like that Tofu Delivery Driver as well.
And the handling does vary from the cars that you can drive in this prologue, like the BRZ is a front-wheel machine, so it does grip into corners but would have difficulty drifting, while the hero car, the Green Z, is rear-wheeled so drifting does feel like second nature. It’s these neat touches to detail that I feel JDM gets it right for an open-world racer already. 
Plus, if you want to learn more on how to do more sick drifts, we have the introduction to the Driving School that’s not too dissimilar to a certain GT game. it’s a perfect place to sharpen those skills because the missions you will do are sometimes set in the tight and twisty sections of town, so you might need to brush up your drifting and driving skill if you want to score big and not hit the tables at the roadside.
The story that’s in this prologue is quite interesting, as we are stepping in the shoes of the antagonist of the main game, one Hatori “Scorpion” Hasashi, whose strict family background is one of the main reasons he’s part of the drifting scene later on. The story is told in manga panels that are a cool addition that does feel like a throwback to the 2000s era PS2 Japanese racers, which helps bridge it to the stuff you’ll be racing around in.
Really, this prologue is quite a good slice of what you can expect when the full game comes out later this year. It feels like they have pressed the right buttons for their launch to be successful, they just now need to nail that angle.
JDM: Rise of the Scorpion is out now on PC via Steam.