Denshattack!

I went in half-expecting a gimmick and came out three hours later with muscle cramps from white-knuckling the controller. Denshattack! is the kind of game that sounds absurd on paper - a trick-score-attack title where your vehicle is a train - and then spends its entire runtime proving the concept is completely, brilliantly sound. You play as Emi, a soba delivery person turned novice Denshattacker, working her way across all of Japan's regions to dismantle the shadowy Miraidō megacorp, one combo chain at a time. The story is serviceable and warm rather than groundbreaking, but it gives the cast enough heart that you actually care which rival gang leader you're about to humiliate. The core loop will feel immediately familiar to anyone who grew up with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Jet Set Radio, and that comparison is not lazy shorthand - Undercoders clearly built this from those bones on purpose. You jump between rails, grind to keep your combo multiplier alive, drift through corners, wall-ride across gaps, and hit vert ramps for big air. The trick vocabulary runs deep: over 40 aerial maneuvers organized into basic and intermediate tiers, plus dedicated grind types that serve as the connective tissue between airborne runs. Dropping your combo resets the multiplier to zero, so every landing carries real stakes. The game also unlocks a power called Yaoyorozudo as you progress, which reveals special rainbow tracks that let you ride on air itself - the kind of escalating absurdity that keeps the momentum feeling fresh well past the midpoint. The difficulty curve is one of the game's quiet strengths. Early stages teach drifts and lane switches without overwhelming, but by the back half you are chaining ground smashes into grinds into wall jumps in tight sequences, and the game keeps introducing new wrinkles even in the final chapters. Some players will find the late-game move requirements feel like a lot to juggle. The one legitimate critique floating around is that the train framing is sometimes more aesthetic than mechanical - the train customization is present but leans cosmetic, and if you come in expecting deep locomotive simulation you will be disappointed. What you get instead is an arcade score-attack game that happens to have trains, and that game is excellent. Boss fights - including some genuinely strange mecha encounters - break up the stage-to-stage rhythm in ways that feel earned rather than obligatory. Visually, the cel-shaded style lands somewhere between Jet Set Radio and a Saturday morning anime block, with bold outlines, saturated colours, and a camera that swings dramatically around your train whenever it has the chance. The soundtrack has drawn near-universal praise from players and critics alike, featuring guest artists across a set of tracks that fit the kinetic energy of the game perfectly. With more than 50 distinct stages spread across regions from Kyushu to Hokkaido, there is real mileage here for score-chasers hunting gold medals and high-score dares beyond the main campaign. If you have even a passing fondness for trick-based score-attack games and you can handle the early learning curve, Denshattack! earns every positive review it has collected. It does one thing exceptionally well and builds an entire world around it.

Alex · Scout Team

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