Dinshatech attack! Review – It’s Time to Get on Board the Kickflipping Trains | games

eEvery now and then a game comes along with a premise so outrageous that you stop in your tracks to take it all in. Denshattack!, a game about kicking trains through a dystopian future in Japan, is an example of this feeling. The film is set in a post-climate catastrophe world, where people take refuge in corporate-owned domed cities to live out their days in air-conditioned comfort. Except for a handful of outcasts, the rest of the country is a mess of destroyed infrastructure, with rival gangs fighting over the ruins of Japan’s famously vast railway network. Naive newbie Emi has one goal: to become the best Denshattacker ever, grinding one sick nose at a time.

Taking the idea of ​​an on-rails platformer to its ultimate conclusion, developers Undercoders combined the best parts of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series – grinding, flipping and spinning through an entire dictionary of tricks – with the anti-establishment message behind Jet Set Radio. The Rivals that Amy faces exposes the history of Japanese misfits, pitting you against aging rockabilly bands and violent girl gangs without a trace of judgment.

Although it may seem like a mismatch to have serious world-building alongside a ridiculous premise, Denshattack! It falls on the shoulders of giants. Colorful, counter-cultural platformers have been around for a long time. The same goes for the hapless contestants. Dinshatech attack! It has a lot in common with Redline, the popular classic anime about underground racing with an intergalactic cast wielding pompadours. The result is a mixture of silliness and substance, with the game’s overwhelming visuals setting the stage for a surprisingly solid experience. Prepare to crash explosively and often.

The game starts off simple, with one train and a few levels that show you the ropes. The programmers decided to present the game mechanics over the course of several hours, which goes some way towards smoothing out the difficulty curve and allowing you to start trying out tricks from the starting line. What starts out as a fairly straightforward progression through courses quickly opens up to introduce races, scoring attacks, challenge levels, and, most notably, boss battles. Launching giant baseballs toward the Mole Tunnel Train is a stunning sight, as is piercing the sky on the legendary Rainbow Railway to escape from a castle powered by vinyl records.

There is joy in the world of Denshattackers. The whole experience is a fun ride through Japan’s islands, as if Wacky Races did an advertisement for the Japan Tourism Board. One level asks you to listen to a traditional Kabuki theater performance. Someone else wanted me to deliver ramen bowls in the spirit of the racing manga Primary D. Every inch of the game is infused with Japanese culture past and present, an impressive feat from its Barcelona-based developers.

But while the level design is great, the real fun is in how great the gameplay is. Anyone with a passing fondness for classic skateboarding games will recognize the genre’s hallmarks, but when viewed through the lens of extreme public transport, it feels invigorating. There’s something about the sequence of combos while watching a spray-painted rectangle dance across the screen that’s hard to fault.

If it was released in the early 2000s, I doubt Denshattack! That would make waves. But in the age of remakes, remasters and sequels, I think discovering strange games is as satisfying as feeling the perfect landing while playing it – and they should be celebrated for daring to be nonsensical. Go ahead and take part in some multi-track drifts.