"Trick-heavy train stunts with a soundtrack you'll keep"
About
Denshattack! is an arcade action-platformer where you ride a train through a colourful post-apocalyptic Japan ruled by a totalitarian megacorp. Minute to minute you grind rails, drift, wallrun and chain aerial tricks into combos, pulled off with fighting-game-style motion inputs. Nine regions each throw in new obstacles and gimmicks, with time trials, score goals and dare challenges to clear and gold medals to chase. Boss fights against rival gangs and the corporation punctuate a light story carried by characters like Rin Penrose, all set to an 80-track soundtrack.
Verdict
Denshattack! takes a joke premise, trains doing kickflips, and builds a genuinely skilful trick game underneath it. The grind-drift-trick loop deepens level by level, the art style earns its Dreamcast comparisons, and the soundtrack is the kind you keep after you stop playing. The catch is the front door: motion inputs and a difficulty jump by mission two will lose players who wanted a gentler ramp, and the Steam Deck crashes need fixing. Push past the first hour on stable hardware and there's a lot of style and substance here.
You'll like it if …
- +You want a modern take on Tony Hawk and Jet Set Radio energy with a mechanic no one else is using
- +You enjoy climbing a steep skill ceiling and grinding score goals for gold
- +A great soundtrack is a real part of why you replay levels
You'll dislike it if …
- −You want to ease in gently and bounce off games that demand fighting-game inputs early
- −You play mainly on Steam Deck and can't tolerate launch crashes
- −You clear a story once and never touch the challenge modes
Breakdown
- +The core loop of grinding, drifting and tricking into combos is responsive and rewards mastery over dozens of hours
- +Instant checkpoint retries keep momentum, so a botched line costs seconds not minutes
- +Trick system is quick to grasp but the ceiling for chaining and scoring runs deep
- −Fighting-game motion inputs for tricks put off players expecting simpler skate controls
- −The difficulty spikes hard by the second mission, leaving casual players scrambling
- −Grinding specifically frustrates some, enough to stop a session cold
- +Every stage introduces a fresh gimmick, so no level coasts on the last one's ideas
- +Score goals, dares, collectibles and gold medals give each region reasons to return
- +Speedrun potential and customizable trains extend the game past a single clear
- −Players after a one-and-done playthrough will leave most of the challenge content untouched
- +The absurdist premise of train stunts as a national sport is played straight, which lands the humour
- +A totalitarian stuffed mole and a cast with real personality carry a light story further than expected
- +The dystopian domed-city setting gives the boss run a sense of place
- −Story stays deliberately thin, more flavour than a reason to keep going
- +Low-poly Dreamcast-era art direction is cohesive and vivid without leaning on nostalgia alone
- +The 80-track soundtrack draws repeat praise, with players lifting songs onto their own playlists
- +Visual variety across stages keeps the eye busy without breaking the style
- −Performance stumbles on Steam Deck, with black-screen crashes reported
- +Seamless retries with no load screens make repeated attempts painless
- +Clear tutorials and quality-of-life touches like controller icon swapping show attention
- +Tight, polished controls on capable hardware
- −Steam Deck compatibility is broken for some, stuck on a black screen after one launch
- −High memory requirements shut out older machines
- −Onboarding drops complex inputs on you faster than newcomers can absorb
score
