It’s fast. It’s thrilling. The entire game is overflowing with a sense of speed. And it’s stylish. It’s not complicated, either. Just move your fingers on instinct, and a dazzling feast of spectacular tricks unfolds before your eyes.
Denshattack! is a fantastic train racing action game created by Spanish indie developer Undercoders. You slide a train car around like a skateboard, jumping, wall-riding, grinding, and eventually defying gravity to pull off a constant stream of daring and flashy tricks.
On top of that, it perfectly captures the sense of speed expected of racing games. You can feel the joy of sudden bursts of acceleration at your fingertips as you hit drifts and boost pads.
Honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve played a game that is just so fun, interesting, and exciting to pick up and play without any complex thoughts. Don’t worry if you just wiggle the stick and keep bumping into things. If you keep trying, you’ll find your fingers moving with a flair you didn't even know you had.
So Many Tracks and Tricks
'Fun'—the biggest strength of Denshattack! is undeniable. It’s so engaging that you’ll find yourself instantly immersed in these stylish 'train battles,' racing over and over again.
This is thanks to a perfect blend of content and even better level design. Based on the protagonist Emi’s 'dojo-breaking' journey, the game introduces a new control mechanic in each region. You learn these new moves while running the tracks, defeat the local boss, and move on to the next area.
Denshattack! doesn't limit your practice, allowing you to fully master these new tricks. Even if you crash again and again, you simply respawn at the previous checkpoint and keep playing, playing, and playing. You stop fearing failure. Before you know it, your fingers are performing those new moves with ease.
In that process, the tracks and tricks themselves act as elements that keep the experience fresh and fun, even when you're using the same controls.
Denshattack! features unique track layouts for every stage. It even increases track variety within a single stage so you can experience different gameplay each time. Multiple paths are a given, and the types of tracks themselves are diverse.
Even if you start the same way, the race that follows is always different. Whether you jump to ride a wall, stick to the track for boost pads and drifting, or move to an adjacent track to find a newly generated path—everything branches out based on the situation at that moment.
Tricks add another layer of fun to this track variety. Performing tricks in Denshattack! is never difficult. On a controller, you just move the right stick in the corresponding direction. There are so many types of tricks that simply swinging the stick however you like will trigger something cool.
You can trigger tricks just by moving your fingers, and you can even clear stages without doing any tricks at all—provided you reach the end of the track. The only exception is the boss battles.
Crashing into the track or failing a move isn't a big deal. Thanks to fast respawns with no loading, you can keep trying immediately. It might take time, but you will eventually clear the stage.
Easy to Start, Hard to Master, but Fun to Repeat
Of course, clearing the stage isn't the end. Denshattack! is packed with depth. It’s easy to pick up but very hard to master. While anyone can enjoy the racing, getting a high score and completing every mission is a real challenge.
The core of this is the variety and difficulty of the tricks. Every trick in Denshattack! has a set difficulty level. Naturally, simple tricks can be done by just flicking the stick to the left, but the hardest ones require fast and precise stick movements along a set path.
Memorizing these trick inputs is definitely not easy. There are more types of tricks than you'd think, and the stick movements are quite complex. Plus, if you keep using only one or two tricks, the game gets bored and lowers your score.
In other words, if you want a high score, you need to know and execute a variety of inputs and stick movements better than in most action games.
To encourage this, the game gives each stage specific 'goals.' These include 'scores' from trick combos or high-difficulty tricks, 'time' for clearing stages quickly without mistakes, various 'missions,' and even customization materials and achievements.
You don't have to complete these goals to see the story or move to the next region. However, they provide a clear purpose for replaying stages. Combined with the variety of tracks and tricks, this ensures you can keep playing without boredom, still feeling the same thrill.
The controls are also very well-designed. There are so many elements to manage in a stage: drifting, jumping, tricks, grinding, and more—all of which must be performed rapidly and in quick succession. Denshattack! makes these inputs feel smooth and fluid.
You can perform a wide range of actions with just a few key inputs, and they never feel clunky or conflicting. This holds true even when playing on a Steam Deck. While the variety of tricks might be confusing at first, the inputs themselves never clash, so you won't feel hindered.
Thanks to this, as long as you remember the variety of tricks, anyone can enjoy a flashy, speedy, and immersive experience with minimal effort. This is a major strength and hallmark of Denshattack!.
The Highlight and Essence of Denshattack!: Boss Battles
There are many other standout features. The exaggerated art style, vibrant colors, varied textures and lines, well-timed cutscenes, and the character-driven voice acting make it feel like watching an anime.
Even the story feels like a cartoon. The protagonist Emi, who was just a normal ramen delivery person, discovers she has a unique talent as a 'Densha Attacker,' and the strong characters she meets in each region join her as allies. It’s a familiar story, but one that is easy to follow and unfolds quickly throughout the game.
The boss battles tie everything together at the end of each chapter. These encounters are the most special, fun, and heart-pounding content in the game.
Every boss battle in Denshattack! introduces a different core gimmick. You might hit back flying baseballs, steal a boss' jaw to ride it, charge up electricity, or even process musical notes falling on the tracks like a rhythm game.
What’s interesting is that most of these gimmicks are based on the controls you’ve already learned in the regular stages. It’s as if the game is pushing the 'controls' introduced in each region to their absolute limit.
At the same time, it maintains the core gameplay of tricks and track variety. As you play the basic track, the boss appears, and even while dealing with their specific gimmicks, you must continue to use the basic controls.
To ensure these elements feel special rather than cliché, the game uses diverse presentation techniques. Beyond simple camera angle changes, you might see a monster appear and breathe fire, or have to balance yourself while grinding on a robot arm. It makes basic controls feel like part of a special gimmick.
It successfully balances a multitude of elements that could easily have felt chaotic or boring by using common controls and shifting presentation.
However, perhaps due to the pressure of introducing new gimmicks, it is a bit disappointing that some late-game boss battles feel disconnected from the stages you've played. Sometimes you encounter tricks you've never practiced, or conversely, gimmicks you've already experienced.
Since the boss battles up to the mid-game were a constant stream of wonder and excitement, these late-game shortcomings are more noticeable. Of course, even then, the game still manages to surprise with camera shifts and unexpected movements.
Denshattack! is a truly fun game. I found myself shouting "This is fun!" throughout my entire playthrough. It captures pure, focused fun by nailing the core of the game: the racing itself.
Whether you're playing on a big screen with a soundbar and a controller, or sitting on a real train with your Steam Deck and earphones, it’s a blast. When a daring trick succeeds, I cheer with joy; when I mess up a landing and break a combo after a cool move, I let out a groan of frustration.
It’s fair to say the game derives its full enjoyment from the act of playing itself. There’s no need for extra fluff. Once you start playing and moving your fingers to perform tricks, you’ll find yourself practicing new ones just to get a higher score because the 'play' itself is so engaging.
No matter what happens, never let your right thumb rest. Even if you crash, fail, or aren't sure what to do, just keep performing tricks. It will work out somehow. That’s just how Denshattack! is!
- Intuitive and stylish control fun
- Exquisitely designed level design
- Boss battles that push tricks to the limit in every region
- Deeply engaging tracks and tricks
- Cliché story progression
- Somewhat repetitive controls in the late game
Review Platform: PC (Launch Version)
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