Denshattack! review: Tony Hawk-style tricks on trains through a stunning Japan

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My train spins through the air after launching off a skyscraper-high vertical ramp, swiftly twisting onto another bolt-upright bit of track, my view smothered with speed lines, Japanese onomatopoeia, and sparks as enthusiastic allies yell encouragement. A gorgeous vista stretches out below me, Japan's countryside filled with cherry blossom trees and bright blue water.

Need to know

What is it? Trains Tony Hawk-ing around a stylish post-disaster Japan via the power of friendship

Expect to pay: $20 / £

Developer: Undercoders

Publisher: Fireshine Games, Boltray Games

Reviewed on: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, RTX 5090 (laptop), 64GB RAM

Multiplayer: No

Steam Deck: Verified

VR: No

In these brief and highly curated moments Denshattack appears to be an exciting combination of Jet Set Radio's cel shaded style and Tony Hawk's tricks and challenges, with an added dash of Taito's arcade classic Densha de Go for good measure. It's an impression that sadly soon goes off the rails, any interaction longer than a social media clip's worth of action revealing a fully loaded freight train's worth of issues.

I may technically be controlling a train, but bar a token nod to not derailing on curves the metal box I'm in charge of never behaves anything like one, even if I temporarily set the acrobatics aside. There's no inertia, no weight pulling me back on steep slopes, no assistance from gravity on the way down a ramp, no careful adjusting of a virtual mascon to smoothly slow down for a corner or push for flat-out bursts of energy on a long straight.

It could be anything. A person. A dirt bike. Shadow the Hedgehog. Tracks themselves are broken into tiny chunks and discarded as often as the game's whims deem necessary, replaced with anything from half pipes to trampolines and ferris wheels.

I never expected Denshattack to play anything like a serious sim, but I did hope the train aspect of the game might involve more than letting me pick and decorate a few train-like shapes, especially as the (Japanese) word is literally in the title.

Novelty transport sections are more on-rails than the train bits. Undercoders Balance is everything on a grind rail. Undercoders Special rainbow tracks allow trains to reach new areas. Undercoders Stages are introduced with a beautiful shot of the surroundings. Undercoders Ignoring the game's self-chosen focal point entirely and pretending it's purely a futuristic trick-based score attack experience does little to improve things. There's an inescapable feeling while I play that it would be happier if I didn't get in the way. Personal creativity is constantly pushed to the side, unwelcome in spite of all the combo multipliers and flips I can do. Every stage wants to tell a story at all times, to be a wild string of events where pure-hearted people shout nice supportive things as structures crumble and wacky scenarios pop up around them: A giant mech. A laser-spewing kaiju. A kabuki play. There are even playable Rock Band and Ikaruga homages to work through.

I'm rarely trusted to make my own fun. There's always some weird quirk to work around (at the most basic, optional rainbow tracks that are completely invisible, and therefore, unable to be spotted and planned for, until a gauge fills up). I can't strategise or create combos on my own terms.

Or guarantee I'll react in time to whatever "fun" eye-catching stunt is coming up either. The game may haphazardly offer icons warning of upcoming dangers, but when a red "!" can mean anything from "obstacle on the line" to "a giant shadow monster is about to rise out of the sea" and I've got half a second at most to react, they're of little practical use. Occasional poor colour choices only exacerbate these issues, long strings of orange lanterns hanging right beside orange grind rails, lines of yellow lights near yellow track, green air currents set against a sea green background. I'm constantly fighting the stages themselves. Failure does little beyond setting me a short way back so I can try again, the rote repetition only leading to increasing irritation instead of a meaningful opportunity to learn.

I either do what I'm told when I'm told to do it or… Denshattack has no "or," too much of the game playing like a string of QTE-like gimmicks. Me being in complete control is never the game's priority.

Gravity? What's that? (Image credit: Undercoders) Attempting to make do and master what is in here is routinely thwarted by the game's wobbly sense of internal consistency, my capabilities and even plain old physics only intermittently available. My ability to race at odd angles and perform Titanfall 2-like wall runs flickers on and off like a faulty lightbulb— that bit of track, that vertical surface—and attempts to think outside the box and perform these stunts outside specific moments is brought to a crashing halt, Denshattack tut-tutting about my balance and deciding any contact with smooth perpendicular walls is a punishable offence. The water's surface must never be touched except in the occasional stages where I'm allowed to ride underneath it for extended periods of time. Crashing into things is an instant fail unless the game decides that actually crashing is OK for this bit or this particular object.

(Image credit: Undercoders) It doesn't feel fair, and the lack of clarity makes it difficult to improve my own skills when what is and isn't allowed varies so drastically from one section of a stage to the next.

Denshattack doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. For a game with such strong anti-corporation/environmentalist themes—freeing Nara's famous deer is a stage-long event—it's a little odd to see so many optional challenges involve some variation of "scare the animals by honking the train's horn." Trains are surprisingly irrelevant to a story full of them. Tricking struggles to rise beyond the level of a simple distraction: Abilities gained throughout the story don't broaden my toolset or scoring capabilities, and retrying an earlier track completely disables any later abilities gained. Tricks are just a way to survive the latest set of scripted setpieces.

It isn't clear and consistent enough for serious score attack play, yet it's also far too fussy to allow the raw absurdity of moments like controlling a shark or countering giant baseballs with aerial tricks to sweep me up in a wave of comedic positivity. This train has gotten lost somewhere between two diverging tracks.