There is something immediately appealing about a game that lets you kickflip a train. Denshattack! takes that ridiculous idea and builds its entire identity around it, with the kind of colourful arcade energy I’m always happy to see. I love when a developer commits to something this strange. Nobody needed to make a game about doing skateboard tricks with Japanese trains, but I’m glad someone thought to.
The Tony Hawk comparison is an obvious one, although putting a train in place of a skateboard gives the familiar tricks a wonderfully absurd quality. You’re jumping, flipping and grinding, chasing points while trying to stick the landing. There’s a funny mismatch between the size of the thing you’re controlling and the tricks it performs. Watching a train leave the tracks and rotate through the air is an image that does a lot of the selling on its own.
What I particularly like about the concept is that the trains still matter to its identity. These are reimagined Japanese trains, travelling through a warped version of Japan, with rival crews competing for control of the tracks. It gives the silliness a specific setting and culture to draw from. There’s an affection for the subject here, even while any expectation of realistic railway operation has been thrown out the window.
The journey also gives it room to go well beyond city streets. Its version of Japan stretches from Kyushu to Hokkaido, taking in countryside, major cities and increasingly outlandish scenery. The contrast between recognisable places and a world where gravity-defying trains are apparently an accepted form of transport is a big part of the appeal. It feels suited to the sort of adventure where you want to see what strange idea waits around the next corner.
That extends to the bosses, which include mechanical worms, moving castles and mecha magical girls. It’s a gloriously odd collection of things to put in the path of a train. The rebellious story, built around outcasts opposing the Miraidō corporation, gives all this chaos a direction without requiring the premise to become sensible. A game like this needs a world willing to accommodate its nonsense, and Denshattack! certainly has one.
There’s a strong reminder of games like Jet Set Radio in its visual attitude, and I can see why that comparison keeps coming up. The colour, exaggerated designs and youthful rebellion have that same immediate appeal. Still, the train premise gives Denshattack! an image of its own. You could pick it out of a crowded lineup of games without needing to see the title, which is something I appreciate more and more.
Denshattack! is the sort of game I want developers to keep making: specific, strange and completely committed to an idea that probably sounded like a joke when someone first suggested it. Its appeal is easy to explain, but there’s enough imagination around that central gimmick to make it worth a closer look. Sometimes a kickflipping train is all it takes to get my attention. Building a whole bizarre Japanese adventure around it is what holds it.
Denshattack! is available on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (via Game Pass), and the Nintendo Switch 2.
