Picking up the best parts of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater trick mechanics and Jet Set Radio's style, Denshattack! winds up being gerater than the sum of its parts.16:00, 15 Jul 2026Denshattack! is a fast-paced, score-chasing adventure that rarely keeps you on the rails in all the best ways.‌While it might seem reductive to compare any game to its peers, there really is no better way of describing the type of experience Denshattack! delivers other than saying it’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater meets Jet Set Radio. True, a train might not immediately strike you as the most ideal vehicle in which to pull off skateboard style kickflips, rail grinds, and ollies within a cell-shaded dystopian Japan, yet the sheer genius of Denshattack!’s core, score-chasing magic is just how quickly pulling off such manoeuvres across all manner of crazy routes soon becomes second nature.‌This unexpected combination of expressive elements easily results in one of the most surprising yet tightly executed games of the year so far. It also helps that it’s a distinct love letter to Japanese culture that proves hard to put down.‌One of the biggest attractions of Denshattack! is, of course, its visuals. By taking a page out of the Jet Set Radio rulebook of design, this version of Japan set in the far future goes against typical dystopian norms by being drenched in colour. The yellow rails that you ride on always pop to always help keep you on track, while the surrounding regions of Osaka, Tokyo, and others have never looked more beautiful thanks to the eye-popping colour palette they’re coated in.The vibrancy of said visuals somehow even manages to match the same semblance of fun and excitement found in your on-screen actions - looking distinctive without ever being too distracting.Speaking of which, the art of Denshattacking posits quite an initially steep learning curve since a lot is always asked of you. Whether it’s wall-grinding on billboards, double-grinding across separate tracks, or switching up gravity to see you drift around on the rails above, this is a fast-paced riding game where each manoeuvre requires its own unique button input and your reaction times are regularly tested.‌Thankfully, the developers at Undercoders do a mostly good job of onramping you nicely. Each new region you’ll visit by and large introduces a new form of Denshattacking one at a time, building upon a trick-driven foundation that already had you swooping around tunnels and landing using an endo in order to maintain your trick score combo.Denshattack! isn’t the type of game that will suit everyone’s tastes due to how much you need to keep alert, stay aware of oncoming obstacles, and maximise what moves from the in-game Tricktionary you can deploy in the time given whilst in the air. But for the right person familiar with the structure of Tony Hawk and the like, you eventually settle into a sort of flow state that makes acts like wallriding, vert jumping, and track switching feel almost like a rhythm game - to the point that flicking both the left and right analogue sticks in certain ways felt like a real workout.‌Better yet, the inclusion of optional objectives exclusive to each track too, known in-game as ‘Dares’, further ups the completionist, competitive nature score-chasing arcade games like this provide, testing your ability to take a certain route or collect a set number of collectibles in a way that always had me returning to levels long after credits rolled in order to up my rating from bronze to gold.Are some types of obstacles you must account for easier to read and work around than others? Absolutely. But despite regularly crashing, Denshattack!’s instant restart feature makes it easy to overcome certain tricky track portions in a way that never dissuades you from wanting to jump back in.Train-ing dayIt would have been enough for Denshattack! to have you race your way through all kinds of inventive environments - and it does, believe me - yet it ups the ante again by shaking up these straight ‘get to the end’ missions with a flurry of different event types. One sees you need to reach a certain score by maintaining a high enough trick combo multiplier, while another has you racing against up to 30 other rival trains to the finish, wherein you're encouraged to smash them off the track any way you can.‌My favourite events, however, are those where you must complete multiple objectives but do so in any order, since it allows me to select my own routes through an area and go more at my own pace. These events provide a small but subtle slow down to the usual flow, emphasising exploration a lot more.You’d think that keeping the action (mostly) on rails would mean a fairly straightforward plot, especially given the focus on player expression. In actual fact, though, Denshattack! offers up a rather distinct take on a far-future dystopia. Admittedly one where the act of kickflipping trains has become its own celebrated art, true, yet also takes time to remind you why it’s important to stick it to the corporations - not least since most humans in the game are now confined to living under domes and subjected to regularly broadcasted puppet propaganda.‌Sadly, the story of Emi herself, rising from a simple ramen courier to professional Denshattacker, isn’t as interesting as the world in which it sits, but this is mostly made up for by a wider cast of interesting characters you’ll meet along the way.Easily the biggest perk of the story are the more set piece-driven levels it often allows for. From battling it out with a Gundam mech in the style of a Power Rangers finale, escaping from a giant Kaiju monster you're constantly having to dodge while racing at night, to flinging back giant baseballs at your rival using air-based tricks, several missions in Denshattack! feel like true cinematic events, further feeding into the anime inspirations found throughout in impressive over-the-top fashion.There’s a whole host of immense boss battles to take part in here. Many of which had my jaw on the floor with how the fight against them ultimately played out.Article continues belowUltimately, Denshattack! is an extremely special arcade experience that is unabashedly itself, testing your reaction times within a zany take on apocalyptic Japan that rewards player expression and gives you the kickflipping tools to do so.Its incredibly fast-paced, unbridled nature might not be for everyone and the story it spins mightn’t be anything too special, yet for players craving a different flavour of score-chasing magic that is well-equipped to reward their mastery of a pretty odd, made-up sport, Denshattack! is off-the-rails in all the best ways. This is easily one of 2026’s most distinct looking and feeling indie darlings.Rating: 4/5