Preview | Denshattack - Trainboarding Through Japan

Trains fly when you’re having fun, isn’t that how the saying goes? I barely spent an hour with Denshattack!, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It is an explosion of colour in a UE5-filled, drab landscape that asks you to sit down, put on your seatbelt, and hold tight because there are no stops on this ride.

In Denshattack!, you skateboard through Japan, doing a panoply of tricks at insane speeds — except your skateboard is a train that jumps between tracks, plows through billboards, and wallrides.

Made by Undercoders — a studio located in Barcelona, Spain — Denshattack! features an art style reminiscent of Hi-Fi Rush, and showcases a variety of Japanese trains inspired by real designs.

There is nothing common about Denshattack. This game mixes classic skateboarding game mechanics — wallrides, grinding, trick combos, bonuses for trick variety — with an autorunner like Subway Surfers (it’s worth noting Undercoders started out as a mobile game developer), and it’s topped off off with boss fights that look incredibly diverse.

I didn’t get a chance to try any of the boss fights, since the demo finishes before you reach the first one, but I did experience everything else. Denshattack!’s elements fit together as snugly as the most satisfying puzzle you’ve built. The game is divided into levels that effectively work as race tracks. You start a race off by pressing A on your controller to get the train going, and it won’t stop until it reaches the finish line. 

You can brake to slow down to a crawl, but most of your time will be spent jumping, switching between rails and, most importantly, doing some tricks. Normal train stuff. Denshattack! asks you to do multiple things per level: complete optional objectives, reach the finish line as quickly as possible, and score as many trick points as you can throughout the race. You don’t need to complete all of them at once, but, trust me, that is the most exhilarating experience you’ll have with the game.

Usually, you’ll need at least a couple of runs to complete every optional challenge. These can range from “collect all spray cans” to “finish the race without crashing”. Finishing the race quickly is pretty self-explanatory, but the real challenge comes when you attempt to be fast while being stylish. So let’s get into what you can do with your skateboard train.

While nailing tricks in something like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater resembled inputting a GTA Vice City cheat code — a 360 flip in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 & 2 is done by pressing Down Left, Square — doing the same move in Denshattack! requires you to carefully manoeuvre the right analog stick in intricate patterns. Since you never control the camera, you’ll only use the stick to input your Trick commands, like Down, Half Circle Right to pull off a Front 360. Fighting game fans, welcome to the world of trains!

This setup means that Denshattack! successfully balances the most difficult part of creating an arcade-style game. If you’re only playing for the ride, enjoying the visuals, taking the story in, and doing the occasional trick, that’s great, you’ll have fun. But if you feel like arcade racers and sandbox skateboarding games usually leave you wishing for more complexity, Denshattack! will hit you like a freight train.

The game gives back what you invest into it. There are 57 tricks in the Tricktionary divided by difficulty: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Hardcore. And trust me, they get pretty Hardcore. Most of my time with the demo was spent replaying the first level until I could beat it without crashing once. I played it so many times in a row that when I finally succeeded, I unintentionally managed to beat my best time, not crash, and also beat my trick high score. 

I got into Denshattack! expecting an incredibly niche experience which I hoped would be carried by its fantastic presentation, but I left an hour later surprised by the fact that this is a game that, weird as it may seem, will probably appeal to a ton of people. Excellent tunes, a genuine sense of speed, and a mechanical ceiling that will get fighting game players excited. What more could you ask for?

If you answered flying trains, you simply can’t go wrong with Denshattack! And even if you didn’t, you should still probably try it out —  it is that good.