Note: This review was published at 80% of storyline completion, and I wrote this assuming that the 80% that I did play would stay consistent for the last 20% of the game. If you wish to criticize my review being published after not fully completing the game, that's completely understandable, so if you want to bash my review on this basis alone, please save yourself the trouble. NOW, onto the review:
DenshAttack, in my opinion, is a fever dream for people wishing for an exciting spin on style and skate games like Jet Set Radio and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and an amazing effort on the part of the developers to deliver an amazing game based on cultural aspects of Japan whilst not being developed by a native Japanese development team (I believe the game was developed by a team in Barcelona, but make sure to do your own research!). If I wanted to pile on the praise, this review would be very lengthy and filled with rambling, so I'll condense the pros, cons, and other comments in the sections below:
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Pros:
+The game looks amazing and eye-catching, and the visual flairs and effects feel extremely well-placed for the most part. Some aspects of this are covered below, but for the most part, this is a visually pleasing game.
+Gameplay follows a simple principle of iterating and expanding on the old to make a new experience. What originally starts as "train go fast on rails and train do tricks", an outrageous but simple concept is expanded upon continually as you progress through the story. This also means that while the gameplay loop is always the same, it doesn't feel expired or exhausted.
+The characters are drawn well in this art style, and the stylistic themes used in the game for rival factions makes each one expressively different from the last. Along with thematic, each gang in the game also have their own quirks and behaviors that individualize them from the previous and next.
+Every producer included in the collaboration of music for this COOKED. HARD. I don't know who was behind the selection of music direction at the development team, but that person deserves a huge raise. Getting Tee Lopes, 2 Mello, and MEGURO SHOJI AS WELL AS LOTUS JUICE (just to name some of my GOATs) is too much for me. The above alone are not the only banger musical artists that deserve a shout out, I believe everyone that was involved with that soundtrack made AT LEAST 1 banger track, if not more.
Cons:
-While the graphics and visuals of this game do not disappoint, some sections of levels felt overcluttered with visual appeals, which led to responsiveness on my end. Some of these visual clutters were expected and most likely added to difficulty (one level requires rolling a snowball while making a bend on tracks. However the snowball grows in size and makes it difficult to see where the track starts, but this was a light case as long as you can see the track that it leads to, and this was ultimately intended in my opinion). While this seems bad, I will say that the times it felt either unnecessary or overexaggerated were very few and far in between.
-While the gameplay loop of DenshAttack is not disappointing by any means, the other core functionality of the train, besides riding tracks, is tricks and chaining them. Of course, this may be an issue on my end visually, but I find it difficult to see when I can chain tricks while performing a chain. To take Jet Set Future for an example, the game gives you an obvious visual cue when you can perform another trick to start or continue the chain, and if you try and do it too fast, there is a loud buzzer indicating that you failed. DenshAttack, however, shows a visual aura flash to signify continuing the chain, but it feels like chaining is mostly 75/25 fail to win ratio in my experience. While it's easy to excuse that as a skill issue, what bothers me is trying to do trick chaining and then a slow-motion sequence plays out. It could be flying through a window well above the track, but I feel like slow motion sequences just forcibly add increased difficulty in getting the timing right on the trick chaining mechanic, and it feels like it gets bumped up from 85/15 or 90/10 fail to win ratio.
Miscellaneous Comments:
~I'm a little miffed by some moments where text and speech didn't match well when comparing them. This was a minor issue with no impact on the story, but I would assume that the dialogue was written first before providing a script to read, so I can't understand why the text didn't mesh well.
~Earlier in the pros, I talked about having multiple talented artists producing the overall soundtrack for DenshAttack, but not having Hideki Naganuma feels like a cardinal sin to pop-culture skating games. That absolute legend was on both JSR soundtrack credits, the Ollie King soundtrack, and the Bomb Rush Cyberfunk soundtrack, as well as being on Sonic Rush and 3 Yakuza games (though only one mainline game), there is an impressive track list he has attached to his identity, but not having him on here feels like a hole in my heart that can't be healed. I might be biased, but it also may be due to him not wanting to be included on the list, which is understandably his choice.
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Ultimately, while there are extremely minor hiccups with the game, if you're a fan of games like the Jet Set Radio series as well as playing Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, you'll feel right at home with DenshAttack. A big congratulations to the development team for bringing this harebrained idea into a real working product.
