Denshattack review for Nintendo Switch 2

System: Switch 2
Release date: July 15, 2026
Developer: Undercoders
Publisher: Fireshine Games

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Denshattack when I first saw it. “So, is it like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater? But like, with a train?” was the question I found myself pondering as I watched preview footage. As it turns out, that thought isn’t a million miles off, but it is so much more. I never got the chance to play any of the previous titles from Barcelona-based indie studio Undercoders, and I didn’t play the demo, so I went in relatively blind. What I found was an experience that was so high-octane and thrilling that it became increasingly difficult to put it down, though it did take me quite a while to get to grips with the gameplay. While I was downloading this title, I was exceptionally curious about what the narrative would be for something like this and sure enough, it was just as much a rollercoaster as the gameplay itself.

The story of Denshattack takes place in a dystopian future in which a big company called the Miraidō Corporation has assisted the Japanese government in taking a cue from The Simpsons Movie, placing large domes over the biggest cities across Japan. Over 70 percent of the population live within these domes, with Miraidō’s mascot character Molty regularly appearing on television to talk about how fantastic living in these spheres is. There are those who live outside them, however, and one such person is the young protagonist of this game, noodle chef Emi Araki. Emi meets a budding journalist named Fernando on a delivery run, who introduces her to Denshattack where train drivers take to the tracks and do stylish tricks at breakneck speeds both for creative expression and to rebel against Miraidō. Emi decides to travel with him to the next region over where she takes the fight to Miraidō for the sake of freedom and to put an end to the mega corporation’s evil schemes.

The plot follows the format of something like a shonen anime; with every new rival Emi faces and in the face of adversity, she finds a new trick to overcome them and grow in strength. This gives the player that same feeling of newfound strength, and that is exhilarating to experience in the heat of the moment. Emi herself is a really fun protagonist, too. In a dreary landscape where people are living in domes with no sun and no sky, where people are fighting for freedom, she maintains this ultra-positive bubbly attitude throughout. This positivity spreads across her core friend group, and her influence on those around her can be seen as the plot progresses. It is very endearing, and for a 10-15 hour campaign, I found myself quite attached to the characters in this story.

Throughout the adventure, Onsens become available to visit, where the characters soak in hot springs away from the action and have casual conversations; these are quite sweet, and add narrative details not included within the main story. Examples include where Emi got her train from, how Madoka and Yamagata know each other, etc. The themes of the future feeling soulless and corporate, and that creative expression is suffering as a result, is a pertinent subject matter that will resonate with a lot of people playing. It certainly did with me. 

Gameplay in Denshattack generally involves getting your train from point A to point B on a course. Each prefecture, of which there are nine, contains several stages and a boss fight at the end against that area’s gang leader. Every stage involves the player utilizing a variety of movement techniques to traverse the level; be it flipping between tracks, drifting around corners, jumping over obstacles, grinding on rails and riding along walls, amongst many more. Every stage is graded with a medal ranking, no-rank, bronze, medal and gold, and this is result is calculated based on the high-score the player has gotten from doing tricks, completing the ‘dares’ sub-missions within a course, and how fast the level was completed. Extra points are often granted for completing a stage without ever crashing. Each course contains collectible items, which can be cashed in at the garage to buy new trains, to customize the ones you have, and to add more to Fernando’s Fanzines, where he uses his journalistic findings to dish the dirt on the region, the people that live there and other fun trivia bits.

Other mission features in the game to keep things fresh, such as skate-park like stages where the aim of the game is to beat a high-score challenge through skilled trickery, races against rival gangs where the aim is to place in the top three, and levels where the player has to complete a set of objectives to progress, usually manipulating the environment or collecting a set of items. Boss fights are also quite bombastic, and they always find ways to outdo the one preceding it. They are a real highlight of the experience. 

The most important point to make is that this game’s stages are insanely fun. From the first prefecture right to the last level, it constantly feels like the game is trying to outdo itself with the set-pieces. The adrenaline rush of combining so many different tricks together in tandem with fast reactions and move switching on the fly is unbelievably satisfying to pull off.

That’s the thing for me, though; getting to grips with the gameplay. Denshattack, in my view, is a title with a very high learning curve. The game throws a lot of mechanics at you right at the start of your adventure, and with each new prefecture, a new tool to Emi’s arsenal becomes available. I was reminded a lot of playing Sonic Riders as a kid when that came out – both because the aesthetic and vibe of the game really took me back to that game’s style, but also because it was a game that took me a long time to come to grips with. It can be very discouraging to constantly feel like you’re missing inputs, your reaction speeds aren’t fast enough, and being stuck on the same part of a level can get outright frustrating.

Now, luckily Denshattack isn’t too punishing in this regard. When the player crashes, they are just brought back to a spot a little bit back on the track. There is no life system involved. For the first few hours of my playthrough, I found myself constantly missing up the buttons for drifting and jumping, and when the game expects you to put the input in rapidly to avoid dangerous obstacles, a panic reflex kicks in and I make an error. This could just be a ‘skill issue’ as the kids put it, I might just struggle with this type of gameplay, but I truly feel that there are maybe a few too mechanics for the game’s own good. I don’t think any courses that feature the two-track sideways slide mechanic would lose anything if it was a horn beep trigger instead.

Having said all that, the rather complex and excessive move list does add to the spectacle, even if it detracts from the user friendliness just a tad. This only hampered my experience a little bit, again because so many checkpoints are littered across each level, so even when you do crash out and use the wrong move, you never lose significant process. It only becomes a major issue if you’re shooting for a gold rank, and truthfully, I never got above silver. When the game comes out, I’m excited to see how other players tackle the stages to maximize points returns from trick combos.

My only other issue stems from some collision detection problems I encountered within a rare few stages, but Undercoders have already reassured us that these issues have already been noted and are going to be resolved in a day one patch. I still feel it worthy of mention in case some issues persist, but in my 15 hours playing the game, I only encountered these glitches a half-dozen times, so it truly was a rare instance of error in an otherwise great experience, physics-wise. I encountered frame-drops and slow down just once in a late-game boss fight, but the experience was otherwise a rocksteady high frame rate experience without hiccups both on handheld and docked. 

I mentioned the aesthetic earlier, and I have to emphasize how much this game made me miss that late 90s, early 2000s era that this game captures so brilliantly. The cel-shading in the stages is gorgeous, the constant flourishes of Japanese text when performing moves, the voice over encouraging you when you do well. There are also sounds of disc-scratching after a trick combo or completing missions, and the themes of rebellion really spoke to me. I was brought back to playing Jet Set Radio for the first time, watching Malcolm in the Middle as a kid, seeing Bleach’s first opening “Asterisk” by Orange Range. All these things give me that same feeling of missing that period of time, and this game almost felt like finding some lost media from back then. It had me grinning ear to ear the whole time. Not enough to go spray paint a big corpo’s building, but the sentiment was there!

The presentation is also stellar and the character art is incredibly good. There are two full voice casts in this game; Japanese and English. A cool feature this game boasts is the ability to switch between Japanese and English dubs on the fly. Just go into the settings, and switch the audio language. Your campaign and save file isn’t tied to just one, so I got to experience both dubs in one playthrough. I wish other titles would incorporate a clever mechanic like this in the future. In the end, I found myself just preferring the Japanese dub, as I thought the entire cast flowed naturally and performed well. The English dub’s main two, Emi and Fernando, are also fantastic performances but some of the supporting characters’ voices in English I found a tad distracting. 

If ever there was a reason to experience this game, beyond everything else I have described above, it would be the soundtrack. I didn’t know that the lead composer of the game was Tee Lopes of Sonic Mania fame going in, but a few stages in I could immediately tell. This man is so consistently good at creating ultra-sick, memorable tracks, and this game is no exception. He’s not alone here, however. Undercoders has somehow managed to summon the Avengers of kick-ass hype musicians to contribute to this game’s soundtrack, including Richard Jacques (Sonic R), Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (Virtua Fighter/Daytona USA), Alice Parelta (Splatoon), Shoji Meguro (Persona) amongst many other gifted artists. The music is absolutely stellar, and truly enrich every single stage. The songs are of so many diverse genres too, ranging from rock, hip-hop, electronic beats and beyond. I only wish there was a free roam gameplay mode where I could leisurely travel Japan while playing different songs from the game’s soundtrack.

Denshattack is a non-stop thrill ride that constantly finds ways to up the ante from one prefecture to the next. While this may leave some on the wayside trying to come to grips with the rather tricky mechanics, when mastered, it stands as one of the most fun arcade-style games in decades. What excites me most is that the foundations are here for a solid franchise going forward, with a fun cast of characters I’d love to see more of. There are plenty of other countries that would be great to see get the Denshattack treatment. While there are a few small technical hiccups, they are expected to be patched out and what will remain is a brilliantly fun video game with a strong message that leaves an impact. With a low price point of just $20 for the amount of quality content included here, I really hope people hop on board this train to do the impossible and fight the power.

Denshattack copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.