There are some games that are easy to describe. Then there’s Denshattack!, a colorful, chaotic arcade-style experience that seems determined to throw a new idea at you every few minutes.
At its core, Denshattack! is about movement, tricks, exploration, and keeping momentum as you tear through increasingly bizarre environments. It immediately brings games like Jet Set Radio and Sunset Overdrive to mind, but it has its own personality and a particular focus on riding through levels and chaining together movement in increasingly creative ways.
The easiest way to describe it?
“This game is like Tony Hawk on a subway train.”
And honestly, that gets surprisingly close.
Gameplay: Keep Moving or Get Left Behind
Movement is the heart of Denshattack!. The game encourages you to keep moving through its environments, performing tricks and using the level itself as part of your playground.
There’s a satisfying arcade quality to the way everything comes together. You aren’t simply traveling from point A to point B. You’re looking for opportunities to move faster, pull off tricks, discover alternate paths, and interact with the environment.
That emphasis on movement gives Denshattack! an energetic feel. It wants you to experiment rather than simply follow the obvious path.
The game also does a good job of introducing new mechanics and ideas as you progress, preventing the experience from becoming too repetitive.
“The levels keep adding new crazy ideas.”
That constant escalation is one of Denshattack!’s biggest strengths.
The Levels Keep Getting Crazier
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Denshattack! is its level design.
Rather than introducing one gimmick and sticking with it for the entire game, the levels continue to build on the ideas you’ve already encountered. New obstacles, mechanics, and environmental challenges get introduced as you progress.
This keeps exploration interesting because you never quite know what the next section is going to throw at you.
The result is a game that feels intentionally arcade-like. Levels aren’t just places to pass through. They’re playgrounds designed around movement and experimentation.
That design also makes replaying sections more appealing. Once you’ve learned the mechanics, there’s a natural temptation to go back and see what you can do with them.
Story and Setting
Denshattack! isn’t necessarily trying to compete with a sprawling narrative RPG when it comes to storytelling.
Instead, the story and setting primarily exist to support the game’s colorful world and energetic gameplay. The environments provide context for what you’re doing while allowing the game to maintain its arcade-forward identity.
That works particularly well because Denshattack! knows what kind of experience it wants to be.
The focus is on movement, style, exploration, and having fun rather than getting bogged down in lengthy exposition.
The Jet Set Radio Connection
If you’ve played Jet Set Radio, you will probably recognize some familiar DNA in Denshattack!.
The colorful presentation, emphasis on movement, and overall attitude naturally invite comparisons. Sunset Overdrive is another obvious reference point because of its fast-paced traversal and exaggerated visual style.
But Denshattack! isn’t simply trying to recreate either game.
Instead, it takes some of those ideas and pushes them toward its own particular concept, especially when it comes to riding through its environments and using tricks and movement as the primary way of interacting with the world.
The result feels familiar without being entirely derivative.
Art Direction: Bright, Colorful, and Impossible to Ignore
Visually, Denshattack! is not interested in blending into the background.
The game uses a bright and colorful art style that matches its energetic gameplay. The environments have personality, and the visual design helps reinforce the feeling that you’re playing something built around arcade-style fun.
It’s the kind of presentation where the game can throw increasingly ridiculous ideas at you without them feeling completely out of place.
That exaggerated visual identity is important because Denshattack! is fundamentally a game about spectacle. The tricks, movement, environments, and challenges all work better when the world around them feels equally energetic.
The Soundtrack: Good, But Not Iconic
Music plays an important role in games like this. When you’re constantly moving and performing tricks, a great soundtrack can elevate the entire experience.
Denshattack!’s soundtrack is good and fits the overall energy of the game.
But it doesn’t quite reach the level of being unforgettable.
“The soundtrack is good but not iconic.”
That’s probably the fairest way to describe it. The music does its job and supports the action, but it isn’t necessarily the thing you’ll walk away from the game remembering most.
Voice Acting Adds Personality
The voice work also helps give Denshattack! some additional personality.
With such an exaggerated visual style and energetic gameplay loop, having characters that match that tone is important. The voice acting helps keep the world feeling lively rather than making the experience feel like a collection of disconnected arcade challenges.
It’s another small piece of the game’s overall personality.
Boss Battles: A Different Kind of Challenge
Denshattack! isn’t solely about cruising through levels and performing tricks.
Boss encounters provide a different type of challenge and force you to approach the game’s mechanics in a slightly different way.
Rather than simply relying on the same movement patterns you’ve been using throughout the levels, these encounters give the gameplay some additional variety.
They also help break up the rhythm of the main levels, ensuring that the entire experience doesn’t become one long sequence of traversal challenges.
Replayability and Achievements
The arcade-style design naturally lends itself to replayability.
Once you’ve learned the levels and become more comfortable with the movement system, there’s more reason to return and experiment. You can improve your runs, discover things you may have missed, and work toward achievements.
That gives Denshattack! some additional life beyond simply completing the main progression.
For players who enjoy mastering movement systems, chasing collectibles, or squeezing more out of a level after they’ve already completed it, there’s something here to keep you coming back.
Difficulty: Fun Until It Isn’t
Denshattack! generally succeeds at keeping its challenges entertaining, but the difficulty can occasionally get in the way of that fun.
There’s a fine line between encouraging players to master a mechanic and simply asking them to repeat something until they get it right.
The arcade structure means repetition is part of the experience, but players who aren’t particularly interested in mastering movement mechanics may find some sections more frustrating than others.
Still, when the mechanics click, the game can be extremely satisfying.
What Works
- Movement is the star: The gameplay revolves around momentum, tricks, and creative traversal.
- Creative level design: New ideas and mechanics keep getting introduced as you progress.
- Colorful presentation: The visual style gives the game a distinct identity.
- Arcade-style replayability: Levels encourage experimentation and repeated runs.
- Strong personality: The combination of visuals, voice acting, and gameplay gives Denshattack! a memorable tone.
- Game Pass appeal: Its unusual concept and quick-to-grasp arcade gameplay make it an easy game to jump into and experiment with.
What Doesn’t
- The soundtrack doesn’t quite stand out: It’s good, but it doesn’t reach the level of an iconic arcade soundtrack.
- Difficulty can become frustrating: Some challenges may test patience as much as skill.
- The comparisons are unavoidable: Fans of Jet Set Radio and Sunset Overdrive will probably spend some time comparing the games.
Final Thoughts
Denshattack! is the kind of game that feels like it shouldn’t work as well as it does.
Take movement-focused gameplay, tricks, colorful environments, arcade-style level design, and a healthy dose of absurdity, and you end up with something that’s difficult to neatly categorize.
It’s not trying to be the next massive open-world blockbuster. Instead, Denshattack! focuses on giving players a colorful playground and letting them have fun with it.
The best parts are the moments when you’re moving through a level, discovering what the developers have placed around the next corner, and realizing that the game has once again found a new way to make you interact with the environment.
And that is ultimately what makes Denshattack! such an enjoyable surprise.
It’s weird. It’s colorful. It keeps throwing new ideas at you.
Most importantly, it’s fun.
If you’re looking for something outside the usual Game Pass rotation, Denshattack! is absolutely worth checking out.
