Denshattack Review: Tony Hawk on Trains, 98% Positive

This Denshattack review starts with a number worth sitting with: two days after launch, the game sits at 498 Steam reviews and 98% positive, lining up with a 90 on Metacritic. That kind of alignment between player sentiment and critic score is rare enough to be worth checking. The campaign runs 9 to 15 hours depending on how much boss cleanup you chase, which matters more than the score itself: it's short enough that the thin story never gets tested, and long enough that the trick system has to hold up entirely on its own. It does, mostly.

Key Takeaways

• Released July 15, 2026 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2, after a one-month delay from June 17
• $19.99, currently $17.99 at a 10% launch discount
• Developed by Undercoders, published by Fireshine Games and Boltray Games
• Campaign clears in 9 to 15 hours, more for full achievement cleanup (39 total)
• Steam reviews: "Very Positive" at 98% (488 of 498), Metacritic sits at 90
• Version tested: 1.0 launch build, PC

What Denshattack actually is

You play as Emi, a delivery driver pulled into the underground world of Denshattackers, people who perform Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-style trick combos on customized trains instead of skateboards. The demo had been circulating since earlier this year and previewed well before the game's original June 17 date slipped a month for what Undercoders described as additional polish.

The pitch sounds like a gimmick until the trick system clicks, and it does click, usually within the first hour or two. Ollies, kickflips, and grinds chain together the way you'd expect from the genre, but Denshattack layers a fighting-game-style timed input on top: land the button press in the right window and the combo extends, miss it and the chain drops. That layer is what separates it from being a reskin, and it's also the thing that takes longest to feel natural.

Customization is deeper than the marketing screenshots suggest, too. Trains get cosmetic and functional upgrades as you progress, and the early-game grind car (the yellow, star-plastered one on most of the promotional art) looks nothing like the machines you're piloting by the midgame. None of it changes the underlying trick math, but it gives the completionist side of the achievement list something to actually chase beyond raw skill checks.

Accessibility got real attention here, which is worth flagging since it usually doesn't in this genre. There's a dedicated Camera Comfort option for players sensitive to the game's more aggressive trick-cam angles, custom volume controls per audio channel, and a keyboard-only control scheme for players without a gamepad. None of that shows up on a highlight reel, but it's the kind of detail that suggests the team wasn't just chasing spectacle.

The world backs it up. You travel from the rural countryside of Kyushu through domed, Miraidō-controlled versions of Osaka and Tokyo, out to the snowfields of Hokkaido and beyond into stranger territory. Every region reads visually distinct rather than being the same neon-city palette reskinned six times. For a campaign that covers this much ground in under 15 hours, that's not a given.

Denshattack was already one of the more anticipated indie launches of the summer before the delay pushed it into July, and the wait mostly paid off in polish rather than added scope: nothing about the platform list or content changed between the June and July builds.

Denshattack's boss fights, and the trick-prompt problem

Boss encounters lean into spectacle rather than repeating the same health-bar pattern with a new coat of paint.

Boss design is where Denshattack earns most of its praise, and it deserves it. Each fight functions as a distinct reflex test built around its own gimmick rather than a bigger version of the standard trick chain: a stage built around dodging a rolling baseball-shaped launcher, a mecha rival duel, a fight staged inside a collapsing structure where the environment is doing as much damage as the opponent. The Steam listing promises everything "from mecha magical girls to moving castles," and that's not marketing exaggeration. The roster earns it.

The friction shows up in the interface, not the design. During long combo chains, the trick-prompt HUD (the icons telling you whether to lane-change or jump next) can blur into noise at speed. It's readable at a walk, harder to parse mid-combo when three prompts are queuing in quick succession, and more than one review independently landed on the same complaint. Camera behavior compounds it on the later, more sprawling tracks: the game leans into dramatic angles for spectacle, and those angles occasionally obscure the upcoming junction right when you need to see it.

Neither issue breaks a run on its own. Together, they're the difference between a trick landing because you read it correctly and a trick landing because you'd already memorized the track from a prior attempt.

Track design varies enough across regions that later stages don't feel like recolored versions of the first.

Rubric Assessment

Design Coherence

Denshattack knows exactly what it is: a trick-chaining arcade game that happens to be about trains instead of skateboards, and it never wavers from that bit to chase a broader audience. The story, world, and boss roster all exist in service of keeping the core loop varied, not the other way around. Nothing here is trying to also be an open-world collectathon or a narrative RPG, and the game is better for that restraint.

Value per Dollar

At $17.99, a 9 to 15 hour campaign with a distinct set of boss fights and 39 achievements to chase clears the bar for the sub-$20 arcade bracket without needing a sale to justify itself. Compare that to the asking price of a typical mid-length indie platformer and Denshattack lands on the generous side, especially with cosmetic train unlocks giving completionists a reason to keep playing past the credits.

Onboarding

The trick-chaining and timed-input system introduces itself gradually across the opening regions rather than front-loading every mechanic in a single tutorial dump. Most players will feel the combo economy "click" a few hours in rather than in the first ten minutes, which is a fair trade if you're patient with the ramp. Players coming in cold to the genre, without prior Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or OlliOlli muscle memory, should expect that ramp to run slightly longer. If tight timing windows aren't your thing, Killer Bean is a recent action release from this year with a gentler onboarding curve.

Technical Quality

Stable across the reviews surveyed for this piece, with only isolated reports of a choppy frame-rate on a single stage rather than a systemic issue. The accessibility options (Camera Comfort, per-channel volume, keyboard-only controls) are a genuine technical positive rather than a checkbox feature, and cross-platform parity between the PC, PS5, Xbox, and Switch 2 versions held up in the builds this review drew on. Nothing here should factor heavily into a buying decision.

Replayability

Medal chasing and the 39-achievement list give completionists a reason to return, but the thin story means there's little pulling players back beyond score optimization. This is a game built for one confident playthrough plus cleanup runs, not multiple narrative-driven replays. Speedrunners chasing tighter medal times on the harder later tracks will get more mileage out of it than anyone hunting for story branches, because there aren't any.

Verdict

Denshattack is built for players who want Tony Hawk's Pro Skater's trick-chaining rhythm without needing a strong story attached to it. If you're after narrative weight or a lengthy campaign, this isn't that game, and it never pretends to be.

What holds the score back from higher isn't the core design. It's the trick-prompt HUD losing clarity exactly when a run gets interesting, and a camera that occasionally works against the player on the tracks where precision matters most. Both are fixable in a patch. Neither one undermines a mechanical foundation that's already this solid.

Rating: 8.6/10

If you want a second opinion on where else the sub-$20 arcade bracket delivers this year, Pratfall is chasing a similar spectacle-over-story pitch from a different angle.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to beat Denshattack? The main campaign runs 9 to 15 hours depending on how much boss cleanup and medal-chasing you do along the way. There are 39 Steam achievements for full completion.

Is Denshattack worth $17.99? Yes, for fans of trick-chaining arcade games. A 9 to 15 hour campaign with genuinely varied boss fights is solid value in the sub-$20 bracket.

What platforms is Denshattack on? PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2, all sharing the July 15, 2026 launch date.

Does Denshattack have bugs or performance issues? Most reviews found it stable with only rare minor glitches. One outlet flagged a single stage with choppy frame-rate, but that wasn't a widespread pattern.

Is there an actual story, or is it just trick runs? There's a story: delivery driver Emi becomes a Denshattacker fighting the Miraidō corporation. It's thin and mostly exists to justify getting back on the train.

Who developed Denshattack? Undercoders developed it, with Fireshine Games and Boltray Games co-publishing. A public demo circulated for months before launch and previewed well.

References

• Denshattack on Steam: store page, 498 reviews at "Very Positive" (98%) at time of writing
• Denshattack Launch Music Video on YouTube: official launch video from publisher Fireshine Games' own channel
• Undercoders support page: developer and publisher information