10 Best Games Like Denshattack

12 hours ago 1

Published Jul 20, 2026, 1:45 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Contributor at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

Denshattack is a positively excellent game, not just because it’s fast-paced and precisely-designed, but because it knows how to properly channel the dual concepts of speed and spectacle. Everyone likes going fast, and everyone likes seeing cool stuff, so if you can see cool stuff while going fast, it creates a feeling not dissimilar to what a dog feels when it sticks its head out the window of a moving car.

Of course, Denshattack isn’t the only game in history to strike this precise balance. Plenty of games, including several that Denshattack is none-too-subtly inspired by, know how to get your adrenaline pumping by giving you precise control over a high-speed character or vehicle, then pairing that with all kinds of wacky nonsense happening in the world around you. It’s a rather addicting type of game, and it doesn’t even have to be on a runaway train to work, functioning just as well with characters on foot, in cars, or in an oddly consistent case, on skateboards.

10 Crazy Taxi

Another Form of Public Transit Gone Wild

One of Denshattack’s chief influences, at least by my reckoning, is a certain subset of first-party Sega games circa the Dreamcast era. Sega knew a thing or twelve about making fast fun back in those days, and one of the games that serves as a standout example of that skill was, is, and remains Crazy Taxi, coincidentally also a game about driving recklessly in a yellow-colored form of public transit.

Crazy Taxi is an arcade-style… racing game, technically-but-not-really? The goal of the game is to drive around the city as fast as possible, picking up passengers and dropping them off at their destinations before time runs out. Despite your car being a seemingly normal taxi, careful use of shifting and drafting allows you to reach positively ridiculous speeds, while the game’s tight controls keep you firmly in command of your movement. That’s a big part of what makes this kind of game fun: it’s fast and reckless, but not to the point where you feel like you don’t have any input on where you’re going, and Denshattack’s the same way.

9 Cruis’n Blast

Tearing Up the Track

Speaking of classic arcade racing games, the Cruis’n series was always great when it came to letting you zoom along a track littered with wacky setpieces. It was fun in arcades, and it was fun on consoles, and while the series doesn’t maintain nearly as much of a presence these days, you can still get that same flavor of speedy satisfaction by playing Cruis’n Blast.

Like its predecessors, Cruis’n Blast is a fairly straightforward real-car racing game. No items or anything like that, just a pure contest of speed and skill in whatever car you think you can get across the finish line first in. The game’s primary draw is in its meticulously-designed tracks, which encourage you to drive as fast as possible, with the help of constantly-replenishing boosts, while also showcasing ridiculous events and setpieces like gigantic, earth-splitting earthquakes and alien UFOs zooming by. If you’re the kind of person who is completely immune to being overstimulated by flashing lights and constant movement, you’d probably love this game.

8 Haste

If You’re Slow, You’re Dead

In Denshattack or just about any game with an emphasis on speed, the general rule of thumb is the same: if you’re not going fast, you’re doing it wrong. Now, in Denshattack’s case, “doing it wrong” just means getting a lower time score at the end of the level or maybe hitting an obstacle and respawning a few feet back. In Haste, “doing it wrong” means going so slow that you end up getting consumed by the endless singularity devouring reality behind you.

Haste is a roguelite platformer where, in every stage, you need to keep rushing forward as fast as possible to outrun the looming dimensional collapse. In addition to boosting on level terrain, you also need to both jump off slopes and land on slopes in order to preserve and increase your momentum. Skill and control are paramount here, as just jumping randomly will cause you to stumble, slow down, and get telefragged. It also has open field levels, mostly boss fights, where you need to run around and search for weakspots to attack, same as the larger-scale bosses in Denshattack.

7 Freedom Planet 2

Down a Dimension, Same Speed

Speed is not a realm exclusively dominated by 3D games. From the moment the first Sega Genesis rolled off the assembly line, blast processing beating in its heart, 2D games have had plenty to offer in the speed department as well. Naturally, a game that deliberately invokes those classic Sega platformers like Freedom Planet 2 would possess that same understanding of speed and control that makes Denshattack so much fun.

Freedom Planet 2 is a sidescrolling action platformer with a take on speed reminiscent of the original Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy, complete with jumps, loops, ziplines, and all that other good stuff. You have four playable characters available, whether in the linear arcade mode or more open-ended story mode, each of which brings their own spins on speed and control to the table, from Lilac’s Cyclone double jump to Carol’s gravity-defying motorcycle. Similarly to Denshattack’s multi-objective stages, some of Freedom Planet 2’s levels are more labyrinthine, forcing you to slow down and consider your direction for a moment before blasting off again.

6 Skate Story

It’s Not Irresponsible if You’re Already in Hell

It’s a good thing that, every time you crash in Denshattack, you just inexplicably respawn back on the track a little bit. Train derailments are horrifying, and anyone involved in one would probably go straight to the afterlife! Luckily, Skate Story is set in the afterlife, so death’s not really a consequence. Of course, it’s Hell, so that’s not super great, but still.

Skate Story is a skateboarding game in which you play as a demon made of glass trying to eat the moon in the many layers of Hell. It makes sense in context. Sorta. While a large portion of the game is spent in open skate parks, another large portion is also spent on linear tracks and downhill jams, where you have to ollie and trick to pick up speed while carefully leaning on your board to maintain control. It’s a harder game than Denshattack, as it puts more emphasis on the fine control aspect, but there’s definitely some similar DNA in the overall gameplay vibes.

5 Neon White

A Different Style of Retro Anime

Denshattack wears its retro anime inspirations on its sleeve, albeit a very particular genre of anime where a single hobby can save the world and everyone is inexplicably obsessed with it. Another game with very clear anime influences, not to mention a similar, yet distinct flavor of speed-focused gameplay, is Neon White.

Neon White is sort of a counterpart to Denshattack, in that while the latter is reminiscent of hobby anime like Beyblade, the former is more like classic late night anime like Cowboy Bebop. Its titular protagonist is literally voiced by Steve “Spike Spiegel” Blum. Neon White is best described as a high-speed parkour shooter, in which you use your guns and their attached abilities to both kill enemies and quickly navigate through linear stages, aiming for the best time and score possible. Both Denshattack and Neon White have fairly high skill ceilings, which means both games are a lot of fun to watch people get really sweaty with.

4 OlliOlli World

It’s a Skating World, and We All Live in It

Speaking of hobby anime (and skateboarding, for that matter), there’s something I love about the idea of a fictional setting that is completely and utterly reliant around a singular, otherwise incidental concept. In Denshattack, that concept is trains, and in OlliOlli World, that concept is skateboarding. You wouldn’t think a world that runs on either of those things would be functional, but life is funny like that.

OlliOlli World’s core gameplay is actually very similar to Denshattack’s, in that it primarily revolves around cruising through linear tracks at high speed, landing tricks to build up your score, switching between different riding types like wallriding and grinding, and occasionally taking branching paths. Obviously, the difference is that you’re on a skateboard instead of a train, as well as the fact that the perspective is 2D rather than 3D, but both games’ focus on speed and control, not to mention their respective vehicle-obsessed settings, make them scratch almost the same itch.

3 Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Speed, Style, and Primo Jams

Another major component of Denshattack’s identity is its music, which is provided by numerous exceptionally funky luminaries who have previously worked on games like Jet Set Radio. However, while Jet Set Radio has a similar musical identity, not to mention speed and trick-focused gameplay, a game that better embodies what Denshattack is going for would be Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.

A spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has your gang of young punks cruising the futuristic streets on inline skates, skateboards, and BMX bikes, pulling off wild trick combos with the help of booster backpacks. It’s not quite as fast-paced as Denshattack, as landing consistent tricks and exploring the city are more important, but both its neon, angular visual style and soundtrack with many of the same performers help it channel that same Jet Set Radio-inspired future-street vibe that Jet Set Radio was originally going for. Come to think of it, some of this game’s graffiti designs would look excellent on Denshattack’s trains…

2 Sonic X Shadow Generations

Three Flavors of Hedgehog in One

Sonic X Shadow Generations Shadow gameplay

Of course, we can’t have any discussions of speed in video games without paying our respects to the Blue Streak, Sonic the Hedgehog. Speed has been Sonic’s bread and butter since the 90s, and the game that exemplifies every type of speedy gameplay he’s dabbled in since then is Sonic X Shadow Generations.

As a revamped version of Sonic Generations, Sonic X Shadow Generations features the retro sidescrolling gameplay of classic Sonic, the forward-moving, more varied gameplay of modern Sonic, and the more action-centric gameplay of Shadow the Hedgehog. Both originally and in this new incarnation, Generations has long been considered one of the better examples of high-speed, high-control gameplay, albeit with more of a traditional platformer slant than Denshattack’s on-rails experience. Even if it’s not exactly the same, though, if you want speed, control, and setpieces, Generations has plenty to offer, especially in the more action-packed bits of Shadow’s campaign.

1 Sonic Adventure 2

Gave Us All the Need for Speed

Cycling back around to the subject of the Dreamcast, Sonic was showing us just how cool speed could be in 3D with the launch of the original Sonic Adventure. However, between that game and Sonic Adventure 2, I think the latter has aged better, and is also the game that Denshattack takes more cues from in more ways than the obvious ones.

Whether you played the original version on the Dreamcast or Battle on the GameCube, Sonic Adventure 2 was the game that really impressed upon us older gamers how much fun speedy gameplay could be when done right. Granted, only the Sonic and Shadow levels are actually about speed, with the Tails/Eggman and Knuckles/Rouge levels having generally slower pacing, but it’s the Sonic and Shadow stuff that set the vibe for the whole game anyway, so who cares. The point is that, if you want a similar kind of Dreamcast-inspired speed to Denshattack, it only makes sense to return to the proverbial source by playing Sonic Adventure 2.

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