JDM: Japanese Drift Master Review

I’m typically not the biggest racing game fan; while I appreciate them, and regularly find myself hopping on Gran Turismo or Need for Speed for a few hours here and there, it’s rarely my go-to genre. The same can be said for racing/car culture, but there is a single aspect which I’ve admired from a distance for quite some time: Japanese drift racing. JDM: Japanese Drift Master is made with a clear love for that culture, but some bumps in its execution stop it from reaching the heights it could otherwise have reached.

You take the role of Touma, a racer who recently moved to Guntama, a fictional Japanese prefecture, to become one of the best drift racers in the area. As a story, it’s pretty typical, but it’s nothing that bothered me; the racing comes first, and the story is a fine supplement to the rest of the game. I’m fond of the presentation of the narrative, too, but I think it could be done to a slightly higher quality. Most of it is told through a series of manga panels, and they’re charming, but I wasn’t as impressed with them as I’d hoped. They’re not awful, though, and I think in certain aspects they can make things much more palatable. For example, the car customisation is unbelievably deep, being able to customise the angle and spacing of the tires, changing different engine values, and many other complex details. I don’t even have a small understanding of a lot of these, but they are explained in a much more approachable way in some of the manga panels.

The first thing I discovered when I got into this game was how terrible I was at it. As someone with relatively limited experience in the genre, it was pretty punishing. There are two control styles: Arcade, aiming for a more casual and accessible feel, and Simcade, which is more precise but more difficult. While I started out on Arcade, I switched to Simcade to feel the difference and found myself vastly preferring how it felt. They’re both worth trying, though, and as with many things in this game, it’s a matter of preference. As a whole, I found the driving model to be highly demanding, which may lead to some struggles with accessibility, but this makes it feel so much more rewarding.

There are a fair few cars and each has a wealth of upgrades and customisation, meaning if you don’t like how a car feels, you can buy a new one, or fiddle with every last detail to make it perfect. As I mentioned previously, the sheer amount of options here is quite daunting, but in my time of playing, I never found myself being forced to delve into every last detail: you’re given as much freedom as you want. You have a lot of options for visual customisation too: the externals and internals can be altered in many ways, allowing you to make each car your own. Many of these are locked behind a more arbitrary but still solid progression system, both the player and your current car have a reputation level, which increases by doing just about anything. As these get higher, you’ll unlock more parts for your cars. It can be a tad annoying being locked out of accessing some of these, but it’s not too hard to level up, so it’s not a huge problem.

The formatting of JDM’s content is pretty strong, but the pacing has its issues. There are three primary types of races: Drift, Grip, and Drag. These each function in a unique way: Drift races require you to win the race, while gathering more points through drifting than your opponent(s); Grip racing is a more traditional style of race, typically putting you on tracks which require tighter racing lines; and finally Drag races, which rely on a more mechanically demanding start to the race, along with learning how best to change gears. They each test different skills, and I do like them individually, but you aren’t given enough access to this variety of events early enough, in my opinion. You’ll be forced to mainline the story for quite some time before you’re allowed to go out and enjoy the content. While I assume this is something of a balancing decision, to stop your car from getting overly upgraded and making the story events too much of a breeze. If this is the case, it’s understandable, but I would personally prefer to have that choice myself. To help with the relative difficulty, you have the Drift School: a location you unlock early on, which gives you a pretty great variety of practice events and drills for each of the three race types.

Beyond these, there aren’t too many more unique pieces of content to explore, aside from challenges, which are fundamentally the same style of content on more specialised tracks, rather than street racing. It’s not a bad amount of content, but if the core gameplay doesn’t grab you, it might be hard to find that hook elsewhere.

What makes JDM stand out the most, though, is the passion. These developers have such a clear love and understanding of the culture, and it does manage to match the vibes of other media that fit this style and aesthetic, such as Initial D and the slightly more niche Racing Lagoon (aside from its weirder parts…). There are a lot of staple cars which are famous for their place in the Japanese drift racing scene, such as the Nissan Skyline GTR and what I believe to be a Toyota AE86 — called the Alpha Moriyamo in-game. The music and visuals match this atmosphere, too, but I will admit a lot of the music wasn’t my style. The visuals work unbelievably well with the environments, too. The prefecture of Guntama is beautiful, varied, and a joy to just get lost in. I regularly spent a lot of time just driving around and taking in the atmosphere. Both the winding mountain roads and the more urban areas feel great to explore, and I can see myself regularly returning to turn my brain off and enjoy the atmosphere.

Though flawed, JDM is successful in what it sets out to do. Its charming, if typical, story and difficult but rewarding handling model make for a fantastic racing game.