I don’t think I’ve ever done as much of 180 on a game from demo to full release as I have with JDM. But it has been like playing two completely different games in terms of the quality difference.
When I played Rise of the Scorpion the demo/prologue of JDM, saying I was underwhelmed would be selling short how I felt about the game and its prospects. The handling was awful, it ran like slug through treacle, looked poor and was generally an awful experience.
Fast forward to the release of the actual game and things couldn’t be any more different. Starting off with the handling of the cars. They are now fun to drive, whilst also being challenging. You won’t be flinging yourself through corners from the start like a drifting pro and you will spin out, lose the drift and even crash a fair amount, but you feel like it is something you will clearly get better at with enough practice.
Early challenges feel daunting as you struggle to get even a few measly drift points initially, but after a few runs and learning the feel of a car, you suddenly start holding a drift round a corner. Next you find keeping a drift into the next corner being the difficult thing, but again, you get a feel for how the car moves and then you go from one corner to another and get that combo going. Albeit not for very long.
Yet, you keep practicing and beating the various objectives and get better and better and better. Going from barely doing a single drift to getting large combos. Yes it may be a bit raggedy to watch, but you are doing it and soon, you start looking better at it and trying to perform better and more difficult drifts. Really pushing yourself and your car to the limits. .
It makes the moment to moment events in JDM and absolute joy to play. However the biggest issue with the game comes down to the map. Whilst it is vast and fun to drive, the objectives and locales are perhaps too spread out and make it a chore to navigate at times. There are fast travel options as you unlock certain parts, but you can do from event to event with fast travel. In fact sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it because of long load times.
It is something that take the shone off a little in my opinion, but hopefully something that can be optimised in due course. Because the music, the feel of being in Japan on the touge routes is an absolute joy.
It is very hard to pop JDM on for a quick 10-20 minute go, as I’ve often lost 1-3 hours at a time to this game. Discovering new events, trying to improve my best scores and generally get better at drifting.
There is a story, told in the form of Manga and it is very much of the drifting culture. It is interesting enough if you’re into the scene, but can also be happily ignored if you just want to do some cool looking driving.
JDM won’t be an ever present on my playlist, but I am loving the time I have with it now and for anyone who wants a fun driving game with character, then this is an excellent title to consider.
