JDM: Japanese Drift Master, at its core, is a drifting game. I love drift racing, one of my favorite racing games is the Ridge Racer series, and both games share some of the same DNA. There was an expectation that I would love the Drift-centric experience presented in front of me, but this didn’t hook me in the way I was hoping it would, and not for the reason you might think. This is a trip across the Japanese countryside, and one of the best in racing form that we have gotten, and so it feels a shame that your first few hours are spent with bizarre narrative gaffs that overly focus you towards swerving around corners and not putting the pedal to the metal as you take the country by storm.
The narrative itself is presented through manga paneled cutscenes, and you play as a guy who was kicked out of the European league of racing for a time, with him relocating to Guntama prefecture of Japan, which is away from city life, with the hope of clearing his mind and taking a break from racing. Any racing narrative, though, will tell you that it never goes well, and while working as a food delivery driver, he gets scouted and eventually joins a Japanese racing circuit. If any of this SOUNDS familiar, a chasticed racer seemingly exiled to Japan, or a food delivery driver turned racer, well, it should; there aren’t exactly original ideas. Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Initial D both seemed to have some influence here, with even the prefecture drawing its name from the main setting of the manga.
This isn’t strictly a bad thing, though, as the game has a number of memorable characters, including the lead character Tomasz “Touma” Stanowski, who becomes genuinely endearing the further into the narrative you go. The fact that it draws from two classic ideas bolsters this, creating an experience that feels like you always wanted it but were somehow never able to get a fully realized idea until right this moment. There are some issues in this narrative, though, and mainly in the first act.
The game is structured in chapters, with each one revolving around a different type of racing, which unfortunately makes the game feel poorly paced. The hope was that there would be a strong focus on growing my newly formed racing team, and there is buried in the narrative, but far too often, it feels like we took a left turn into drag racing for the sake of introducing drag racing, not organically growing my respect as a racer in the region. Drift racing, which takes up the entirety of the first chapter, is weird as it solely focuses on drift scores with few exceptions. The game gives you the option early on to drive with an arcade control scheme or a realistic one, both working to great effect, with arcade feeling the closest to a return to Ridge Racer than I have ever gotten before, so my expectation was to pick your poison and learn how to race under those parameters.
This was incorrect. Early races are solely about points, so I ended up three miles behind my opponent, drifting crazy but slow chains, so I could just race to the finish once my opponent passed the finish line, and a time limit was set. Then, in my victory, because I had so many more points than they, I was treated to a cutscene about how yes, this was a race, and I just barely managed to pass my opponent and finish in first. I was concerned this would be the whole way through, but then the second chapter introduced proper races. The kicker here is that car setups intended for this forego drift, having very little oversteer. This essentially keeps the two experiences I was hoping would merge into perfect harmony from ever actually meeting, which is an absolute shame.
JDM also has a problem with the inconsistency of the challenges they set forth, as well as how fun they are. One core race mechanic involves following a rival closely and trying to beat their score; the closer you are to them, the more points you get. Weirdly, while maintaining closeness and hitting the apex properly can be hard, the real challenge is just how easy it is to beat their speed and be punished because they went off the road, and now you need to park, wait, and try to match speed as they speed past you again. I found it was easier to break if you got in front and made it impossible for your rival to drift without hitting you, giving you more range for drift and stopping them from having any.
Other modes, like a side quest in which you needed to hit a drift at exactly the right time for point value, were also frustrating. Hitting those turns seems extremely inconsistent, with two near-identical drifts having different results, and yet somehow, a bizarrely off drift would hit a perfect score. This is compounded with rewards that drop nearly 80% between a near-perfect run and a very good run, which can create a lot of frustration. Main modes, since chapters are themed around them, create a pause in progress when you are not gelling with something too, like what happened to me with drag racing since I could NOT get that timing right! The annoying part about this conversation is that when the racing is good, it’s better than good. It’s honestly top tier. That’s what makes these moments stand out, because they feel so out of place with the game’s tight racing when it is firing on all cylinders.
Outside of these main races that you have, which further the story, or the lore in the case of side stores, you also get a beautifully crafted take on the Japanese countryside that is an absolute joy, and I need to repeat that, an absolute joy to get lost in. Whether driving along the lake, then a coastal fishing town, along the winding mountain roads, or the tight streets of the few bigger cities around, these scenes let me experience moments I thought were only for me when watching NHK. Combine this with the synthwave and pop that is ever-present through your car’s radio and JDM, making for an addictive soundtrack to your journey that I could not turn off, and you get an experience that most can’t compete with. Thankfully, the game has so many gorgeous locations you can park up and just rock out, which at least five of my hours in my life were spent doing. Not to mention the day/night cycle really does make this area feel unique at any moment.
If you’re a Forza Horizon or Gran Turismo Fan, you might be disappointed by the number of cars available in the game, which is close to 30 or so, but for an indie title, it is a good roster of rides to choose from, with most being name-brand. My Nissan Skyline is in it anyway, so I am a happy camper. The game makes up for its light roster in other ways, such as a decent amount of customization options to personalize your car, and tuning, which, like I said earlier, acts independently of your car, allowing any car to be built for the racing type you want to use it for, though you do need to wade through the games sadly intrusive loading screens every time you want to do so. JDM also doesn’t make earning money frustratingly hard, as the game isn’t built around microtransactions, which have sadly taken over much of the genre, so you can definitely expect to be able to acquire any car you want with the right amount of work ethic.
Verdict
JDM: Japanese Drift Master does something a lot of indie developers do well, and that invokes nostalgia for the classic games, movies, and yes, manga that inspired it, but it also does something else, and that’s build a racing game that is strong in its own right. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the story, where it draws you in with a familiar plot but then hooks you with the characters and narrative that is right here and right now. The world of Guntama Prefecture is big, bold, and most importantly, beautiful, with every street becoming a new adventure you just raced the right tunes to give it style. The shame of this is that the issues the game does have stand out against the moments where everything is going great. Not all challenges are built the same, with some inconsistent and frustrating, others just not enjoyable. The pacing of the narrative and some mixed messaging when a challenge asks you to do one thing, only for the next cutscene to imply something else, is odd and awkward. Despite all of that, though, there aren’t racing games I could recommend more than JDM. Once you lose yourself in the world like I did, you will see why, too.
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A review code was provided by Gaming Factory for the purpose of this review.
Developer: Gaming Factory
Publisher: Gaming Factory
Release Date: May 21, 2025
Pros:
+Beautifully Crafted World
+Great Soundtrack
+Tight Racing
+Fun Narrative
+Good albeit limited Car Selection
+No Microtransactions
Cons:
-Some less than fun modes
-Pacing issues
-Odd Story Beats
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JDM: Japanese Drift Master
