GENSOU Skydrift

Time to fly into the magical world of GENSOU Skydrift, out now on the Nintendo Switch from the team at illuCalab.

GENSOU Skydrift is a Touhou Project racing game set in Gensokyo, located somewhere in japan where the world of humans and yokai (spirits) meet. No prior knowledge of the Touhou universe is required to enjoy the game but it also probably doesn’t hurt. Players choose two characters to use, each with different stats and abilities, where one acts as the rider and the other becomes the board. While racing it is possible to switch between the two to maximise each characters strong points such as offense, speed and cornering. Each track is littered with magical boost gates that will propel players along but also charge up your spell meter that, once full, will allow players to randomly claim a spell card to use. Spells are either offensive, defensive or boosts but each player also has a special and devastating “Last word” ability unique to them.

Controls are simple and easy enough to pick up but are only displayed briefly in the campaign tutorial, there are no other real reminders such as if you jump into a versus match without prior knowledge. The controls are easily figured out though by just mashing the buttons as you race and hoping for the best. Players can tightly turn or drift around corners depending on their playstyle and character selection. The whole vibe of Gensou Skydrift is very cheery and extremely Japanese with lots of visual novel style over the top moments in the campaign. Courses are diverse and interesting, ranging from human villages to magical sakura trees either being a looping track or a start to finish sprint. In every mode apart from online there is some serious AI “rubber-banding” going on to keep things lively, so no need to feel discouraged if you fall behind but also a good reason to not get too confident while in the lead.

Feeling like an extremely colourful and cheery Kart racing game, Gensou Skydrift has some very obvious nods towards more established games in the Kart racing genre but still keeps things fresh enough. An interesting alternative for those in the market for another quick kart racing game or fans of the Touhou franchise but probably not for everyone.

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Mat Panek, Chief Reporter
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.