Game:

Drift86 (2019)

Category:

Review

Duration: 21:31

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Today, New Release Friday will be serving you a tasty Drift86 gameplay and review as our weekly feature and hopefully will give you a good idea as to whether or not it sucks and help you make an informed decision if you are wondering, "Should I buy Drift86?" We will also find out if Drift86 is the next great unofficial Initial D Arcade Game, not a simulator because it isn't nearly hardcore enough for that.

At the start of our Drift86 gameplay and review we hit a bit of a rough patch and I was worried I would have to bail on the game. No one wants to watch a bunch of choppy footage, but I couldn't figure out why Drift86 20 FPS (HD) (POV) was a thing. It seemed as though starting the game in windowed mode resolved the issue, but windowed mode doesn't support 1080p and there was no borderless windowed mode. I restarted my Drift86 again and instead used alt-enter to force fullscreen, my FPS dropped low, then bounced back up to 60 FPS and never budged again.

In addition to the 20 FPS issue, Drift86 touted controller support on the steam page, but after getting into it our gameplay and review I realized that it was only partial controller support. You can use the controller on the main menu and in game, but no other menu or sub menu works with a gamepad. In addition to the lack of full controller support, your mouse cursor will always be on your screen while drifting about unless you toss it off to the side. This bothers me, but I understand not everyone will care as much. Switching back and forth between mouse and keyboard and controller gets pretty tedious though. Hopefully the developers of Drift86 figure something out.

I am a little wishy-washy about my feelings on Drift86's vehicle handling. There is something truly rewarding about whipping into a high speed drift and holding it all the way through the perfect shape of a turn, shifting the weight while popping the handbrake, and skating cleanly into another long drift. Our Drift86 gameplay and review wasn't all sick, smooth drifts though: I also found the handling to be a bit odd and unnatural at times. It felt like certain cars were too powerful and had little to no grip under normal acceleration, it also felt like Drift86 implemented some sort of pivot point on the vehicles somewhere near the middle of the car as opposed to at the front tires. As I mentioned, this is at best an Initial D arcade game, not a simulator, so I am not going to be overly critical in my review of their gameplay and physics elements with regards to realism.

I think the car selection in Drift86 is pretty decent as far as appealing to fans of Initial D, they give you many great tuner cars including multiple variants of the AE86, an FD RX-7, R34, Supra, EVO, etc. but I feel that they had a few that stuck out as odd like the old Charger, the Vez, and even the BMW sort of. I think that having some quirky and interesting vehicles is good, but that they should prioritize other more notable cars from the tuner scene. I'd love to see an R33, some Subarus, the BRZ, more Silvias, and other similar options. Drift86 didn't seem to care much about AWD, FWD, etc. but just tossed in whatever cars they wanted, which is fine but could use a better focus.

Honestly, though in my Drift86 gameplay and review I found that the game is very stripped down and bare bones, I expected as much from such a cheap game from a seemingly small developer. The idea of an Initial D arcade game is really what drew me in because Initial D is pretty sick and makes you want to be like Takumi without having to break laws... or your car... or yourself. And in all reality, I think that the minimalist approach suits Drift86: Initial D The Game pretty well. You jump in and drift - not much else to think about.

I played a couple rounds of multiplayer during my New Release Friday Drift86 gameplay and review and actually found it to be quite fun, though there wasn't nearly enough people playing to populate a server. Then again, most of Initial D was just a 1v1 duel, so I guess Drift86 inadvertently pushed itself further into Initial D arcade game territory by not having a big player base.

Verdict on my Drift86 gameplay and review is that you should buy it if you are into this sort of thing. For only $2, you can't really go wrong. I think that the game does have some issues I would like to see ironed out, but in all reality they could leave Drif86 just as it is and I still think it would be worth the $2. Now, whether or not it is a definitive Initial D arcade game? I don't think so, but I feel it does enough right to provide fan service to Initial D fans without needing to get official licensing to make a full blown game. Can't say I would want a small time developer like this in charge of such a thing anyway.

If you are interested in the game you can learn more at the link below:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1070580/Drift86/

Thanks for watching this week's New Release Friday. Have a great Thanksgiving!

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