Gensou Skydrift

Gensou Skydrift is one of the few karting games on Switch to come even slightly close to Mario Kart in terms of its racing mechanics, and when it all comes together it's a fun time. Unfortunately, the lack of meaningful single-player content and the fact that the online is dead on arrival means this should be strictly considered a local multiplayer game if you want to get your money's worth.

Gensou Skydrift can't offer nothing special, especially to fans of a genre that has more ideal options, with a small cast of characters, a limited roster of loyalists and quite unstable frame-rate.

Gensou Skydrift is another Mario Kart clone, but with strange commands and horrible graphics.

Overall, Touhou Gensou Skydrift is an absolutely great racing game. While combining the feel of both a Mario Kart title with closer to F-Zero style gameplay, challenging yet fun courses, and an amazing soundtrack, Skydrift will definitely meet your racing needs. No prior Touhou world knowledge is needed either, and with a large cast of characters to choose from, it's really fun to figure out what tag-team combo you like the best. Although the number of courses may be on the smaller side, they're all really fun, especially once you've had some time to practice on them. If you're looking for a tide-over between Mario Kart titles, or just want something a little different from them? Touhou Gensou Skydrift is definitely for you.

Gensou Skydrift isn’t a terrible racing game, but its awkward controls and iffy drifting mechanic heavily reduce the fun that can be had from it. Add into the mix poor visuals and a dire campaign, and unless you’re happy to race online you should probably avoid it. Hopefully the option to remap the controls will be delivered in an update, because that would definitely make it more of an interesting proposition.

Gensou Skydrift isn’t a good game. The ideas of interchangeable witches and the shooting of the cards with their respective powers to use in the competition are appreciable, but beyond that I didn’t feel particularly involved in the game. An enjoyable and fun work just that little bit, but perhaps with some refinement of the plot and gameplay, or the addition of some more particular competition also for the purposes of the plot itself, it would have had more effect. A little bit enjoyable and fun title, but perhaps with some refinement of the plot and gameplay, or the addition of some more particular competition also for the purposes of the plot itself, it would have had more effect. After all the tracks are very linear with only the circles of magic and the drift to perform, you could say that even just the races levels of Crash Bandicoot 3 are much more engaging and full of interesting obstacles.

Despite the surprisingly great controls, Gensou Skydrift is a low budget disappointment. It’s ugly, it doesn’t feature a lot of content, and it’s not exactly the most accessible game if you’re not a die hard fan of the Touhou franchise, since you won’t understand a single thing about its plot otherwise.

Technically competent, and surprisingly well done, the simple lack of depth prevents this from doing any better. It can actually be completed in a few hours at max. Having a friend or playing online can extend the fun, yet the lack of content becomes obvious fairly quickly. The developer has promised more updates, which will hopefully come through, as the game has a good base to work with.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Gensou Skydrift, but it did have some issues. It is quite short, without many modes. It has some technical issues and it’s not great graphically. With that said, I certainly enjoyed that it was more difficult than the average and it is very fun to play against friends, as well as in single player. The skill needed to successfully navigate the courses is what makes it stand out the most to me and certainly fits in with the rest of the Touhou Project series in that way.

I have to say overall I had a great time with GENSOU Skydrift. The racing was fast, fluid and just a lot of fun. The graphics and artwork are outstanding. The game runs at a solid framerate no matter if the Switch is docked or in handheld mode. I polished off the campaign mode in just a few hours, but I spent about 4 or 5 more playing around on all the tracks with friends and CPU racers. The $23.99 price tag might seem a little steep, but this is a quality racing game. If you’re a Touhou fan I think you will find a lot to love here, and if you’re a racing fan looking for a solid title this might just be your cup of tea as well.