Introduction: Welcome to Guntama
If you’re a fan of drifting, Japanese car culture, or simply love the idea of taking a Nissan Skyline sideways through rain-slicked mountain roads under neon lights, then JDM: Japanese Drift Master has probably already caught your eye. Developed by Gaming Factory, this simcade racing game throws you into the fictional prefecture of Guntama, a beautiful Japanese-inspired map packed with twisty touge roads, winding highways, and narrow urban alleys.
JDM: Japanese Drift Master arrives with burning rubber and big ambitions. But while it gets the vibe right—with narrow touge roads, neon-lit cities, and plenty of tire smoke—it also stalls in key areas, from gameplay balance to polish. JDM isn’t trying to be Forza Horizon. It’s focused on one thing: drifting, in all its smoky, sideways glory. For that niche, it mostly delivers—but it’s also a game that feels unfinished, sometimes awkwardly so, despite its excellent foundation.
Gameplay: Drifting is the Discipline
JDM doesn’t treat drifting as a mini-game—it is the game. From sushi deliveries to story missions, almost everything revolves around maintaining clean, extended slides to rack up style points. A visual drift meter helps guide your balance, and while this makes it easier to understand how the game wants you to drive, real success comes from feel, not meters. The highlight of the game is, without a doubt, the world of Guntama. It’s an open-world map with over 250 kilometers of roads, designed to reflect the real-world geography of Honshu, Japan.
It’s one of the most immersive and stylish maps in any modern racing game—think Need for Speed Underground meets Initial D, with modern touches like waypoint navigation, interactive garages, and manga-style story beats.
The physics model strikes a sweet spot between arcade and simulation. You can clutch-kick, adjust camber, and mod your gearbox ratios, or keep it casual with assists and controller play. That’s flexibility we appreciate, especially for a genre that can be daunting to newcomers.
But there are rough edges: the AI is painfully unbalanced, drift scoring feels inconsistent (your opponents can rack up 4,000 points for baby slides while you struggle to earn 400), and some mission designs are punishingly frustrating. The lack of feedback when you fail a drift event—combined with long loading times between retries—only adds to the sting.
Story & Structure: Manga, Mishaps, and Misfires
The game’s campaign unfolds through a black-and-white manga presentation, right-to-left and full of melodramatic tropes. It’s earnest—sometimes to a fault. You’ll chase rival drifters, impress anime love interests with your drift score, and stumble through questionable writing and cringey localization.
Despite that, the story’s heart is in the right place. It tries to immerse you in Japanese car culture, from old-school touge to street battles under neon signs. And missions vary: drag races, time trials, and content creation gigs break up the pace. You’ll even do Crazy Taxi-style sushi deliveries, trying not to ruin your spicy tuna with reckless driving.
Still, the campaign’s translation issues, comic pacing, and occasional tonal weirdness hold it back from reaching the heights it aspires to. Some scenes veer into very awkward territory—like missions involving female characters tied to performance-based approval—it feels outdated and out of step. It really depends on what you are expecting, and knowing it’s not competing with its huge open world competitors, but it’s a focused experience, and its primary strength is just drifting.
Visuals, World & Audio: A Love Letter to Drift Culture
If nothing else, JDM is a stunning tribute to Japan’s roads. The fictional prefecture of Guntama is sprawling and authentic, with over 250 kilometers of narrow touge, city streets, and rural backroads. Dynamic weather and day-night cycles bring the world to life, and some of the map design rivals big-budget racers.
Cars are equally impressive. Fully licensed models from Nissan, Mazda, Honda, and Subaru look great and sound better. Authentic engine audio and performance mod systems add depth, letting you build your dream drift machine piece by piece. Whether you’re fitting new rims, adjusting camber, or slapping on underglow, it nails the fantasy.
Unfortunately, frequent loading screens, visual pop-in, and frame drops (especially on mid-tier PCs) from Steam reviews mention that it does sour the experience. Even powerful rigs report optimization issues. We played on a variety of places, the Steam Deck, our RTX 5090 PC, and the ROG ALLY X. And no, it’s still not optimized for Steam Deck, the ALLY X was barely better, and on PC with DLSS and frame generation, there was still the occasional stutter here and there. Mostly the experience was good on our higher-end PC, but anything lower, like the ROG ALLY X, and we had some occasional very low dips and stutters.
Features & Customization: Great Bones, Not Enough Meat
JDM offers:
- Dozens of licensed cars
- Performance tuning and aesthetic customization
- Narrative-driven campaign (40+ events)
- Side activities like deliveries, grip races, time trials, and speed traps
- Manga storytelling
- Dynamic radio stations and immersive audio design
It’s packed with potential. But at launch, many of these systems feel underbaked. The drift school lacks proper tutorials, the manga pages load too slowly, and controller/wheel support is hit-or-miss. If you’re here for online features, you’ll have to wait—there’s no multiplayer yet, and steering wheel integration needs work. It would have been awesome to see any VR support, or more baking time for better performance and visual fidelity.
JDM needs a ton of work in its fast travel, night lighting, multiplayer, and AI balancing. The meat of its licensed cars, the Initial D style stages, and its map, however, bring so much charm that those looking for this style of game will absolutely adore this entry. Some may want to refund it right away, but if you take your time with it, you’ll see its licensed cars are extremely authentic and sound just like the real thing. You can tell the developer cared to craft them with care and love, now the world around it needs that same love.
That said, the devs are active and responsive, with a promising roadmap. They’ve acknowledged balance issues, AI tuning, and performance optimization as priorities.
Verdict: Dripping With Style, But Not Fully Tuned
Rating: 7 / 10 – Solid, With Caveats
JDM: Japanese Drift Master is a drifting passion project with some of the best vibes this side of Initial D. It’s beautiful, authentic, and fun—when it works. But inconsistent AI, frustrating scoring, and a lack of polish mean it’s not quite ready to take the podium. With time, it could be a must-have title and we hope it gets more love.
This is a game made by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. If you love JDM culture, touge drifting, and tuning cars in neon-lit garages, it’s worth supporting—especially with the devs promising more updates and cars. But if you’re looking for a refined, complete experience? Best to hold the handbrake for now, or you can jump in to prepare for the rest of their roadmap for the next 9 months.
Pros:
- Excellent drift physics
- Gorgeous open world
- Licensed JDM cars and authentic customization
- Killer soundtrack (yes, there’s Eurobeat)
- Passionate dev team and roadmap support
Cons:
- Poor optimization and performance dips
- Inconsistent drift scoring and unbalanced AI
- Long loading screens and frequent bugs
- Clunky story and awkward localization
- No multiplayer (yet)
JDM: Japanese Drift Master is out now on Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store for $34.99 USD.
JDM: Japanese Drift Master : JDM: Japanese Drift Master is a drifting passion project with some of the best vibes this side of Initial D. It’s beautiful, authentic, and fun—when it works. But inconsistent AI, frustrating scoring, and a lack of polish mean it’s not quite ready to take the podium. – Mario Vasquez