Along with the base game, the JDM: Made in USA DLC will also be available, featuring six unlicensed vehicles that are designed to pay homage to classic muscle cars that are often seen in the American drift racing scene. The DLC will be priced at $5.99. The DLC has been available on PC and Xbox Series X/S since November, and also brought with it 30 new tuning parts.

The trailer itself showed off some of the drift racing gameplay from JDM: Japanese Drift Master, leaning quite heavily into its Japanese drift scene influences. The trailer even went as far as to feature the iconic Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno driven by the protagonist of classic drift-racing manga and anime Initial D.

Paying further homage to Initial D, Gaming Factory has also detailed the most recent major update to have been released for JDM: Japanese Drift Master on PC and Xbox Series X/S. The update brought with it five new non-licensed cars from the Akina family, as well as more tracks for the in-game Eurobeat radio station, including “Running in the 90’s” by Max Coveri and “The Top” by Ken Blast.

As you might guess from the title, JDM: Japanese Drift Master is a racing game that is all about taking on the various curves of a typical race track in the most stylish way possible: by drifting. The title even features a story that puts players in the shoes of the Europe-based Thomas, who travels to Japan after inheriting a garage in Guntama prefecture—an area based on the real-world Honshu prefecture. Thomas quickly gets embroiled in the local underground racing scene thanks to his friend Hideo, and before long, has to take on a variety of challenging race tracks that range from narrow rural roads to vast highways and the curvy roads along the sides of mountains.

Aside from the story mode, JDM: Japanese Drift Master also features an open world that boasts of over 250 kilometers of traversable environments. This open world map has plenty of variety in its own right, thanks to a dynamic day/night cycle, and various weather conditions.

Alongside driving, JDM: Japanese Drift Master also encourages players to partake in the customisation of their vehicles, from tuning their car’s performance to find the perfect balance between speed and agility, to the visual aspects, with options for colour and parts like spoilers and bumpers.

For more on JDM: Japanese Drift Master, check out our review of its launch version, where we gave it a score of 5 out of 10. While we praised the general gameplay for how good the drifting feels, as well as the visuals and art direction, the game’s AI, story and mission design left us feeling underwhelmed. Since then, however, it has seen plenty of updates that have brought in various improvements.

Set in the Honshu-inspired Guntama, the story follows Thomas, who ventures from Europe to Japan and inherits a garage left by his late father. Teaming up with Hideo, he becomes involved in the underground racing scene, building up his own vehicle and taking on heated rivals over the course of multiple chapters (told through manga-like panels).

Its other calling card is the massive open world, spanning over 250 kilometers with varying weather conditions, a day/night cycle, and various challenges to complete. While the launch version didn’t exactly set the world on fire (check out our review), it’s received several updates to improve performance and address bugs.

A new paid DLC pack, Made in USA, is also slated for November, adding six vehicles inspired by American muscle cars alongside 30 new tuning parts. Stay tuned for more details on its launch in the coming weeks.

The results are a different story entirely. Japanese Drift Master has a pretty impressive-looking world yet struggles to do anything notable with it. Mission design is full of contradictory goals and annoying AI. Progression is less about maximizing rewards and more about grinding out reputation and leveling up a car. The drifting intrigues with its fundamentals yet frustrates in their utilization. Then there are the collisions, which defy logic and real-world physics.

The story begins with Thomas, later nicknamed Toma, mourning his father’s passing. Things seem dire after he loses his license and can’t race in Europe for a year until he converses with Hideo and learns about a garage his father left for him in Japan.

"To make things worse, you can’t overlook the story either because it feeds into the mission-based gameplay loop. JDM begins with only main missions to complete and driving school available to hone your skills."

As you might expect, he quickly becomes involved in street races, gains a heated rival in Hasashi “Scorpion” Hatori, meets a mysterious masked individual, and is embroiled in an unresolved case. All in less than two chapters, naturally, but the actual missions make the narrative feel less exciting than it actually is.

At times, they tie in well enough – show up for your showdown with Hasashi. At others, less so, bordering on the bizarre, like matching Hasashi’s drift and sticking close throughout an entire race, as specified, only for him to laugh you off afterwards like nothing even happened.

The actual writing isn’t anything special and has its fair share of grammatical errors, but the art is solid. Character details and expressions could be improved in some places, but the line work is clean, and the cars are impressively depicted. Unfortunately, some speech bubbles have way more text crammed in than others, resulting in a much smaller font, and there’s no option to zoom in. Also, the manga is the only fundamental means of story-telling. Aside from appearing in cars or via in-game menus, the characters may as well not exist.

To make things worse, you can’t overlook the story either because it feeds into the mission-based gameplay loop. JDM begins with only main missions to complete and driving school available to hone your skills. As you progress, the world opens up with new mission types like underground races and additional delivery tasks. The former is straightforward enough – earn a specific amount of money and reach the end to make bank. Higher amounts mean less time, adding an element of risk vs. reward.

The delivery missions, on the other hand, are awful. I’m not against a “Get to this destination and deliver a package within the allotted time” objective, especially if it’s in fun ways (see Crazy Taxi). JDM wants you to avoid hitting solid obstacles or cars lest you damage the deliverable.

Oh, and make sure you’re drifting about to build up that style score, i.e. the exact opposite of driving carefully and avoiding traffic. The two requirements are so antithetical to each other that it’s mind-boggling, surpassed only by the fact that one solid collision can take off 35 percent of the item’s “durability” bar. Is the package attached to the hood? Slamming into breakable objects is perfectly fine, by the way.

"Amid all my complaining, I admit that drifting can feel good under the right conditions. When you hit a corner just right and balance the angle meter just right to chain a long drift, the Initial D rush kicks in."

You can also partake in challenges for Drifting, Grip, and more on specific tracks to earn money (which you then spend on more cars and parts). However, this doesn’t change the fact that most of the world feels relatively unused, which is a shame because there are some aesthetically pleasing locales, like flower gardens and castles, to admire. I’m not expecting Forza Horizon levels of open-world design, but it feels like such wasted potential when it’s not wasting my time to get to a mission.

Starting Chapter 2, my next mission involved meeting Tiger, the aforementioned masked driver, south in the prefecture. No garage to fast travel to. Thus began the long, arduous slog without any distractions along the way to liven things up and annoying bouts of traffic to prevent me from drifting around. One does become available later, but then I discovered that delivery and underground racing missions change locations upon completion, and they won’t always be close enough to a fast travel point, further adding to the tedium.

Gaming Factory recently addressed the frustrations that traffic can cause by letting you turn it off at any time. It doesn’t outright excuse the delivery mission design, but it does help. However, it also removes the last vestige of life from the open world, making me question its existence all the more.

Amid all my complaining, I admit that drifting can feel good under the right conditions. When you hit a corner just right and balance the angle meter just right to chain a long drift, the Initial D rush kicks in. It feels all the more enjoyable when going up against tougher opponents, especially since you’re stuck with an Alpha Moriyamo clunker for the entirety of the first chapter. And while more variety is desperately needed – I counted 27 cars in total – at least brands like Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Subaru are all here.

I also like how weather and track conditions can severely impact your driving, forcing you to accelerate more carefully. The problem is that drifting, especially when you must rack up enough points, is easily gamed by simply wiggling back and forth. Early drifting competitions against the AI were a pain, especially since it makes almost no mistakes (when it’s not willfully slamming into you during races).

Then I implemented this approach, sometimes going off track in the process and racking up an extensive amount of points just for maintaining a long drift. The handling also felt off at times, with too much understeer at points, and improving acceleration and top speed resulted in my drifts consistently turning into spin-outs. Probably working as intended, but considering the game wants me to be faster and execute those drifts, it feels like a clash of styles.

The collisions are also utterly baffling at times. Veering off-angle during a drift can reduce the multiplier to 1.0 and grant significantly fewer points. Hitting obstacles sometimes has the same effect, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, my car would begin wall-riding like it’s Mario Kart World. Even on Arcade Mode, it’s immensely far-fetched. The collisions are also strange, unpredictable and often frustratingly weighed against you. Then again, colliding into a car in the open world so hard that it changed directions, and proceeded to drive back the way it came, was unintentionally hilarious.

"There’s still much work needed on world design, AI, collisions, and progression, not to mention adding more content, before it can truly be called a master of anything, much less my time."

Also, whether it’s a Moriyamo or a 2013 Subaru BRZ, be prepared to grind for the parts you want. Reputation must be leveled by either drifting through the world or completing missions and only then can you purchase specific parts, even if you have the cash on hand. Even more frustrating is that cosmetic parts directly tie into a car’s level. If you want to embrace a core aspect of street racing (at least, that’s what JDM tells me) and customize its looks, you better get ready to grind.

Then there’s the performance, which is a mixed bag at worst and competent at best. Despite my CPU being below the recommended requirements, I had a relatively consistent 60 FPS on High settings at 1440p with DLSS set to Quality. An attempt to play at Ultra was made, resulting in the frame rate tanking heavily during a thunderstorm. At least the flashes of lightning and rain droplets looked nice, accentuated by the city skyline at night, though the overall fidelity is above average.

There are some decently catchy tunes, especially when tuning into the rock and Eurobeat stations, though some of the lighter tracks can work wonders during drifts. They’re not particularly memorable, but at least they add some atmosphere. Why can I only cycle forward through stations and not back? Why does a particularly nice song cut off during a loading screen? Questions for another time, apparently.

I’m left dazed, confused, and a little annoyed at JDM: Japanese Drift Master. The concept felt ripe for a solid racer with a distinct style and mood, but the execution felt awkward and unfulfilling. It could shore up the driving and fine-tune objectives to deliver a better drifting experience. However, there’s still much work needed on world design, AI, collisions, and progression, not to mention adding more content, before it can truly be called a master of anything, much less my time.

This game was reviewed on PC.