Inertial Drift

I normally don't write reviews before "finishing" a game or at least taking it all in, but the state of things for Inertial Drift's review section is particularly dire, so i'm wrapping up my holidays by writing this provisonal one in an attempt to clarify what this game *actually* is.
So, Inertial Drift is a fighting game.
It's not a sim racer, it's not a "simcade", it's not a traditional arcade racer and it sure isn't a "spiritual sequel to Drift Stage" - which is something i've seen said in this review section. What it is it's an *extremely* technical drift racing game, in which the drifting itself operates on slightly different rules than usual, and in which *every* car is functionally its own, drastically different character - like in a fighting game.
Basically, cars control normally up until the part where you drift: in which case you not only use brake and throttle, but also your controller's right stick. Because yes, this is a controller game - and i *heavily* advise against using any other control peripheral, sim steering wheels especially. In a sentence, you control the "front" of your car with the left stick (steering), and you control the rear with the right stick (drifting).
The tricky bit comes in the way you *enter* a drift, which is different car by car and gets progressively more technical the further you go down the roster. Because cars themselves are split in 3 classes: C, B and A - and the further you go, the faster and harder to control them is.
For example: a C-class car like the Katana will be able to enter a drift by simply moving the right analog stick in the desired direction, then lifting off the throttle to widen the drift angle or braking to reduce it. On the flipside, an A-class car like the Chrono will need you to gently lift the throttle and flick the right analogue stick with *extreme* precision, as to avoid drifting too harshly or spinning out. Your drift width and car balance are both indicated by a set of meters on the bottom of the screen - you know, like in a fighting game.
So yeah, now add a set of both circuits and point-to-point tracks and an *extreme* focus on racing lines to succeed in both time attack and races (which are exclusively 1v1) and you'd see where my comparison comes from. You *will* need to "lab" (i.e. practice) and focus on a particular car per class if you wish to "get good" in any way. You know, like in a fighting game.
To that end, the Story Mode helps by being a general "tutorial" on 4 particular cars, as well as giving you plenty of general tips on how to handle each particular track through character dialogue. Yes, you should actually listen what the folks you're racing with have to say, because their advice genuinely helps.
Last but not least, a couple of notes on the game's tone:
I, for one, find the tone of the story mode somewhat refreshing. I've heard people describe it as "PEGI-13" and "conflictless" sometimes, and while i do concede that car people usually swear a lot more, it does nail a particular feeling of "community" that is usually ditched in favor of Fast & Furious overdramatics whenever street racing comes up in any form of media. I also find the four playable characters (each gets its own story) to work as effective parallels for different kinds of racing games player, which is a nice touch.
On the matter of music, on the other hand, I can only say that everyone whining about the vanilla game* not having Muh Eurobeet is a tasteless, meme-addled philistine with no appreciation for electronic music past whatever plays in their Epic and Funny Edits of things going sideways to music by people they don't even know the names of. The game's soundtrack features a satisfying variety of fusion jazz, jungle and footwerk tracks inspired by classic street racing games like Ridge Racer Type 4 and Racing Lagoon - which kicks ass.
(*The "Twilight Rivals" DLC also features eurobeat remixes of every track by a japanese artist called Turbo)

Great music, decent driving on the starter cars, but some of the later cars feel completely incomprehensible and overly twitchy.
The game is very soft and forgiving for some reason. no edge, not even in the characters. just very washed out and it feels overly friendly. more than it has to be.
it also poses no challenge to complete.
the races are all basically reskins of time attack, since there is no collision, which again feels very washed out and "no negativity"
when i have to beat someone in time attack, and then in a race right after, the only difference being its a car that looks ghostly, it comes across as a little lazy, especially if they drive exactly the same which means you can just beat a time and beat the game, just by beating times. even style races you can easily gold rank with just driving normally.
furthermore the cars have no transmissions which combined with the lack of colissions, actual races and challenges besides beating times
it feels less like a deliberate game design choice and more of a "we couldnt make it work/code it".
especially the lack of gears hits hard because electric cars are the future, but if racing games can do anything, its preserve the things we wont have in the future anymore, like petrol engines, exhaust flames, pops and shifting gears.
this just adds to the overly friendly vibe of the game which makes it just tip over in the slightly pretentious category of positive, with the super eco friendly soft vibe the game has.
its not that it's a bad thing, its just too much of it. especially compared to the game that obviously inspired it, the story aspects are... meaningless in a way that there is no weight to it.
aside from that though, the game looks gorgeous, the car designs are creative and the music is top notch for a small game.
its fun, you should play it.

Mastering each of the cars is actually really fun and engaging.
Don't trick yourself into thinking the singleplayer campaign is the whole game, it is basically the tutorial.
The real fun is mastering the cars in arcade mode.

Inertial Drift is a great pick up and play game. Fair warning, though, that this game gets increasingly harder as you go along.
I couldn't really figure out how to drift some of the later cars as they had such bizarre mechanics. I ended up dropping the game because of this.
It runs great on Steam Deck FYI.

Best arcade racer I've ever played, and this is from a guy who used to listen to F-Zero GX Metal remixes in the weight room.

This game is straight out amazing. I used to play hundreds of hours of "Aboslute Drift Zen Edition" and grinded till I got into top 10 in some maps. Now this game is like Aboslute Drift on steroids. Its AMAZING.

I havent enjoyed a game as much as this one in such a long time. Its a masterpiece. So many options and the handling is just awesome. It feels like you master a new skill while playing along. I bought this game for 5 of my friends after playing it for 2 hours. You should do the same, spread this game, we need more like this.

The only thing I did not like about this game is the music. Its quite boring and only one song on loop, but the DLC seems to fix that (didnt try it yet). What I do is just set the music sound to zero and listen to another playlist while playing. It's so much fun.

Also I have not encountered a singel bug/issue/problem yet. Even ps4 controller support worked without any problems.

Just an amazing experience, please continue like this. Thank you for this amazing game, made my year 2024 and looking forward to grind thousand of hours in it !

Fun, very enjoyable, easy to learn and hard to master. What else do you need in a driving game?