Importing American muscle cars into a game whose definitive selling point is Japanese drift cars seems utterly mental, but that’s the nature of the American Classics DLC for JDM: Japanese Drift Master. Heads up: I go into this review with a bias as I love Japanese cars, but with the exception of the Shelby Cobra and 60s Ford Mustang, I don’t like muscle cars at all. Well, the Dodge Viper in the original Gran Turismo was my baby, but that’s not the point.
What I immediately have to address is just how good JDM really is. I said this at the time that it was a great game, though due to the nature of reviewing games, I haven’t been going back to it much. Ironically, having been tinkering with Steam games on my tablet as I was getting bored of the Steam Deck, JDM has been one of the hardest games to run, which was regrettable as outside of #DRIVE Rally, this is quite possibly my favourite PC racing game at the moment.
From the preview builds I’ve been playing to now, I always vividly remember a trip to Japan in 2024 with my Steam Deck and JDM moving in slow motion. That’s changed. It is buttery smooth now, and the only juttering is my hopeless drifting at 112 miles an hour. If you have this game and have not played it in a while for the same reasons, do play it again on the Steam Deck. Like this article, I completely forgot why I was here: to look at the American Classics DLC – not delivering sushi in my Mazda RX-7.
What I didn’t expect to be doing was playing a game solely for pleasure instead of reviewing it. Alright, I obviously enjoy gaming, but with reviews, there’s a responsibility to be relatively thorough and explore all angles. With American Classics DLC, there are only 6 cars – no new modes or flights to a NASCAR track, just some American old school beasts to tear up the tarmac in the mountains whilst delivering sushi and doing better skids than DK. As mentioned, I play JDM for the Japanese cars, and nothing else.
However, the Roebuck Reaver 1969 is an absolute beast on the drift circuit, and I couldn’t think of anything better. Sure, the RX-7 is a great drifter, but the Reaver was built for the task. Getting poxy 100-pointers then clipping a wall is common, though jumping in the Reaver and with the multipliers, it’s easy to get in the 1000s. The only beef I had with the American cars, notably this 60s behemoth, was the lack of customisation. Besides a hot pink pearlescent paint job and drag-like love heart exhausts, there’s no flexibility with how it’ll look, and without any liveries or decal models, it’s far from Pimp My Ride.
As you may know, JDM expects you to master your vehicle, so the proficiency is set to 0 for each new car. With muscle cars, you can fast-track proficiency in drifting, but not so much with a grip-style setup. Yet, despite these limitations and the lack of any mode besides the base game’s challenges and manga panels, I really love this game. Sure, the invisible walls and collisions are rubbish, and there’s definitely a learning curve to drifting. However, I would still rather hoon around the mountains in a mock American classic with claustrophobic turns than spin out at the Shibuya crossing with every other chump in Forza Horizon 6. It costs significantly less, too.
Yes, Gaming Factory’s JDM is the best Initial D game that isn’t actually Initial D, and instead of being restricted to Toyotas and tofu, you now have Shelbys and sushi. Though you might need another DLC, if you catch my drift?
