TL;DR – Absolute Drift: Zen Edition is a short but sweet indie experience that deftly combines a minimalist art-style with an enjoyable soundtrack and a well-balanced difficulty curve. While the game may initially seem overly simple, learning the vehicle handling system is a challenge in and of itself leading to a constant push to improve on the part of the player. To prevent frustration progression is never dependent on full mastery, but for those seeking to attain 100% completion this is a game with a surprising amount of challenge in spite of it’s easy and laid back presentation. Fortunately the game is generous with it’s provision of content, with a solid number of courses (just shy of 40) alongside multiple vehicle skins and a soundtrack that grows as each “world” of tracks is unlocked. Ultimately it’s a well paced game that offers a decent challenge, without being overwhelming for more casual players.
Quick Note: While the game is available on basically every platform (GoG, Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series) the only platform with a physical copy available is the PS4 which had a limited run release.
Absolute Drift: Zen Edition (Absolute Drift: ZE) is a game that piqued my interest years ago due to it’s interesting art-style and solid presentation, but once which had been sitting in my GoG library for years. After finally getting around to playing it, I’m surprised I waited so long as it’s a stellar example of how to develop a short-but-sweet indie game without falling victim to bloat or an off-putting difficulty cliff. To be fair, the game’s handling engine can initially be a challenge to get to grips with, as in spite of the fairly generous tutorial and relatively simple initial challenges, the central drift mechanic can be difficult to pull off. This isn’t due to a convoluted control scheme, but is instead due to how easy it is to oversteer or understeer, especially as you need to be going at a decent speed for the drift system to even work. If you’re going slightly too slow then you’ll still feel like you’re drifting and produce tire smoke, but it doesn’t count as actually drifting. On the flip side, going slightly too fast will cause you to either spin-out or be unable to turn in time, which can cause a collision. Both of these consequences for poorly performed drifts are an issue as they interfere with the game’s scoring system, which is one of the main way it gauges performance within courses. The system itself is fairly simple, you gain points for drifting and a few other things (such as hitting destructible bonus boxes) and these tricks can be increased via a score multiplier. If you go too long without drifting, or crash into an obstacle then your multiplier is reset and all allocated points are instantly earned. The tracks are often short enough however that you’ll need to maintain a multiplier to hit the higher targets. Oh and it almost goes without saying but the game has a leaderboard feature, so you’ll want to aim for those high scores if you’re the competitive type. As such the basic act of drifting is one that you can kind of fumble in the early game, but as the courses get more complicated and the score requirements get higher, you’ll eventually need to have a good grip (ahahahhahaha geddit xD) of how it works.
Despite these challenges, you barely need to understand how the drifting system works to actually “beat” the game interestingly enough. This is because there are two largely separate progression systems in the game’s campaign (or “free roam” mode). The first and most obvious is a series of tracks, with around 4 or 5 per “world” that each have 5 goals in them. To fully beat the track you’ll need to complete all 5 objectives, although you don’t need to do all 5 objectives in the same run. This means that if you need to beat the track within 80 seconds and achieve a score multiplier of say… x15 then you can focus on beating the track quickly on one playthrough and then restart the course while aiming for the multiplier. As such each objective in the game is eminently achievable, although I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t some towards the late game that felt extremely difficult. Each world also has one midnight stage, which are more challenging courses that take place at night and involve running through a course once (as opposed to the normal stages which will either dump you in an area with a time limit, or have you race around a small course multiple times). These midnight stages are the highlight of Absolute Drift: ZE in my opinion, but to unlock them you’ll need to complete a certain amount of track objectives across the normal tracks in that world.
As mentioned above though, these tracks are actually optional for “beating” the game. In an unexpected twist, you instead merely need to complete a series of objectives across each world which are scattered around within the overworld sections. Once you’ve cleared all of these overworld objectives you’ve unlocked the next one, with this cycle repeating for 5 worlds. This means that you can finish the entire game without ever playing a course, if you were insane so inclined. These overworld objectives are fairly simple and can include clearing a jump, spinning around a piece of terrain or drifting between two pieces of scenery on the map. They’re visually obvious as they appear in a luscious red, before reverting back to the normal white colour once they’ve been completed. Each world has around 20ish of these mini-objectives scattered around, and they tend to be incredibly forgiving so long as you can find them (the worlds increase in size as the game proceeds, so I’ll confess to “losing” one in both world 4 and 5). What makes them forgiving is the fact that if you need to clear a jump, then you can attempt it as many times as you like for example, or if the objective is to spin around an object doing donuts then you can spin-out and then start again without any progress being lost. As a consequence beating these objectives is basically just a matter of time (and finding them) so there isn’t much challenge to be found if you were to only do the bare minimum needed to “win”. Instead the real meat of this game is found in it’s stages and in particular the objectives contained within them. As such I’d really recommend playing through the stages, even if they are treated as an optional objective for some reason.
And that’s about it as far as the gameplay goes, while there are some further tricks that can be pulled off such as spin-boxes which require you to spin multiple times within them or donuts that require you to drift around them, the game really is just about drifting and those overworld objectives. Fortunately the game not only has a charmingly simple visual style (as illustrated by the screenshots in this review) but also has a great accompanying soundtrack which manages to be laid back but energetic. This soundtrack is provided by the artists C41 and Nyte and does a great job of complimenting the tone of the game, which has some subtle nods to that whole mid-2010’s vapourwave nonsense without going too far. Instead the game has a clean, crisp visual style that holds up well in spite of the relatively low amount of assets and quality, while the soundtrack is distinctive without being obnoxious (no badly warbled J-POP samples and lazy repetitive beats here). As mentioned the game does have a modicum of longevity thanks to it’s leaderboards feature, although I must confess that as of 2023 the GoG version’s boards no longer seem to be working – which also removes the ghost functionality. This ghost functionality would just show the route that your previous high-score, friend’s high-score or even the global high-score took through a stage, but alas it has gone the way of the dodo (at least for those buying it on GoG). There is also a sliver of customisation for your car, with a handful of different models and some different colours/decals that can be applied to them. This functionality is admittedly fairly basic however, so it’s more of a cute bonus than anything to strive for. Plus no one will be able to see it aside from you, as outside of ghosts (which may or may not work on other platforms) this is an entirely single player game.
In summary then Absolute Drift: ZE is a charming little game with a decent difficulty curve rooted around it’s central mechanic, that also provides a solid amount of content for those aiming for 100% completion. Those not seeking any stress are free to skip difficult track objectives, or even entire courses in their quest to reach the next world giving it an entirely optional amount of difficulty. Yet I remain adamant that you would only be cheating yourself by skipping most of the courses. Fortunately retrying objectives isn’t very frustrating thanks to the accompanying soundtrack, while the visual style gives the overworld linking everything together a stylish look. Ultimately I personally thought that Absolute Drift: ZE was worth the modest asking price and the time I spent on it (just over 6 hours) and so wouldn’t have much trouble recommending it to most players. Just be aware that this is a game that is all about learning one mechanic, so if you aren’t keen on practising a single thing repeatedly and would instead prefer a varied experience then this probably isn’t the game for you. Absolute Drift: ZE is a game that rewards commitment and expects players to gradually learn how to drift, so casual players will probably rush through it or (as the abysmally low completion rates on GoG attest – less than 4% of players beat the game) end up dropping it entirely.
