Decent progress from last time.
Sometimes the game ends without even a game over screen.
The wheel health system turned out better than I imagined. The only problem with it is that it allows you to intentionally tank hits.
Once when I started the game the car was constantly emitting massive amounts of dust, up to the first collision only so I didn't start recording in time.
The game plays so much better without special effects. The only things left are the flashing freeze frames (remove it right now, this is pure cancer for this game), and burning cars that sometimes make the entire screen competely unreadable (I got used to the fact that on average I can't see half of the screen). The drift combo dust eventually covers the entire left part of the screen, which is cancerous too. You can always integrate those effects as key visuals kind of thing which get toned down when there's action going on since player will be paying attention to something else.
Sometimes the game freezes for a fraction of a second (might be me though, after rerunning the game it didn't happen once) which in this game is enough to put you in a hard situation. It could use a timestep limit as a quick solution.
I finally managed to beat the vertical slice, holy shit. It required me to finally get into the zone at the end - judging by this stage this is not a casual game as it requires serious focus. I'm not sure if it plays right as it is though, it feels like I'm tanking hits and collecting whatever generously placed health pickups I can find to compensate. Even when it feels like I'm doing well, have full integrity bar for the most of the stage and I'm in the zone as well I eventually fall quickly to the visual clutter.
My first try in kansei thefto was 6:30, this is the kind of stage that should have insane difficulty ramp up (instead of the other stages) to make it quicker.
Game doesn't handle chaotic situations well. There's delay to all actions and trajectory is more or less set, so at times you need to plan your movement ahead around the police, which is hard to do when there are more obstacles. Because most often you can't do much about being in a tough spot instead of adrenaline it's just acceptance of the upcoming damage and focus on grabbing the wheels.
Rapid panic clicking could make the lateral momentum stabilize for a short while as a crutch and for squeezing between cars.
Could be cool to have a drift change sound to vibe to the music through the drift rhythm.
What if driving into other cars from the side was more generous and you could push them aside to actually be able to intentionally affect elements in the level with explosions or road blocking?