Detailed game review after 1st play

[76561199570123581]

Summary - A game that holds promise but needs a lot of polishing.

I’ve just completed my first run through of the Last train home. A game that promised a blend of RTS and “city management”. As a fan of game such as Total war series, and Frost Punk, I looked forward to this game. Here is my detailed review after my first run through -

Good -

1 - the voice acting and cut scenes. They were well made the made the player feel immersive in the story

2 - the different traits of the soldiers meant that squads are highly customisable, and made it fun to play

3 - the game concept itself is fresh and interesting

4 - inside of the missions, the soldier abilities make engagements interesting

Bad -

1 - the lack of a tutorial meant that you have to figure out a lot of game mechanics yourself. In a game where 1 mistake could cost a life of your soldier, it means you will lose a lot of time loading and trying out different ways to beat the game

2 - the game breaking bugs makes the game unplayable. Right now, the game is a BETA phase game. This game is by no means finished.
Some examples of game breaking bugs are - 1 - your soldiers will be randomly left behind if you do not take them off roles on the trains. In the beginning, I lost 9 soldiers this way until I found a guide on the internet.
2 - inside missions, even though you click on the map, sometimes the soldiers fail to respond, When they are facing a grenade or artillery, I lost soldiers this way which mean loosing the game.
3 - time spent by soldiers deploying and undeploying their abilities, such as machine gunner and sniper kill zones, leave them highly vulnerable to grenades and artillery strikes. Coupled with the unresponsive bug, it means that many times your soldiers will die even though you tell them to undeploy and move fast enough
4 - linked with the above 2, every soldier has to deploy and undelpoy their ability individually. For eg, if you group 2 machine gunners and set up a kill zone, you cannot tell them to undeply at the same time and move out of danger. Often, your soldiers will die due to this mechanic, which desperately needs changing.
5 - no checkpoints inside of missions. You could spend 30 mins on a mission, and 2 soldiers end up dying due to a bug or arty strike, and you have to start the whole thing again, which makes it very frustrating for players.

3 - huge balancing issues on resources. For eg, to upgrade a cabin, it sometimes costs upward of 200 metal. Yet when you send squad to scour for resources, you may find 20 metal on a site. This means it will take you 10 trips to find enough metal to upgrade a cabin. Cloths is even worse. I understand developers want to give you a sense of struggling for survival, but when the game makes it downright impossible for you to pass, it makes the game unplayable.

These are just some of the issues I found playing. As such, I’ve found that this game should be moved back to beta until these issues are ironed out.

[Spencer]

I think the number 1 bad thing you have there actually is a positive for me. I'm tired of easy games and games which show you everything. Learning the mechanics is part of the game for me.

For the bugs, I can't relate on my end (so far)

I agree that it's a little annoying that the same type of soldiers in a selected group can not execute actions simultaneously when selected. I normally use the pause function to get around this if I need that.

I save quite a lot during missions, but agree that checkpoint (or timed) autosave would be good.

I can't agree on the resource part. I'm now in the beginning of chapter 7, my train (3 infantry wagons, kitchen wagon, medical wagon, workshop wagon and storage wagon) is almost fully upgraded - all heating levels, isolation and resource saving elements are installed. Locomotive is fully upgrade with everything. And Lvl2 clothing, additional storage for ammo are all developed as well. I currently still have 600 cloth, 300 metal & wood and 600 herbs on stock. I have a full squad train, so 36 soldiers. Fuel is at 2000 and food at 600 (I use the soup creation for that - before having this, food was a bit tight).

There is plenty of resources to be found during missions, which I did a lot, including the optional ones and the ones sometime being triggered when visiting trade posts.
Of course I use the right people / squad for that, every time.

It even happens that my fully upgraded storage wagon & Hound locomotive were not enough to keep all goods - not enough space.

What I think should be improved is the ability to modify the train. I think it's at the end of chapter 3 where you have the choice of locomotive, but at this point you have no idea what you will need. I went with the Hound locomotive, and it seemed to be useful till chapter 6. Then I realized it's missing power (I had to leave quite a few soldiers behind because no space, because I can't add any more wagon), not to speak for the artillery wagon or an additional storage wagon. I don't know if there even is a 2nd chance to change the locomotive at all? I had 3 places where I could have at least change / add wagons, but no locomotives were available.

[»SoD« Thekillergreece]

You will find a huge abundance of resources almost solely in missions.

[jj_fink]

quick save button on top right. Can save 300 times during a mission. No need to start it over.