I wanted to hold off writing a review on this game because first impressions can be impulsive and the first impression of this game, for me, was farily negative. Having now played it for around 30 hours I believe I have discovered the enoyment that is somewhat buried beneath its initially frustrating exterior.

The first thing I would have to say to players who have played other transit games such as OpenTTD/Simutrans/Locomotion previously is to discard most of the notions that have made you successful at those games. The fundamental challenge of A-Train is the flow of passengers and materials throughout a city rather than source and destination.

A-Train does not seem to care one lick where people are going-- they seemingly have no destination, only a time that they commonly depart. To clarify, passengers in a residential area will gather at their respective stations to depart around 8:00am while passengers in a business area will gather at around 6:00pm. However, it does not matter one iota whether the passengers from the residential areas are actually transported to the business area-- they will happily get off the bus/train at any point in between which is good because, in my experience thus far, A-Train tends to penalize long hauls rather than reward them. The most critical notion you will need to discard is your desire to move materials a huge distance across the map-- it pays you for units of cargo delivered with either a negligible or no bonus for distance moved: Picking up a 6 car freight load of materials will pay $60k on delivery whether the train trip lasts 8 hours or 24 hours. The only difference is how much profit is whittled away on the empty return journey of the freight train.

For a first timer, I would recommend making a mostly blank map with maybe a factory and a power plant pre-placed with between $500m - $1b starting capital and working from there. There will be a good deal of confusion if you just throw yourself into an existing scenario with an assortment of vehicles and routes already in place.

Also, and this bit is important, be sure you go to the Options menu, Schedule tab and check every single box available to you-- why these aren't the defaulted settings I have no idea, but the bulk of the game in terms of scheduling will be unavailable to you without the Scheduling options enabled. Your busses and trains will behave like idiot children and you will be left wondering how anything so primitive ever found a publisher! The meat and potatoes of this game is managing and optimizing the time tables of your transit routes. If optimizing routes and a fair amount of micro management is not your idea of a good time, you should avoid this game-- you will not have fun.

You must also be prepared to engage in most aspects of the game: subsidiaries are your friend, the stock market is your friend, do not simply ignore them and hope for the best-- costs, especially in developed areas are extremely high so you will need the money! Be prepared to observe and understand why you failed your first few times playing, because that seems to be the most likely outcome.

Overall:

Graphics 8/10 - Some might disagree with me on this, complain about textures etc and how it doesn't look light a high budget photo realistic game, but to me the graphics have their own charm, do their job and aren't a huge drain on the frame rate. The game cycles from night to day and in between seasons and once your town/city/metropolis starts to develop it has a very nice feel to it.

Sound 3/10 - The sound in this game is not good, I wish there was a nicer way to say it. You get some basic train and bus sounds and railway crossing sounds etc but it all falls flat-- The music is faily nice but only seems to play on the first of the month... at the rate the game progresses you won't be hearing it very often unless you're permanently playing on super-turbo speed.

Control 6/10 - Some clunky menus and odd placement methods and navigation require some getting used to. Once you get the hang of it, it is functional and will do what you tell it to but it lacks the intuitive nature of many of its contemporaries. Also: There are no rail signals, they will behave in a block manner and will not detonate explosively by running into one another. To have a working, complex rail network you will have to manage your trains departures, arrivals, switch points etc. Do not expect to throw multiple trains on a rail line and expect it to be functional, let alone profitable.

Gameplay Initially 3/10, Revised 8/10 - Your first impression of this game will probably be bad, you're going to have to experiment a little bit before you find the enoyment in this game. Coming from other transportation sim games I cannot fathom your first impression would be overwhelmingly positive. It is complex with basically no instruction on how to play. You have been warned: you will need to put in a good amount of time.

Overall ??/10 - This is a complicated niche game, period. To me, personally, the overall would be about ~7.5-8/10, but this will vary widely depending on what kind of games you like and how you like to play them. To reiterate what I've said previously, do not buy this if management of timetables, arrivals, departures, switches, days of the week, months of the year etc. etc. etc. are not your cup of tea. If you just want to throw down a very long line, pick up coal and deliver it across the map, play OpenTTD!

Addendum:
$60 is steep for this title, I would not recommend paying $60 for it and I did not pay $60 for it, on sale in the mid $30s seems about right. Time will tell about DLC content, the train options are seriously lacking and there is no shortage of existing A-Train players complaining about the lack of trains, especially those found in the Japanese editions. Hopefully it's something that gets rectified in the coming months.

This game is openttd and simcity on steroids!

Pro's:
- Finally a good challenge. This is definitely not a western easy win game. It takes a good while to get used to the user interface and there is a lot of information hidden behind buttons.
- Big complex railroads. Every turn and stop is customizable for trains/busses/trucks including depature times (Some settings you have to enable under options).
- Big economic aspect. The economics is an important part of this game. It even includes a stock market! If you just want to build: The 'Map Creator' can be used as a sandbox mode.
- More than trains: You can build hunderds of different buildings (Which are really obvious inspired from real Japanese buildings). And then you can try to earn a profit with those buildings as well.
- Big maps with cities which are actually the size of a city!

Cons:
- It really misses an easy way to get used to the game and learn the shortcuts (Controls and UI takes some time to get used to)
- No Japanese trains, just trains which are very inspired from Japanese trains
- No multiplayer mode

Can you look over the initial steep learning curve and do you like a big complex city simulation game? Then this is for you.

Recommended with caveats. For those new to the Atrain series, it is similar to other city building/simulator games you have played such as SimCity, RailRoad Tycoon, Tropico, Cities XL, etc. The most important differentiator is that much of the expansion in Atrain happens organically - as you build your railroad and trucking infrastructure, new apartments, shopping centers and office buildings will be built by npc corporations around your infrastructure. The better you manage shipping freight and transporting passengers the faster these areas will grow.

The maps are huge and the building options are very deep indeed. As of this writing the trains are generic but still divided into quite a few different categories (freight, express freight, commuter, express passenger, etc.). For those looking for real-life trains you'll be disappointed at this time, but apparently the devs are working on licensing those trains. I've found the selection deep enough at this time to be enjoyable.

The graphics aren't going to win any awards, but provide enough detail to be passable for a modern day city simulator. Let's face it, most of us only zoom in to view the graphical detail once or twice during the lifetime of a game, then spend the rest at the strategic view anyway! I am running at the highest detail level with a relatively mediocre system and everything runs very smoothly. The city buildings look great as they expand over time, but the one thing that is missing for me is traffic on the roads. As you build freight trucks and busses they roam the cities to move goods or people - but they are the ONLY vehicles driving on the roads. I think a few token cars driving around the cities just for show would go a long way to bring the cities to life.

This game is not all that easy (it's easy to go broke), which for me is fantastic! Too many other games such as Simcity and Tropico make it waaaay too easy to get started and get to the point where money is essentially no object. Here you need to carefully monitor each facet of your empire and plan how you are going to expand. You can't simply buy a new train, build a new route and expect the profits to roll in.

Now onto some of the uglier areas of Atrain that need some work. The good news here is that I think all of this can be fixed over time with patches.

Atrain 9 is apparently a port from a popular Japanese version. After playing for about 14 hours or so it explains some of the odd menu selections. For instance, you can go into great detail when creating a schedule for any of your vehicles (trains, trucks or busses) using the Timetable Assistant - as your vehicle reaches an intersection you can define which path it should take (very powerful once you discover that feature!) - but the button to continue after you have set the paramaters is labeled 'Continuous'. That was very confusing to me at first because I didn't understand if that meant every intersection would use the same parameters. But knowing that this is a port there are some language translations that aren't perfect - in this example Continuous should be Continue.

As others have mentioned, Atrain 9 does not have a useful manual and completely lacks a tutorial. Luckily there are some very useful YouTube videos created by the developers and others that explain some of the important features of the game. I mentioned the Timetable Assistant earlier - when I first started playing my trucks and busses seemed to be going in circles and across the map without concern for where I was placing new roads to optimize their path. The reason is that you need to carefully outline their path using the Timetable Assistant to make them fulfill the task you intend for them.

The financial reporting is a mixed bag in this game so far. From a macro-level the reporting is very good. You can see a detailed balance sheet that includes a breakdown of each major category of income and expense, including taxes in the game. They save the data from year to year so you can carefully monitor what areas are flourishing and which are languishing. It's also fairly easy to see the profitability of buildings that you own, such as factories, apartments or shopping centers. However, they need to improve the reporting for the trains, buses and trucks. They do show the expense and revenue for trains on a daily basis, but it's not terribly useful as it resets at midnight of each game day. So if you have a train that picks up cargo at 11pm and delivers it the next day at 11am, you don't see the total expenses for travel or cargo pickup when it has finished its route, just the expenses for that game day. This makes it very difficult to understand the long term profitability of a train.

Lastly the price. $60 is too much for this game in its current state, and probably even with the improvements I have outlined above. It's more like a $40 game when you compare it to similar games in the genre, many of which have vastly superior user interfaces. I got it at a slight discount at $50 and don't regret it at all, but my recommendation would be to wait till the price drops or it goes on sale. By that time I'm sure they will have rectified some of the minor issues so you'll get more value for your dollar.

Overall I think it's a fun game - it has tremendous depth and potential with some rough edges. If you like deep city simulators that require attention to detail, this game is worthy of your time. Just be patient when you get started because the learning curve is steep due to a lack of tutorials or useful in-game help. I've had a lot of 'AHA' moments since I started that once I figured something out made the game that more enjoyable.

I have very fond memories of playing the Maxis A-Train as a kid. I sunk a ton of time into that game. When I found out that the A-Train series continued to live on, I was quite excited and picked up this game regardless of the steep price.

Getting the game started was no problem. By watching a few Let's Plays and going through the mediocre documentation, I had the game figured out pretty quick. The stock market is still a bit of a hack in terms of making TONS of money very quickly. At the start, your trains, subsidiaries and vehicles will be money losers. Playing the stock market will be a neccessity rather than supplementary.

One of the major issues with the game is the lack of critical feedback from the game. There is absolutely no way to tell when the peak demand of a station is. You have no idea if there are going to be passengers there or when those passengers want to be there.

The music gets a bit repetitive so I had my mp3 playlist playing instead.

Regardless of some of the shortcomings, the game ran well performance-wise and it looks quite pretty. It's awesome to see the buildings go up around your station and to see the city grow. I enjoyed the game while playing it... until the game killing issue I had.

Now, the real issue that I have with this game is the complete lack of support by the developer. I've seen a lot of pretty shoddy support by designers and developers in the past but I think Degica takes the cake. Not only is there absolutely no way to get technical support for this game but the official website contact us page isn't even useable. It's a template they installed that they didn't even finish setting up. I ran into two game breaking bugs that meant I could no longer play the game. I spent several hours looking for a solution and trying to find a way to contact Degica to no avail.

This game has so much potential yet the key issues just makes it fall flat. For now, I am strongly on the do not recommend side. If Degica starts to care enough to provide some support, then I might begin to consider revising my recommendation. Frankly, I don't see that happening as my question in the support forum has gone unanswered for over 2 months. I wish I had my money back.

Lots and lots of potential here BUT the game appears all but abandoned with bugs in the CSX train and broken promises. Read the forums before purchase. A real shame.

Don't be fooled by my time spent in the game. I already played A-Train 9 outside of Steam and I still decided to spend my money on the V3.0 deluxe version. I am also fan of the series beginning with original A-Train on Amiga.

I think this is the best game of building that exists. I played a lot of games in this genre (I really loved Transport Tycoon) but I didn't find a single game which would be really realistic. In most games you build a track, put a train and earn money. Then you build another track put another train and earn even more money. In A-Train you not only build. What is most important you run a company in realistic market conditions. First of all you pay taxes both for your income and property. In other words it's not a matter of building a track and putting a train which will bring more earnings than the cost. You will also need to pay income tax and then property tax for your track and the train itself. In other words even though the train gives you income in total you are losing money. Of course as in reality you may escape from taxes by reducing your income. Just invest your earnings in something and your income vanishes.

I just gave you one example which distinguishes this game from others, but there are so many more differences. In most games when you build you never care about transport of the materials. You just pick a place, spend your money and build. In this game you also need to transfer materials to the place using either trains or trucks. You will need to put all those cargo trains into right schedule so they won't interfere with passenger service. If you want other companies to build in the city you will need to transport the materials for them too.

Speaking of timetable - again I think this game has very complicated timetable system. You may really make a lot even distinguishing between weekdays and weekends (game also simulates national holidays in which for example banks and stock market are closed). You will struggle to fit all the passenger and cargo trains into the same line but then you will still need to optimize the timetables to make the most profit.

In most games you are supposed to build the city by yourself but this isn't a goal of this game. Although you can build flats or skyscrapers (shops, hotels and many many other types of buildings) the idea if this game is to make an environment for other enterprises to do it. Your goal is to earn by the means of transport, but if you need to for example increase the amount of housing (to fill vacancies in the factories) you can do it. You can then sell your flats with income later. The city itself has it's own model in which for example high number of jobs will increase the demand for flats etc. You will compete with other companies who can build for their own profit, although you have monopoly for trains and other forms of transport.

In most game the more you build the more profit you get. In other words you will continue to build more and more. In A-Trains it looks a bit different. You have some amount of money for your beginning but after that it takes a lot of time to actually earn something. Like in real life you can build your track quickly but it will take years to earn for the investment. This game like no other shows you how much the state earns on your hard work. Therefore after the initial investments you build less and more micromanage your timetables and watch the city grow. When you find an opportunity for another line you can try to take a loan, but paying back a loan with all the taxes will be very difficult. You will probably have to roll your debt by taking another loans to pay off the old ones. This is again very realistic because this is how a typical enterprise works. In other words after some time you will have very nice enterprise with lots of trains smoothly running around but behind this nice view there will be a lot of debts and unpaid taxes. That is how it works.

I could praise this game in many ways. It is really amazing. I just gave you few examples of how the gameplay feels but there is much more depth in it. But I must warn you. This game is difficult. It's not just about fun of building and making timetables, more often it's about a struggle in running an enterprise with all the taxes and other problems.

What I don't like about this game is the stock market. It seems quite realistic (there are times of growing prices, time of falling prices etc.) with a lot of stocks to chose from. The problem is that it's much easier to earn with the stocks than with your rail transport. Just buy when it's cheap and wait patiently. You will earn a lot of money soon. Developers tried to make earning with stocks a bit more difficult by extending the time which buying or selling stocks takes but still it's too easy as it's just a matter of time to earn the profit. I don't think a company in stock market can bankrupt so there is no risk. I personally don't play in the stock market because it seems to me a bit like a god mode. Lot of free money which causes the game to be more similar to classical Sims, where you don't care about every penny so much...

The game offers you a lot of freedom in building your tracks. You may do it on different heights and also under the ground. You can build bridges and tunels, train stations on the ground, above the ground or under the ground. You can buy local trains or fast intercity trains. Apart from other games of this genre it is very expensive to demolish existing buildings. If it's a skyscraper you will have to buy it first which will cost millions. Totally unpractical. Therefore you will often be forced to make a compromise between quality of a place for the station and the cost to build it. You will probably want to build your tracks outside the cities on the ground (the cheapest way) in the suburbs make it above the ground so you won't have to demolish anything but in the city centers underground is the preferred way. But of course it is up to you.

To quickly end - this is a great game. One of the best in the genre and probably the most realistic one too. But I would recommend it only to hardcore fans of such games who really want to put a lot of effort into the game. It's not only about the fun of building it's mostly about managing your enterprise and finding a strategy which will earn you money far away in the future.

I would not recommend purchasing this game for the following reason

Tons of Japanese trains removed, thats right removed, I have the original A-Train 9 in Japanese and there are at least 200 trains in the Japanese version of A-Train 9, if you want to see the Japanese trains in A-Train 9, I recommend you head over to Artdink's website and digitally purchase A-Train 9

There's a point where micromanagement goes too far, and this game is well past that point. Playing the game feels like you are interacting directly with the game engine, seeing as how you steer trucks by issuing DRIVE STRAIGHT and TURN AT INTERSECTION commands. For. Every. Single. Intersection. In both directions.

Note that reading the manual is required to play this game. Apparently the recommended (actually useful) documentation is in Japanese.

While the laying of track and messing with switches and such can be fun the game lacks life. No people...no cars...just your own trucks and your own trains. The day night cycle looks cool especially when the lights reflect off the water!
I really like being able to control every intersection and it's fun to make multiple trains on one track.

The bad part is the lack of trains and the lack of life. The same version for Japan has 200 trains but for the U.S. it's like 10. (So I've read)
I only got this to itch my city/transport scratch until cities skylines comes out but I wish I would have just waited.

at the moment i cant recommend this game but im going to put more time in and see it to later gameplay

as with all city building/transport games there is a hurdle to jump this game has a high hurdle and no real manual (appently the japanese one is very detailed)

Cons:
# this game gives next to no user feedback, you dont know how many people are at a station what to go to place x or even what a city is lacking its all guesswork, or even the radius of a station. this is the biggest flaw in the game

# schedules/timetables seem to be a mistranslation, you dont get to alter them like a normal time schedule instead you have to do each "unit" individually, even if you want 2-3 bus's on the same route you have to do each one separately, this consists of following the bus/train and guiding its every move until you have completed a circuit, or they just run about randomly. (i have found that you can have a tick box in the options menu to allow a global timetable for a while, i assume this means after you "guide" your 1st bus/train anything placed untill this is unticked will follow the same path

#unlike the japanese version you have very limited trains again, you will have access to about 20 or trains (due to licensing as they used real trains in the ♥♥♥ version)

#for long term city builders outside this game we have got use to certain functions like moving the camera by panning or using say wasd, you cant in this game and you cant set keybinidngs

#(a con for most people) there is no tutorial in any way, comming from other builders you may have a seance of what to do though

Pro's

#while slightly dated graphics there use a sort of comic cell shaded approach which works quite nicly

#materials, its nice to have a justifiable building material rather than just spending the money and pop a building appears

#amount of content, there is plenty of buildings of varying type and variations to have a varied, somewhat realistic looking city

#replaybility, with all thats to learn it will likly take a good few playthoughs to get a good concrete strategy going

#control of intersections. you can adjust the way intersections act to help guide where they go, however no vechical cant contridict the rules, which can cause problems with larger stations