Every job has difficulties and moral dilemmas every now and then. Professional journalists for example, may have to write about thing they aren’t quite interested in, or even worse, criticize something they might have warm feelings about. For fan type reviewers such difficulties are quite uncommon, however sometimes exclusions of the rules happen.

I was supposed to finish this review by the release date, but decided to hold horses and give developers a bit more time to fix bugs, as game was quite broken on release. Maybe if actual game had <Early Access> plank, the review would’ve been positive as a measure of “prepayment” for a quite promising concept and active development, because it’s one of those nice cases when developers seem to listen to the community and fix what’s not working.

With that being said, it breaks my heart even more, to give “The Last Train” a negative review, however as of today (that is 10.09.2018) I’m afraid I still cannot recommend the game. Maybe few months later things will be completely different, and people are going to smile, while reading this review. I honestly hope things WILL change, but again, as of today, I’m afraid I still cannot recommend the game.
However let’s begin our analysis and see why it took me so much text to write such a strange preview:

“The last train” is a mixture of adventure, RPG and survival game where you take a role of a train driver in 1945 in alternative universe, where World War 2 ended by Japan making a devastating attack on USA. As name claims, you’ll work as driver of train engine in USA. You are supposed to pick up passengers and deliver them to the point of destination. Upon arrival, those passengers give you food and materials for upgrading the train.

The game offers two gamemodes: Story and Survival. The only real difference between them is that story mode has… Actual storyline. In survival mode you are supposed to deliver passengers till you’re out of resources. Then you’ll get a high score and will be able to compare it with other players.

So let’s return to the story mode: The game starts in quite shiny colors and the narrator gives us brief information on what happened and why there’s an apocalypse now. Basically, that’s the whole story for the upcoming 1-2 in-game months. From now on you’ll have to survive in game world. So yes, the concept is interesting, however the first problems rise here already:

• It is unclear how to move the story forward. You just drive from one state to another and deliver passengers. Then suddenly some more pieces of story pop up. Aaaaand done. You’ll have to deliver more passengers. Did this story part activate because I delivered enough passengers? Did it activate because I left many passengers behind? What do I need to do to activate next part of the story? Nobody knows.
  
  
• The story itself seem to revolve around you and your train. While that doesn’t quite seem like a problem on paper, there actually is a problem behind the lines, as game doesn’t elaborate much on ingame universe: What happened to the other states which you can’t visit? Were they nuked? What’s going on in Europe and Asia? Does the war still go on there? So many questions, so few answers…
  
  
• That’s mostly nitpicking, but: What kind of technology level is in this universe, if people are starving and suffering, but every second passenger can offer you enough fuel to travel to another state?

In most cases visuals look interesting. Dark colors really manage to depict depressive universe. Each station has unique look, showing each state’s most famous places. There are also almost all 50 states available for a visit, so if you are uncommon with USA geography, this game might even give you a short lesson on the location of the most states of the country. During journeys you’ll see many nice looking places, be it some city ruins, or oceans with sank ships. Unfortunately game has some unpleasant surprises in store as well:

• While overall gamma is introduced via dark colors, there’s a toxic green train for player’s choice which looks quite out of place. Usually dark colors fit with bright red, when one wants to show, for example, blood. But toxic green? That’s something personally I see for the first time.
  
  
• Lack of animations. This is something I’m really surprised to see. You’ll quickly notice that not a single train part is animated. For a game where train takes an important part of gameplay it’s a really huge letdown.

Saying in advance: no, you cannot control your train via keyboard. The only time when you have direct control over the train is during actual preview. In normal gameplay you’ll have to maintain balance between picking up a passenger you want to help and a passenger who offers better reward. Upon having enough materials you can cook, craft items or upgrade your train, enlarging the inventory size, increasing the amount of passengers you can carry, etc... If you are low on resources, you can visit the city and break into houses (make sure to keep crafted special tools on hand, though). Each house can be broken into only once. Obviously, we’ll cover weak spots here too:

• Cooking system is totally broken and unneeded at this point. What’s the point of cooking a salad which gives +5 nutrition points, if you can just eat items separately and have up to +15 nutrition points? That’s not even mentioning the fact some food types have negative nutrition points. Another problem with food is that you can never see the final dish you’ll cook. Because of cooking blind, you also risk to prepare spoiled food with -10 nutrition points. So tell me, how could one break that system so badly?
  
  
• Unbalanced rewards system. At this point there’s simply no need to travel on far distances as rewards quite often are the same.
  
  
• A lot of bugs which bring devastating effect to fun:
  -When you upgrade the amount of passengers your train can carry, you are supposed to see more train carriages. That doesn’t happen because coordinates for said carriages are misplaced and only on top tier upgrade you can see about ¼ of the first carriage.
  -When delivering multiple passengers to the station, each of them is supposed to bring a pop up window and thank your driver, but instead of closing one window, sometimes you somehow manage to close all the windows at same time, which is quite annoying and doesn’t always let you even read the final of their story.
  -Passengers walking on the station are easy to be misclicked. Especially when there are multiple of them and they walk closely. Things get even worse once you upgrade your train, as by this upgrade, your train moves further forward and stops by the center of the screen, so you have to blindly move mouse and try to hit needed passenger.

There are more things I could tell, but let’s just stop it here and sum it all up:
On the one hand we have a nice looking and somewhat promising game concept. It indeed has some strong points and some day it may shine, even, who knows.

On the other hand we indeed have a CONCEPT of the game in its worst meaning: Lack of train animations, tons of bugs, unbalanced reward system, broken cooking… All of that indicates on either lack of experience or lack of time from developers. Clearly, game should’ve had Early Access in the end of the days. Maybe it would give developers enough time to fix what’s broken and even add some more interesting features, like more random events. That would certainly spice things up.

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Pros:
-You get to be more familiar with the locations of the U.S. states as a foreigner.

Cons:
-The game feels like a prototype, it's very repetitive and the content just feels incomplete and poorly designed, it's totally not worth the 'Definitive Edition' title.

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The Last Train:
~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were supposed to end world war II! Well, the outcome was a little bit different! The Empire of Japan retaliated with extreme force; a force that crippled the great US of A! You are the last train driver and must help people to get to their destination within the USA, no matter what. This is the last train!

The Last Train is a strategy/survival/adventure game developed and published by Smash Game Studios where you take the role of a train one of the left train driver post World Warr II.

The game has two modes of play: story line and sandbox.

As you start the game, the first thing you have to do is to name your character. Then you’ll choose which train line to be (either the Last Train or the Western Pacific), and where it will start its journey (from one of 21 locations on the map of USA). There is a small tutorial if you need it, but you’ll be able to figure out what to do without it.

Essentially, your task is to move survivors from one state to another within the 21 locations available. Each of the survivors has a reason as to why they need to travel to another state. For your trouble, you’ll be rewarded either with food items (including drinks), resources or tools which will be shown just under the name of the traveller. All you have to do is to hover over the passengers on the train platform to see all their information. You can also explore towns by clicking on the explore button on the bottom right corner of your screen. There, you can unlock building doors if you have a lockpick in hand, or you can smash the door with a hammer or axe to gather resources. As soon as you are able to open or knock down the door, you’ll be able to smash windows to get further resources. There are other things to gather from each of the towns, but bear in mind that once you have vandalised an entire building, no more resources can be found there. You’ll be starting the game without any tools whatsoever, and you’ll need to make sure that the passenger you decide to take to his/her destination has the right reward for you to be able to craft the appropriate tool needed for smashing doors or windows. It’s pretty much a point and click type of play.

Your train will be limited in term of seats at the start of the game, and you’ll only be able to take on 5 passengers at any given time. There too, you have to amalgamate enough resources to be able to add additional seats and power to your train. You can also add more storage space to your inventory. The trick is to make sure you don’t run out of coal or food, or it will be game over.

As you progress and add more seats to your train, it will be all about making sure you get train on the correct route, and then dropping off and picking up passengers. Every few weeks, you’ll be treated to a short cut-scene, which is good.
I did enjoy the artwork, but I would have liked a little more animation. It would have been nice to see the wheels turning on the steam engine, for example. The soundtrack is pleasant, and there are several resolutions to choose from. The concept of the game is interesting, but it needs a lot more content, in my opinion - picking up and dropping passengers and breaking into houses is fun for a while. The game would have been better had they included managing and transporting resources (demand and supply) within the country as well as transporting survivors.

Positives:
~~~~~~~

+ Nice artwork
+ Easy gameplay and crafting system
+ Plenty of passengers to pick up
+ Interesting concept
+ Achievements

Negatives:
~~~~~~~~

- Repetitive
- Need more animations
- No trading cards

Transport survivors from East to West Coast of The USA with the Last Train!

5/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!

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I love alternative historical outcomes. The Last Train let you play a decent survival game at the end of WWII. Great, new idea with riding the train to visit cities in the US. Great game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nAh-DvFSKs

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I can accept a rather controversial story and how boring and dull the game looks, but there are a few points that make The Last Train absolutely not worthing to play at this moment.
1. Crafting is broken. I was able to craft a screwdriver, but creating a lockpick or an iron ingot is inactive even with the necessary ingredients.
2. Broken tutorial. If you choose the language different from English, then tutorial will stuck on the very first passenger.
3. Terrible localization. In an effort to reach the largest linguistic audience, the developer has completely forgotten about the quality of the translation. Google Translate is not a panacea for all ills, remember.
4. Huge price tag. Even if the previous problems are eliminated, a sensible person will not buy such a game for $15. It would be a little pity to spend even $5.

• Gameplay: 3
  
• Graphics: 3
  
• Sound and Music: 5
  
• Interface and Control: 4
  
• Novelty: 4
  
• Rating: 4

Игра была получена по программе взаимодействия с кураторами. Чтобы видеть больше наших обзоров, подпишитесь: True Reviews

Можно принять достаточно спорную историю и то, как скучно и уныло игра выглядит, но есть несколько моментов, из-за которых играть в The Last Train на данный момент абсолютно не стоит.
1. Сломан крафтинг. Я смог скрафтить отвертку, но создание отмычки или железного слитка неактивно даже при наличии необходимых ингридиентов.
2. Сломано обучение. Если поставить язык не английский, то обучение застрянет на самом первом пассажире.
3. Ужасная локализация. При стремлении охватить наибольшую языковую аудиторию, разработчик абсолютно забыл о качестве перевода. Google Translate - не панацея от всех бед, запомните.
4. Огромный ценник. Даже если предыдущие проблемы будут устранены, покупать такую игру за 15 долларов здравомыслящий человек не станет. Мне даже 5 долларов было бы немного жаль.

• Геймплей: 3
  
• Графика: 3
  
• Звук и музыка: 5
  
• Интерфейс и управление: 4
  
• Новизна: 4
  
• Рейтинг: 4

Just picked the game up on sale since it had a really interesting setting. The game is good, has a very fascinating world war 2 story. Loved the strategic aspect of the gameplay, there is a lot of resource management and planning involved. I managed to 100% the game with all achievements in about 4 hours. I would love to see more content in the setting.

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The Last Train is an alternative history simulation/survival game with fairly simple gameplay. This game is interesting in idea, but falls a bit short on gameplay. .

The game has a bleak outlook, and indeed, after all, it is the end of WWII and after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, they retaliated on US soil (thus the alternative history part). In the end, food/supplies/everything is running out.

You are the last locomotive conductor remaining in the continental United States and your goal is to survive as long as possible while still keeping your train active and running, thus delivering people to where they need to be for one reason or another.

Because resources are scarce and people are few, you have to resort to simple crafting on your own and scavenging. The scavenging involves lock-picking empty buildings, smashing windows, cutting up dead tree branches, rummaging through trash, etc. You can also gather a few resources by delivering people to where they need to go, and in return, their payment is a few items here and there.

There is a story mode and a sandbox mode. I only played the story mode so far, but it feels more like a simple sandbox game anyway. There seems to be no overarching objectives. I find myself looting, crafting, carrying people to different cities, over and over again.

You can either have a very short run or a seemingly endless run, but even the best runs will come to an end, when you ultimately run out of resources.

This video linked below shows the beginning minutes of gameplay that ultimately ends in a game-fail state, but the game does not give any hint of a game-over. But there is nothing else that can be done. The game is just stuck here.

Another game that I played I managed to get really far, with plenty of fuel and food. Then your worst enemy happens to be your inventory size. You can expand the inventory through the crafting menu for your train, as you can increase the number of seats on your train that way. But you are driving a train, surely there is enough space on board to fit a few more people or to have a larger inventory by default? I understand the need to limit passengers so that you have to make some conscious decisions in order to plan your path out, but the very small inventory size (plus the lack of ability to stack certain items such as screwdrivers) really baffle me to no end. In this small point of frustration, the game really does fall apart.

Also, I cannot seem to find any end-game objectives or goals. As the days flow by, I start to realize that my resources are dwindling and that the cities that I have completely looted are not showing any signs of regeneration. In other words, I may have been overly cavalier about conservation of resources. After all, even if your inventory is full and you smash a window open, you can only stack onto the items already in your inventory, but not what is not already there. So I had lost a lot of things along the way. Perhaps I could have used these, perhaps not.

Ultimately, I kind of tired of the game after a while, because the story mode really had not a lot of progression. After the very initial story bit, I encountered no other story-extensions to let me know what more to expect. The scenery in the background of the train-moving scenes became repetitive, as did the motions of looting, crafting, delivering passengers, only to be told constantly that my inventory was too full.

The asking price of $15 USD (as we have been told by the developer) for the base game is a bit too high. It's not unreasonable to use this as a way to waste a little bit of mindless time, if you have that readily available. This game should be $5 USD maximum. Plus there are a bunch of DLCs that are in the store page right at release. They are not just skins either, they offer some gameplay benefits. So the gameplay, feel, and the whole set of DLCs makes this feel very much like a mobile game instead of a full game on Steam. (I did not have the DLCs to be able to comment on them in detail, but their store descriptions sure make them sound like P2W kind of items.)

So I feel really bad for giving this game a thumbs down, mainly because of the fact that it is an indie effort, and it has an interesting idea (the plot). But bare-bones gameplay isn't exactly fun, and gets quite dull after a while. I played for about 90 minutes, and I was repeating the same 3-4 motions again and again. I was really excited to try this game, but when I was done and turned it off, I am not sure if I want to ever play it again. The idea feels so rich and with potential, but the gameplay fell so flat.

The following video's description is where I originally posted this review:
https://youtu.be/ggcOdtxng_8

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

DISCLAIMER: I received this product for no cost for the purpose of reviewing. However, this does not affect my views and opinions of the game.

Short Review

The Last Train is a resource management simulation survival game in which you play as the conductor of a train. The game takes place in an alternate reality in which Japan unleashed a vicious attack on America post World War II.

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Graphics: 6 / 10

The grim dark tones and colours of the game really set the mood. Especially in contrast to the opening scene (before the apocalyptic events occur). The graphics and style of the game work well with the theme provided and even the portraits of the characters seem to fit in with the style.

There are a lack of animations and overall polish to the art, though it may or may not play into the favour of the theme as art is always subjective. The game is not demanding and should have no problem running on any setup.

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Sound: 6 / 10

The soundtrack is fine, it mostly consists of long overbearing tones but it does fit in the with motif of the game, even the sounds and music are grim and give that sense of anxiety. The sound effects are standard and get the job done.

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Mechanics: 6 / 10

The game's mechanics are basic but easy to figure out and understand. You as the conductor must travel from city to city picking up and dropping off passengers. Each passenger will reward you with a resource or two after taking them to their destination. These resources are; food, fuel, and other items that can be useful. Each passenger has a certain date they must arrive at their destination by, and there are some choices that the player must make throughout the game regarding the passengers.

While at a station, the player can also choose to scavenge the area with or without any tools they might have. Scavenging can bring in items and resources. There is an inventory limit and passenger limit on the train, though various upgrades (that require resources) can help with these limits.

Throughout the story-mode, every once in awhile you'll come across a story event that'll move the plot forward. You'll get to know more about the situation and your train as well the passengers. The sandbox mode allows the player to try and survive as long as they can and make it to the leader-boards of the game.

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Thanks to the developers for giving me the opportunity to review the title, as well as anyone who took this review into consideration, I hope it helped.

The game has a very interesting storyline and setting, go into the game if you enjoy reading a lot and enjoy a good narrative experience. Make sure to read through all the character’s backstories, I feel it makes the game really interesting.
Apart from the story there are numerous other things to do like scavenging, crafting, cooking and upgrading to keep you entertained. I got in touch with the developers early on to check about some issues I faced in the pre release build where the story wasn’t really progressing fast. They have fixed it in the build they uploaded next. The developer seems to be very active in the community trying to fix as many issues and concerns as they can.
Last I checked they were working on a fix for the inventory which should be up soon and a whole bunch of other minor tweaks. I managed to play about an hours worth of the story mode. I would definitely suggest picking up the game if you are into narrative adventures and crafting/survival games.

Just began playing it and really enjoying it so far!