The Final Station

I really love the premise of this game; that you drive a prototype train on a mission to deliver important payloads in defense of the world against some kind of mysterious alien invasion. The game is superbly balanced. You are constantly desperate for ammo and supplies, and constantly low on health, but you are never overwhelmed by the challenge posed by the enemies. The train is forced to stop at various stations along the way, each with their own beauty and each presenting a little bit more of the story as you progress. The world in between the stations, while you're on the move, is breath-taking as well. The art, sound, and music go together perfectly to add to the "end-of-the-world" atmosphere. This game, however, focuses very heavily on it's narrative, which as others have said, feels disjointed or incomplete. There is a clear effort to tell a linear story, but it falls short because we have no investment in any of the characters, including our protagonist, and details about what is happening or what has happened in the past are *too* sparse, perhaps. That said, I think this game is worth playing for it's atmosphere, the train premise, and it's very comfortable length (~4-5 hours).

I know this game tried to have a story, but the dialogue is so poorly translated that I just couldn´t put the information togheter. Also there are some objects that suggest you can interact with them and do something to the environment. But nothing happens, or it´s impossible to activate them in the proper sequence due to the amount of enemies chasing you. I checked some guides and nobody seems to have done it yet. Despite all of these, I kept coming back to play again and again until I finished. The mechanics are simple and the game is entertaining. I actually felt relieved everytime I arrived to a human town intead of an infected zone. This game manages to make you feel safe in some areas even though it´s not scary at all.

Four hours of mostly walking forward and doing mindless tasks to progress this visual novel. Except the novel you're reading has every 3 out of every 5 words deleted, and they thought it was genius to force the player to constantly try to figure it out what those words were. This is basically Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Metro 2033, except not as good as either. The ending will piss. you. off. and explain nothing. The online explanations don't explain it. The wiki doesn't explain it. It's just a waste of your time while making every walking sequence twice as long as necessary because its "atmospheric." The game mechanics don't scale and once you know how to play, it's not hard at all--basically a clicker game. EXCEPT, hilariously, the dialog that explains what's going on (is happening DURING the clicker game so that you're constantly juggling stuff instead of actually reading the story. Beautiful art. Bad game mechanics. Stupid story. There is literally more depth in game mechanics in BROFORCE than this game. You'll have a much better time with that game too.

My only complaint with this game is that there is not enough! The story is very interesting and is told in a very unique way, which just adds to the tension. It is a really good game and I hope to see more from the same universe and from the same developers.

106 years after the "First Visitation" - probably (not surely) a not-so-friendly encounter with an alien civilization - the Earth is (again) flooded with capsules containing a gas that turns most people into monsters. You will have to travel with an experimental train to try to help launching Earth's defense. Whether you'll enjoy The Final Station depends on whether you can enjoy a game that has both stellar and atrocious sides. Tons of heart and effort went into it, but the result isn't perfect. If you go for it, get The Only Traitor DLC, too, as it's better than the main game. Where The Final Station excels is atmosphere (6 stars out of 5). The mystery, the terror, the suspense! The graphics are simple, yet create a vivid world, the story is mysterious, and whenever music kicks in, it amplifies your feelings. Plus the authors do their utmost not to tell the story through the overclichéd "found diary entries". The game never explains its mechanics - you'll have to discover them on your own (warning - holding the right mouse button fails at times). Gameplay consists of railroad travelling and scavenging for supplies and ammo at the stations. The travel part has issues, as your passengers tell you their stories, helping to build the story arch, but you can't really listen to them, having to tend to their wounds and hunger and maintain the train systems. I ended up doing each travel level twice - first learning the story, then restarting and getting it right. The station part is the game's backbone. Fighting the monsters mostly with your fists, as ammo is scarce, can be intense. But there are frequent checkpoints, so you can progress reasonably fast. The story is great to get into and puzzle over it while playing but kinda falls apart in hindsight. Also, I would have certainly and strongly preferred a different ending, but that's a matter of personal taste. Still, I have a bizarre feeling that I would have liked The Final Station more if I had never finished it.