I am finished with The Last Express. Note that I didn’t say I finished it. I played for a few hours, enjoyed some things immensely and grew frustrated by some other things, and ended up deciding I would rather just watch the rest of the game as a movie on YouTube. Which I ended up not regretting one bit.

There are parts of the game I adore. And it’s cheap enough often enough that I still recommend people buying it and giving it a chance, because even if you don’t finish it there is a lot of interesting, immersive things to enjoy here. The writing is especially strong - these are not your typical video game characters and for a 1997 title especially they are mind-blowingly human and well realised. I have to make a special mention of the lesbian couple and their tragic love story, which is all completely unrelated to the plot and missable side character content you must snoop around and eavesdrop to put together. But is a beautiful, mature and completely non-sexualized portrayal of homosexuality and its struggles in the early 1900s. Some of the best I’ve seen in any video game.

The rotoscoped animations are also - I think - gorgeous, although technical limitations of the time mean only certain cutscenes are fully animated and the rest plays out in a sort of stop-motion. It still goes a long way towards making the game timeless. The voice acting is also phenomenal across the board, and the use of native voice actors helps anchor the game georgraphically. It’s a really well researched window into a very interesting and somewhat underexplored era.

But at the end of the day I can see why this game flopped commercially. The first hour or so is incredibly strong and immersive, but the lack of direction and guidance can quickly wear you down. There is just a whole lot of randomly wandering around the train with absolutely no idea of what you’re supposed to, waiting for something to happen - or even waiting to start to get an idea of even what you’re meant to be doing. And also a whole lot of rewinding and replaying sections, something I started to get particularly fed up with.

I found this great blog post about the game, and whether you intend to play it or not it’s a fantastic read, and sums up a lot of my thoughts about the game. One part in particular stands out:

I fear that Smoking Car may have violated one of Sid Meier’s principles of game design: that it’s the player who should be the one having the fun, not the programmer or designer.

I also started Chrono Ark, which is a roguelike deckbuilder I’ve heard a lot of good things about. I have played about 6 or so runs, with varying success, and I did manage to make my first “clear” today, only to find that it was… well I will not spoil anything further as I’ve also heard a lot of good things about the story of this game. Unlike many deckbuilders this is a game that puts the story in a central focus, and so far I am quite liking what I see. It is quite a bit darker than it might seem at first, and I hope it continues to lean into that and continues to throw curve balls. I have only just scratched the surface but I hope the hints I’ve been seeing so far will pay off in the way I think they might, because there have been some really interesting moments.

Gameplay wise it’s just a really solid roguelike deckbuilder. If you’ve played the genre before you know the drill. Cards, upgrades, boss mechanics, team compositions and synergies etc. It plays really well and every run has been fun and different, with more options opening up with meta progression as you unlock more characters and more items and so on. Would definitely recommend for any fans of the genre.

It also does have an “easy mode” if you just want the story, but I haven’t seen enough of it yet to know if I would recommend it solely based on that.

Lastly, I finally pulled the trigger on Ninja Gaiden 4. I was intending on playing it on release last year (I even played the entire Ninja Gaiden series back-to-back to prepare) but at the last moment I got distracted by other things. But after the fairly slow-paced gameplay of The Last Express and Chrono Ark I needed something snappier and so I couldn’t resist any longer.

So far I’ve only played like 2 hours, but I am impressed by what I’m seeing. I was worried that Platinum Games’ involvement would dilute the Ninja Gaiden-ness of the game, but it still feels “right”. I’m playing on Hard and enemies are good and aggressive, maybe not quite as much as in Ninja Gaiden 2, but still enough to give you that sensation of being pushed to just survive. I love that UTs are back, and On-Landing UTs, and essence orbs dropped by enemies. Combat is more complex than previous games, with stance switching and parrying now. But it’s been very fun and satisfying and just exactly what I was looking for.

One thing I am somewhat miffed about however is the simplified combo system, with less focus on fighting game style inputs for combos. Although this could well be just the beginning and those are unlocked later with other weapons and/or upgrades. But I do miss that a bit.

I also needed to install a mod to remove the horrific blue tinted filter, which just doesn’t look good to me. Not really sure why so many developers go for that type of heavily stylized filter, I just rarely find it looks good.