CGA-2025-09 🕹️🚂 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Last Express

I have not yet finished the game, but I completed the play on a train achievement by playing a bit on the White Pass and Yukon train. It made me appreciate even more the sounds present in the game. I've enjoyed the immersion and puzzling out what to do. I was glad to be warned about the many failures, so I've tried to take them in stride. I have had UI difficulties, and found things like the fight and capturing the beetle to be super frustrating. I've played it on Android and steam, and each has different limitations. I'm almost through with it, and an going to complete a second playthrough with a guide before the month is out. Despite some frustrations, I've enjoyed it a lot.

I found this game very charming. This was the first real time adventure title I've played, so I found it quite novel in execution. I played the Gold Edition on Steam, and spent 14 hours with it.

I both liked and disliked the tension that real time added. It makes you feel like you should always be doing something, and that keeps you moving. I'd often "do the rounds" and check each car to see what was going on. Often though, I'd replay a section and find something I'd completely missed just because I wasn't there to see it the first time.

Occasionally, there were periods of dead time where I needed to wait. Usually this happened when I'd already reached a fail state, rewinded, and needed to wait to try a different approach. As far as I could tell, there is no way to accelerate time.

I found the game a little challenging, mostly around Vienna (chapter 5). That was the only time I had to seek external help. I'd completely missed the secret compartment in the jewelry box which granted the master key. I also thought I was supposed to swap the egg for the gold, and it took me way too long to cop on that I could steal the gold myself.

Otherwise, I used the in-game hint system on just a couple occasions. At one point, I missed a hidden button on Kronos' painting, and later used a hint to learn that you needed paper to defuse the bomb. Everything else I managed to work out through trial and error.

One example of this is when Kronos' goon kept stealing the egg. After realizing it wasn't a mutual "swap" like I thought, I'd tried multiple hiding spots, as well as locking my compartment, before determining that I really needed to use the dog kennel. I knew that was an option early on, but avoided it because it was often difficult to access. Sidenote: is there a way to distract the trainmaster? I started writing down his schedule just to keep on top of it.

Later, when Alexei was killed, I tried a bunch of different things to save him. I tried warding him off, waiting in the room, and distracting Tatiana, but it seemed destined. So long, Alexei. At least he had some pretty badass dying words: Long live anarchy!

Overall, I thought the story was great. It was packed full for its runtime, and offered enough hints and foreshadowing that you could pick up on story threads even early on. I spotted Alexei building his bomb on day 1, and kept checking up on him as a result. I thought I was being clever when I stole the detonator from him, but the cheeky bugger just found a different clock to use. It led to this hilarious dialogue:

"Good job, old boy. Speaking of which, you didn't happen to find the dynamite, did you?"
"Dynamite? What dynamite?"
-cuts to train exploding-

The characters felt rich, and they interacted wonderfully. Everybody had a role to play in the end, and even unimportant characters got some backstory. I love the conductor that draws what he sees, including this loveable scamp.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the art style at first. In some ways it felt a little crude and stuttery, and yet totally unique and authentic. I gave it a chance and found that it quickly won me over. The low framerate makes a lot of sense if every frame needs to be drawn (or at least arranged) by hand. It also had some lovely environmental art, such as when you're outside of the train. Though I would have preferred if those scenes showed a little more motion, as it wasn't always clear when the train was actually moving.

Probably my biggest hang-up was the controls. I struggled with them from beginning to end. Eventually I got a handle on what the icons mean and where to click, but even after 5 hours I found myself getting turned around. I liked that you could double click to speed through a compartment, but I seemed to have a bug where this would sometimes activate with even a single click. As a result, I kept accidentally shooting out of the car when trying to move just one or two positions. A very frustrating bug!

The combat added another layer of challenge -- especially when it picked up around chapter 6. I must failed that final sword fight a dozen times. It never felt unfair though, and I liked that combat gained depth and additional challenge in the later chapters.

I finished the game, and got a rather bittersweet ending. We survived, but Anna left as WW1 kicked off around us. Tatiana, embittered and still in shock, destroyed the train with the guns and herself inside. I suppose there never was a happy ending here.

I had a good time with this game, which surprised me a little. I really don't have a lot of experience playing point-and-click or adventure titles. I find the genre is often quite frustrating, at least until you crack your current puzzle and feel a sense of exhilaration with the "a-ha!" moment.

I was glad this one wasn't heavy on "pixel hunting", and most of the click zones were quite large. Instead it was more about observation and knowledge gathering. Though there were a few specific clicks needed, like in the case of the jewelry box. I did at least disconnect the train completely by accident in chapter 6, so that was a freebie.

This game was a great nomination and pick. I enjoyed the deductive-style gameplay, and hope everyone else had fun too.

Going forward: I don't know if I'll consider myself a member of the CGA Club exactly, since this was all a bit impromptu, but I'm certainly going to take a look at future picks and see what else strikes my fancy. You did a great write-up as our very first hostess, @CannibalisticApple.

I ultimately didn't finish it, which was disappointing to me, as I had high hopes and was eager to play this one. I began to peter out when I got to the concert part and ended-up having to rewind several times and then do a waiting game, which unfortunately usually spells the end of a game for me; I had the same problem with Outer Wilds as I got toward the end of that game and needed to begin waiting for things to happen. I also ended-up going on a long road trip (which I'm actually still on, currently...) and haven't had a ton of time for games, so I've been playing stuff that's more "immediate", if that makes sense.

Anyway, I did quite enjoy what I played and I also bought the strategy guide and I will leave it installed on my Steam Deck and hope that I come back to it at some point.

I'd be curious to hear about everyone's relationship with Cath, the protagonist of The Last Express.

Personally, I don't consider him to be a very good person. He has a problematic past, many of his actions during the game are questionable, and the basic manner in which he interacts with others is full of underlying self-absorbed arrogance. Or so it comes across to me.

In short, he is not someone I would like to be. Yet, as the person playing the game, I am him.

This creates tension between me and the game. I can partially resolve it by taking the view that I am experiencing a pre-set (if not entirely linear) story from one character's point of view, as opposed to playing an active role in the way many games allow you to customise your actions and approaches to people and situations. But in a way, I am still playing an active role here as well. I don't have to do those things. I don't have to be Cath. I could always just quit playing, or accept a premature narrative ending when I don't want to do something that bothers me.

This has made me think about how I play games in general. On a fundamental level, I tend to prefer to explore my own personal behaviour and morality in safe spaces offered by game worlds, rather than taking on an entirely new identity and acting as someone else. How about you? When you play games, do you easily go against your own moral, ethical or behavioural compasses? And if you do, do you specifically seek that experience, do you mould your behaviour to fit the character you are playing and the world they exist in, or how does it happen? And why?

Did "being" Cath bother you at all?

This is actually a topic that we can probably revisit in December, when we play The Secret of Monkey Island. There, I would argue, you play even more of a total and utter jerk. But to me at least, it feels very different in that game. Probably because of the way the game presents itself. Or maybe for other reasons.

Oh we're arrived at the station already? That was a quick ride. I thought we had another week. Not that that would've mattered. I think I played for a couple days at the start, then put it down, only to never pick it back up. I have a total of 3hrs of playtime.

Some of the execution in this game is impressive. Watching an NPC move past you in the corridor, then me (or rather Dr. Cath) turning around and watching that NPC continue walking to wherever they're going, even being able to chase after them and keep seeing them, is impressive. I have played modern games, many of them even, where an NPC in one zone "disappears" from that zone when you load into in a neighboring zone. Or sometimes just disappears altogether as soon as they're out of the player's vision. Ie there's no continuity in the world. Whereas in "The Last Express" there largely is. And it's especially impressive in this pseudo-animated method they've used.

But the controls were clunky beyond belief. I feel like even for 1997, it wasn't great. So many times I found myself essentially spinning in place because I clicked too much or clicked on the wrong place on the screen. Then, because of the confined space and similar environments (the sleeping cars and water closets, especially), I was repeatedly momentarily confused at which way I was facing, where I was at, and which way I was going. It got annoying real quick.

Storywise, I don't know if I was ever seriously hooked. Yeah it's a murder mystery, which I do like, but...I don't know if I really cared about Tyler Whitney, or even Dr. Cath himself (myself). We're dropped in the middle of this story, where Cath is already on the lam, but it's only sorta explained why that is, IIRC. And I don't really care.

As regards to the puzzles, some were fairly obvious. But then others I really had no idea. I considered getting a guide or walkthrough, but then again, did I really care that much? I didn't think I did. Which is why I never went back.

Idk. I can definitely see the developer's ambitions here. To elevate the traditional point and click adventure game from 2D to whatever this is. To move it from silly "traditional" video game" to something serious, something closer to film. Which is something that happens in the medium today and can be wildly successful. But maybe because I'm viewing this with eyes from 2025, it just doesn't hit for me. And that's OK.

That said, I'm glad I got to try it out, even if I didn't finish it. It's not like it broke the bank to do so. I hadn't heard of this game before. In 1997, when The Last Express released, I was 10yo and would NOT have picked this game up (was too busy playing FFVII and Warcraft 2). As such, it's nice to see and experience a part of video game history that I missed.

So yeah, thanks for sharing and organizing this!

Looking ahead, I'm seriously looking forward to next month, since Chrono Trigger is a game I'm familiar with and have played many times, starting on the SNES. Maybe I'll actually beat it this time using my own save file, instead of some other random Blockbuster member's save file! Though at the rate I actually finish JRPGs...Umm, no comment.

I feel bad that I wasn't able to do this for the first event. The past month has had a lot of stress and I haven't had much time for games at all. After I dropped some classes, I had more free time, but I needed downtime and could only really do "decompression" games.