Choo-Choo Charles (PC) Review

There’s something charming about indie horror games, perhaps it’s the feeling of dread that these games can usually put to the forefront better than many AAA experiences, or perhaps it’s just the unique experiences that developers come up with when not constrained to a development pipeline and budget. I’ve returned to the world of Aranerum as Choo-Choo Charles releases to consoles.

Everything about this game seethes potential, its premise is off-the-wall and silly but also filled with dread and a feeling of tension that made me feel a little like a meerkat, occasionally darting my head left and right in case the music bugged or something.

All aboard

In Choo-Choo Charles, you come to the aid of your friend, Eugene, who caught wind of your failing museum and proposed a potential exhibit on something unlike anything that the world’s ever seen. This tidbit is really only used to set up why you’re heading to this dinky mining island, and in the end, it doesn’t contribute to the story one bit. It just establishes a connection as to why you went to the island in the first place, which to me, is a waste of potential and, story-wise, makes little to no sense.

I understand that Eugene reached out after escaping Aranerum, but I can’t wrap my head around why he reached out to you and how deep your friendship actually is. Clearly, you were motivated more to rid this island of the iron-clad spider demon after the death of your friend, but what was built up as this big moment happened way too early and killed the pacing of the game, as now you’re left going to the next story mission with characters who don’t seem bothered by the slaying of the old inhabitant.

Choo-choo motherf***er

Combat-wise, it’s rather simple — on your train, you have a default machine gun, and across the island, you can acquire different weapons like a flamethrower, which can help to chip away damage and slow the threat down, a missile launcher to deal more damage at the cost of speed, or keep to the bog-standard machine gun with a balance of the two. On foot, you are completely defenseless to the stalking spider-train that lurks in the open world.

There are also cultists hellbent on aiding keeping Charles happy and shotgunning you in the face. Unfortunately, they all are encountered on-foot, meaning you have to out-maneuver them — or lead them back to your train to dispatch a couple rounds into them — which leads to one of the game’s many issues.

“You Shouldn’t Be Here!”

Part of the main quest is sneaking into three different mines, these mines are home to eggs that you must acquire. These eggs, as you might expect, are guarded by these armed cultists, leading to an odd mechanic that simply didn’t need to be implemented — stealth. Choo-Choo Charles is not a stealth game, like at all.

The cultists are way too easy to alert as I simply couldn’t find a sweet spot to be able to peek from the corner without hearing the dreaded “you shouldn’t be here” line. Perhaps it’s because I’m not the best at stealth games, but I can hold my own usually but without proper optimization, stealth sections in games that aren’t supposed to be are super frustrating. 

While I do appreciate the limited open world, I feel there isn’t much on offer here. I wholly understand this isn’t some AAA experience, but if you’re going to go the route of forcing people off the track, perhaps making more interesting structures or reasons why they would go explore outside of the odd paint can to customize their train rather than stick to the track and the colors that can be found easily during main missions.

Sure, scrap metal is the main incentive, but that’s also available during missions and right adjacent to the track. Simply put, its open world is just a fine mechanic to be technically impressive, but it’s not something that needed to exist, it feels more like the track is the “hub world” while the only notable locations on the map are the missions — nothing to explore outside of that, nothing to dive deeper into.

Derailed

If it wasn’t clear, Choo-Choo Charles makes heavy use of assets, off-putting voice acting, and a lack of facial animations. Making games with assets isn’t the issue, but rather it’s a dubious thing as some will absolutely devalue the game for using assets. To me, that’s unfair, as the game has some sort of charm — its core premise is what it hedges its bets on, rather than its cast of characters outside of the antagonist itself.

I will say this — I am glad that Two Star Games went the extra mile to include voice acting, this isn’t a thing they had to do, it was an inclusion that is supposed to immerse you in the world, but unfortunately, it just falls flat. Disregarding the core quality of actors, the mixing is all over the place, almost like it was just dropped in after whatever post-processing the actor felt was necessary. Case in point, Gale is too quiet, with his dialogue getting overshadowed by the rain and ambiance, meanwhile John’s is a lot deeper and studio-esque, cutting through the ambiance right outside.

Linking up with voice acting, though, facial animation does not change, I wasn’t expecting this grandiose level of detail in dialogue, but considering the game makes it a point to hover around the center characters, it really takes you out of the game if you look at it for more than a second.

Last Stop

Choo-Choo Charles is the antithesis of a game that wears its silly nature on its sleeve, it hinges on the wacky premise of running from a spider-train to draw people in, but fails to deliver on anything to keep people thanks in large part due to its lackluster story, forgettable characters, shoddy design, and buggy experience. It has nuggets of potential that perhaps its sequel could improve upon, but for now, it’s just your run-of-the-mill indie horror that, without constant updates, will fall out of favor for better, more polished projects.