A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism | Review

A-Train

On March 12th A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism made its Nintendo eShop debut. The new chapter of the Artdink series of management systems born in 1985, arrives on Switch with a particular chapter: disengaged in the artistic sector and with stratified and complex mechanics to master. The final result is a production that will delight those who have always loved the peculiar series of games but which could be difficult to "digest" for those who are at the first approach with this decades-long saga.

Che A -Train: All Aboard! Tourism would expand its boundaries beyond railway management, we had already understood this from the demo released a few weeks ago on the Nintendo eShop. The new chapter of the Artdink series puts the player in the delicate task of managing the numerous aspects of different transport lines designed to allow tourists to reach the nerve centers of the cities. A breathtaking view? It will never be profitable if it is not accompanied by a solid transport line that allows tourists to enjoy it easily.

The new production of Artlink, to the detriment of the serious city management simulator matrix (as the developers have renamed it ), does not present itself with a serious artistic sector, leaving to an artistic sector of anime matrix the task of always keeping the general atmosphere of the game engaged. However, this should not mislead the user, because A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism knows how to behave like the most punitive of management systems, offering us game mechanics that are only apparently simple and that will prove complex to master and manage as the adventure progresses.

Once we have decided the name of our virtual alter ego, and of our future transport company, we will be greeted by colorful landscapes and characters with exaggerated characterization. A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism will offer us a colorful welcome before introducing us to our purpose: the management of buses, trains, railways, stations and roads. As president of a transport company, however, the duties will not stop there and will soon cover a wider spectrum, requiring us to take care of subsidiary structures, the management of advertising of our company and the financial management of the latter. . All essential aspects to have an ever greater decision-making power in the city.

A-Train's main campaign: All Aboard! Tourism unfolds through eight settings all playable by choosing one of the three available difficulties, the differences between the latter will be dictated by the economic capacity with which the mission will begin, by how much the company will already be known within the environment and by trust. that your shareholders will have towards you. Each level will be set in a different geographical area, with the resulting morphological differences, and in different historical moments.

Within the various scenarios present in A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism, you can tackle the various missions in the order you prefer, just ask our secretary for the list of "things to do" and dedicate yourself to the creation and management of our small transport empire. The plot of the game is very basic and will be dealt with in a summary way during the various preliminary briefings at the start of a mission, revealing itself to be a simple "sop" act mostly to contextualize the player within the various scenarios.

Once our adventure has begun, and if you are not connoisseurs of the series, we strongly suggest you start from the verbose tutorial available, we could immediately dedicate ourselves to the positioning of stations, tracks and trains, as well as it will be possible to define the itineraries that our vehicles will have to accomplish to bring tourists to the hotspots of the city. All this turns out to be very intuitive in terms of commands, thanks to a full support of the touch screen in portable mode, but it irremediably collides with an excessively cumbersome menu management and a camera that alternates excellent isometric overview views with management freedom that fails to excel in terms of "control of the situation".

S e the positioning of our structures will prove intuitive and fun, the downside will come when we have to come to terms with finances , numbers, income, expenses and statistics. When each character encountered up to that moment will begin to claim specific objectives and targets, making each dialogue important to better understand how to move one's steps within a punitive and all too realistic game world in some respects.

Soon A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism will show its true nature and the disengaged construction activity will be flanked by a strategic component where it will be necessary to increase your influence on public opinion through elaborate architectures that do not drain your finances if you really want to attract crowds of tourists and get the right shine to your company. The downside of this drift towards "power play" is its complexity which could demotivate novices and soon make them abandon the layered gameplay mechanics of A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism. It is also necessary to take into consideration that all the texts are only in English and their full understanding is essential to better master all the facets proposed by the new title of Artlink.

On the purely technical side A-Train : All Aboard! Tourism behaves satisfactorily. Although we are not faced with a "triple-A" production, the graphic sector is pleasant, with colorful and relaxing overall views. The sound sector is a little redundant, especially considering the long game sessions necessary to complete the most advanced missions, but overall the sound effects and the music created for the game work properly.

A note must be made for the length of the first loading at the start of the game which always turns out to be excessively long even if it is a prerequisite for not presenting the player with any loading screen once the game has started. On the other hand, the possibility to download totally free additional scenarios directly from Nintendo eShop as well as the excellent support of the developers who, close to the release of the game, have already distributed two updates to improve performance and stability, are very welcome.