Nowadays, saying that an indie title can be considered a small diamond perfectly set by skilled jewelers is not so simple, because even if independent developers do not enjoy the same economic capacity as large video game companies, they often find themselves to be judged on the basis of the products developed by the latter. Fortunately, however, some developers are saved by producing wonderful games like The Final Station, the latest production from developer tinyBuild Games (the creator of the very lucky Punch Club.)
The darkest train ever
We chose such an impactful introduction because we strongly believe in the characteristics and potential of this title, which thanks to its sci-fi flavor and a sweet noir tone, takes us into a dark enough narrative to be able to attract the attention of many users, both indie and non-indie games. In The Final Station the player will take on the role of a railroad worker who, getting out of bed one morning like many others and once he reached his dear local station, he will find himself in a strangely different context. The railway worker, once he arrives at the station and checks as usual which line he has been assigned to, he will realize that something has changed: the railway company has introduced new safety systems on the trains, so to activate your vehicle you will need to find a code unlock. As if that weren't enough, the unusual installation is joined by disturbing rumors about an accident that occurred further north and involved some towns crossed by the railway line. And so, with these small pieces of information in hand, we begin our journey set in a future not too far from ours, where technology seems to be more advanced than what we have today, but not too much, and in which rail travel still seems have an excellent appeal. Once the journey begins, we will immediately realize that something has changed in the cities, a huge displacement of soldiers armed to the teeth and many inconveniences were caused by the accident in the north. In the first stations where we will stop, some citizens will ask us to take them to the blocked stations, while others rumor about a sort of infection that has struck the citizens of the north after an experiment, perhaps unsuccessful. No one in the game will reveal to us what really happens, because the government through the use of soldiers will always be ready to quell any rumors about it. In this bizarre context, we will be entrusted with a tough but important mission: to carry a load containing something secret, no one will tell us the contents of the load, but we will be given only a weapon and a hope. And so the journey will begin.
Two gameplay in one
The gameplay of the game will be presented immediately divided into two parts; the first will make us responsible for the management of the train and will take place inside it, while the second will see us intent on exploring each city in search of the unlock code that will allow us to pass the level and the possibility of reaching the next station. This duo is beautifully intertwined, because although in the management part of the game there is not a large amount of things to do, but a lot of attention and control of some elements is required, in the exploratory part the title travels at very high levels capable of keeping the player busy for a long time. The highlight of The Final Station, however, is the narrative imprint that is based on a rather simple but really successful plot., with a character who, albeit silent (from the point of view of the audio), thanks to the dialogues with other characters and objects such as mobile phones, computers and newspapers manages to involve the player with all the shoes. In the management part of the title, we will have to pay attention to the control of passenger health, manage limited resources and at the same time be able to control the energy of the train intended for the various components of the long steel medium. Once off the train, our driver will concentrate on looking for the unlock code of the station, which will lead him to face many hordes of "infected". This will defend itself from the contagion in two simple ways: by punching the enemies or by shooting at them everything possible. This, however, should not mislead you because often our "friends" bullets are very limited, we would dare to say almost rare, so much so that the player very often will have to stop and think about their moves and resources, especially in the final parts, limiting themselves to observing the environments and trying to exploit everything that can be thrown and used as a weapon.
This is PIXEL-ART
As for the graphics, there is not much to say: the Pixel art created by the boys of TinyBuild it is something very well done, even if sometimes some graphical glitches will force us to stop the game.
