This game has some interesting ideas but it's difficult to recommend when it costs $26 CAD and doesn't even last 2 hours.

The first ~30 minutes were the best part since it was when I was most on edge. Your arsenal is at its weakest which means Charles poses the largest threat here, and you never know when he might appear. Moving around the island by train also makes you feel vulnerable due to the limited control you have. These parts came together well to create a good sense of tension.

However, once you start doing the various main/side quests, the enjoyment really starts to decrease. Every quest is some generic fetch quest and none of them really stand out. Having interesting NPCs can make up for mechanically bland quests but unfortunately that's not the case here. The quests that involved sneaking around cult members were particularly obnoxious. Stealth is extremely barebones and enemies who spot you will chase you to the ends of the Earth. But there were points where I could just try to run past enemies and get the objective before they could kill me, something I imagine wasn't intended and made them come across as poorly put together.

Most rewards for quests are upgrades for your train, either a new weapon or scrap metal to upgrade its stats. There is a sense of progression but in this case I found it really took away from the tension Charles created at the start of the game. Your collective upgrades quickly become more than enough to deal with any Charles encounter. There is the benefit that trying to quickly swap weapons in response to guns overheating and Charles' distance can create a frantic rhythm. However, Charles becomes less like a monster you should fear and more like a mechanic you need to deal with, which really took away any horror for me. And after only a couple Charles fights, each encounter becomes pretty routine. So even if you didn't get all these upgrades, I imagine Charles would still become pretty repetitive to face.

There were parts of Choo-Choo Charles I like and would love to see applied on a larger scale, but unfortunately many of them aren't very developed here. The game taking under 2 hours and costing $26 CAD makes it especially hard to recommend. If the concept is interesting enough you might think it's worth it but I'd look to the many other indie/horror games that will cost less and/or have better quality.

I remember seeing either a trailer or a devlog of Choo-Choo Charles about a year or so before it came out, and it exploded overnight. I thought it looked quite interesting as well, so I followed the development of the game until it came out. I was genuinely excited, and anticipating the release of this game, it looked as if it could completely overhaul and change the Mascot Horror genre. And did it?

Kind of. But more leaning towards no. It didn't really do much different when compared to others, the only main difference is the gameplay, which is a huge difference, but that's it. The tiny bits of story that you get, you would see in any Mascot Horror. The villain is a trendy looking thing, you can't deny that.

But it does the formula well. The gameplay is really fun for the most part, the times where it really falls flat, is the sections with the cultists. They are pretty poorly made, but either than that, the train sections of the game, which is the main part of it, is by far the best, and a really good part.

The villain, despite being trendy, and colorful, and going off of child-like things like Thomas the Choo-Choo Train, which would attract a lot of kids to play it. Is still a goofy, fun villain.

Nothing spectacular, but it's a solid game. Though, it is heavily overpriced.

Overall: 7/10

Si te gustan los trenes y te gusta Thomas el tren, este es tu juego. Donde un tren con ocho patas y una cara de psicópata perdió te perseguirá para hacerte la vida imposible por una isla hasta conseguir matarlo. El juego gráficamente se ve muy bien y tiene una historia muy sencilla y superfácil de entender, pero eso sí, para entenderla, es recomendable hacerse también las misiones secundarias. El juego es supercorto y te lo pasas fácilmente en 1 hora, incluso en menos. Es un juego de miedo estándar que para disfrutar de una tarde está muy bien.😊

Nach dem ganzen Hype um dieses Spiel, habe ich mich nun auch mal dran gesetzt. Es ist natürlich von der Spielmechanik und der Optik kein Highlight, das dürfte aber allen klar sein, die mal in das Spiel reingeguckt haben. Das macht aber irgendwie auch den Charme aus. Es hat mir großen Spaß gemacht und obwohl man keinen Schwierigkeitsgrad wählen kann, ist es problemlos zu schaffen. Ich habe knapp 4 Stunden für das Spiel gebraucht und leider hat es sich dennoch an einigen Stellen etwas gezogen. Die Zugstrecke ist wirklich lang und die Abbiegemöglichkeiten sind schlecht, so dass ich immer unnötig weite Wege fahren musste, um zum Ziel zu kommen. Da auf dem Weg auch nichts weiter passiert, saß ich zum Teil 2-3 Minuten vorm Laptop und habe absolut nichts getan und nur darauf gewartet, endlich ans Ziel zu kommen.

Dennoch ist es ein charmantes Spiel, dass einen auf die kurze Laufzeit ganz gut unterhält. So albern das Spiel aussieht: es gibt dennoch eine Schreckmomente, die mich wirklich bekommen haben. Vor allem, wenn die bewaffneten Kultisten mich gesehen und verfolgt haben. Eigentlich sind die sogar gruseliger als unser Choo-Choo Charles.

I love the concept but there isn't a whole lot to this game. You're put in a big, albeit empty, open world with a fairly straightforward questline alongside optional side quests which reward you with scrap to upgrade your train's defense, weapon damage or speed. Once you've played for about 20 minutes you'll get the gist of the entire game. The quests are super simple, most requiring you to just walk over somewhere 300 meters away, grab an object, then return to the NPC questgiver. Charles is not very scary, he startled me a couple of times but the combat is easy enough after you get the flamethrower and a couple stat upgrades. Charles is more so a nuisance since he always shows up just when I'm getting close to another quest. For what it is, Choo-Choo Charles is nothing special, but it doesn't seem very long and I am enjoying it despite my issues.

This is how you do stupid.
1) Short
2) Direct
3) No nagging the player every five minutes about how this is stupid

The monster's design certainly doesn't hurt.

For the French - https://lacritiquedumoment.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/trois-petits-jeux-dhalloween/#ccc

Dura bien poquito, no da nada de miedo y las mecánicas estan ok, la verdad pasa más a ser un "Walk" (entre comillas porque casi todo el tiempo te la pasas arriba del tren) simulator porque el mapa es enorme pero está super vacio y las pocas misiones que hay para resolver son super faciles o las tiene a lo mucho a 300 metros y si da flojerita caminar.

Las primeras veces que te encuentres con Charles van a ser muy injustas y posiblemente te llegue a matar unas ¿dos veces? pero ya que pase la primera hora y media no se va a dificultar nada alejarlo.

Map seems a bit empty, the train is super easy to upgrade but.
I really loved this one.
Yeah, it's silly and campy - in the best way possible. The game offers an incredibly creative story line and it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Horror games are my real passion and yet sometimes, I just get bored of seeing the same things over and over again.
If I had to choose between being attacked by a spider-train from hell and searching for keys while solving puzzles (just so I can open another door to solve another puzzle while some kind of vaguely eldritch horror thing chases me), I would pick the train-spider every time.