The narrative and immersion draw you in...

In Last Train Home we take command of a train full of soldiers from a Czech military group who are trying to return to their home, the Czech Republic, while the Russian winter has not yet returned. However, as if the limited supplies weren't enough, the repression of the Bolsheviks (Red Army) on Russian territory also became an obstacle. It is in the midst of this chaos that you must lead the men behind you, keep the train running, and manage to get out of enemy territory alive.



Given the context in which the game takes place, I'd like to start the review by talking about Last Train Home's narrative and how it surprises and wins you over. Generally, in games of the strategy and base building/management genre, with elements of resource management, we have narratives that aren't as developed and tend not to be much more than the context necessary for your civilization or group to be in that situation or for there to be wars. However, in Last Train Home, the developers have created a captivating and tense storyline that not only fits perfectly with the gameplay but is also extremely fluid and dynamic.

Unlike other RTS where you create pawns and send them off to war, straight to their deaths, without even knowing their names, Last Train Home brings elements that allow you to create bonds with the soldiers you lead, making everything much more immersive. Each character has a story, and personality traits - so, in the dialogues, different dolls say different things and add differently to the story -, some qualities, defects, and different attributes... All this, together with the different classes and professions, makes the development and construction of each character unique - in the end, you don't want to lose the soldier you've been playing and upgrading for 12 hours... so it's best to give life and strategize carefully -.



What's more, still in the immersion framework, the storyline is driven by a flow of different elements: at one moment it's a cinematic scene with real actors, at another it's a text dialogue between your loyal soldiers in which you can make decisions that affect the course of the story, and then it's an in-game interaction within the war itself. Information is brought to you at all times and various points in the game, keeping the story progress constant, while the playable content time is extremely high.

Finally, to wrap up the narrative and immersion of the game, it's essential to mention how much the developers have shone by dubbing the audio in Czech and Russian. It adds richness to the game and, once again, increases the immersion of the work. Overall, Last Train Home does a great job of maintaining the dynamism and immersion of the storyline while still leaving it unpredictable. In the end, you don't just stick with the game because of the strategic gameplay or the complexity of the administration, but also because you want to find out what's going to happen.



Combat, managing resources and soldiers, and developing the train

Leaving the context and story of Last Train Home for a moment, I'd now like to move on to the most practical and playable part of the game, starting with the combat. Although it's the part that brings the least new elements, the combat is extremely well-balanced, so that all the soldier classes are important and necessary to use, and fun.

Although the physics of the covers for the soldiers isn't the best - many places on the map should be considered good hiding places/defenses, but aren't even recognized as such - and it bothered me a little, everything else about Last Train Home's combat is solid, to say the least: as I've already said, the classes and the different abilities each one has are very balanced and each one has their important weight in the squad; the different weapons and their damage are also very balanced; the quality of the artificial intelligence makes combat more challenging.



As for the management phase, where you manage your train, soldiers, and resources, I'd say this is the part where Last Train Home innovates the most, bringing new concepts and blending them majestically with the gameplay already traditional in games of this genre: a mobile base (steam train) that must not only be maintained but also built and developed, amid a shortage of resources; soldiers who must be fed and well looked after so that they can boost and keep their morale high; different professions to be occupied within the train; different combat classes; expeditions - non-playable missions that are fundamental to acquiring resources - to be carried out by the soldiers; confrontations with the Red Army. Numerous mechanics harmonize very well and make the game captivating, complex and yet not so difficult as to be boring.

I confess that, at first, the part about managing resources and soldiers can be a little too much information, but nothing that a little patience and a few hours of quality time won't allow you to understand what's going on.

Audiovisual

Starting the last part of the review, I'd like to talk a little about the game's audiovisual art. Visually speaking, Last Train Home gets a lot of right, both by building an aesthetic that I think is unique and by bringing very pleasant visuals to the HUD's, splash arts, graphics, and map design.



Sometimes, depending on how many missions you're doing and how much is happening in combat, I feel that the HUD ends up getting a bit polluted. Apart from that, I have no complaints about the game's visuals. The visual effects, animations, textures, and resource management map are all very visually pleasing and harmonize solidly with the rest of the game.

As for the audio, the soundtrack is just right too, bringing the epic dose that a good war and/or historical game should have. The sound effects aren't far behind either and connect very well with the visual effects, bringing you closer to the chaotic scene of war. What's more, the vast majority of the characters are all dubbed and, as I said earlier, are in the original languages of the historical event the game was inspired by. It's clear from this that the work done by the developers on the sound of Last Train Home is also of the highest quality and, as a result, makes it possible to create an atmosphere worthy of war.

Finally, it can be said that Last Train Home has very few weaknesses or points that are poorly exploited by the developers. On the contrary, the game is a wall of solidity and full of qualities, combining the positive points of traditional RTSs with numerous new resource management mechanics.

For this review, we would like to thank THC Nordic for sending us the review key.

Reviewed and Translated by Diego Lourenço