Game EXP: FARAWAY TRAIN (PC)

 [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for FARAWAY TRAIN through Keymailer, a third-party company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game key was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that it be played, and content be created.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

FARAWAY TRAIN
Systems: Windows, Linux, Steam OS
Release Date: June 3, 2021
Publisher: AMATA Games, Tatamibeya 畳部屋, & Digital-Touch Co., Ltd.
Developer: Tatamibeya 畳部屋
Time Spent: 7 Hours 54 Minutes*
Gameplay Videos on YouTube

Holy damn.  It took me a while, but I really enjoyed FARAWAY TRAIN.  

FARAWAY TRAIN is a narrative escape room and walking sim.  The game can be broken down into individual chapters, as each car/carriage of the train contains certain story beats and clues that unlock the door to the next train car.  The game revolves around uncovering the lost history of the final Empress, Roxelana, by discovering documents related to Roxelana herself, but also the people around her in the years between when she first appeared in written records and when she disappeared altogether.  There was a bit of confusion on my part on who exactly the player character was supposed to be, constantly questioning if I was supposed to be part of this history or if I was just a person following in the historian Graham's footsteps, recompiling his work to determine specific dates in history.

For me, the story was one of the highlights of the whole game, but it took a little while for it to click.  In the first two carriages, I felt like I was a little lost as far as the place of the characters in the overall world, knowing only a little bit about the world, regions, and factions, so I wasn't entirely sure what I should focus on apart from the Blacksmith and that Roxelana would eventually become the final Empress.  I think giving the map of the Imperial City to the player right off the bat was part of what felt overwhelming, as there were a lot of names for various districts, and I first felt that I needed to know these names to be able to follow the story.  Once I let that feeling go and focus on the information provided in the individual chapters, it was a bit easier to take in.  

And then in the third carriage, there was a painting of The Imperial City Obelisk, and something happened.  It was like the floor had dropped out from underneath me, as I saw the imensity of this object that had been mentioned a few times in the previous carriages.  I had previously seen the Obelisk labeled on the map of the Imperial City, so I knew where it was located and thought I knew its scale, roughly akin to the Washington Monument. This Obelisk was absolutely massive, bigger than anything I had previously comprehended, and there was just something about this visual that immediately sold me on the world for the rest of the game.  No matter how confused I was about solving puzzles or frustrated with not being able to locate keys to unlock boxes and doors (sometimes reverting to playthroughs on YouTube), this was the point where I was all in on the world and the story.

The escape room aspect of the game was split up into two mechanics.  First, there were locating keys or three-digit codes for combination locks to progress through the train car or to find documents related to the events happening around a specific time. For an in-person escape room experience, I would have been pretty disappointed, as most of the actions in each of the carriages were primarily finding a key and which lock that key went to.  For a video game, however, it felt like the perfect balance of keeping information literally locked until the right time.  Oftentimes, the description of the key was vague, such as "Heavy Key" or "Beautiful Key," but on at least one occasion, with the "Paint Flecked Key," it was a clue as to which door the key could be used for.  

As a final puzzle to pass through to the next train car, there was always a five-digit number related to the year and month of an important event in the life of Roxelana that Graham prompted you to discover.  This solution was pieced together through various journals, letters, and other documents that were about the carriage.  These puzzles I found to be the most difficult (ignoring the two times I needed a walkthrough to find exceedingly well-hidden keys), as they often required referencing multiple documents, and they didn't always specify the year.  Sometimes it would mention a month (using their own in-house month naming system, along with their own base four numbering system) after an event, and since it happened in Mourn-Moon, which was after the referenced event that occurred in Scythe-Moon, you'll need to add a year to when that previously referenced event was.  I would say it's less complicated than it sounds, but I did have to use the aforementioned walkthrough for two of the final codes.

Lastly, as a walking sim, I couldn't really ask for anything more.  You could run, but there was no reason to unless you wanted to get from one end of a train car to another in less time.  There was no jump button.  Any document you picked up was automatically recorded in your journal, so there was no need to constantly backtrack to reread a letter to figure out how many children the merchant had to determine the code on the locked cabin door.  I never felt that there were objects in the way that impeded movement that you wouldn't normally find in a train, and since the cars are all essentially a tube, you can't really get lost or turned around.  I also loved how each of the cars felt appropriate for the class that was being served, although I did find it odd/amusing that the windows in the first-class carriage had wooden ornamentations that obstructed the view out of the windows.

Without getting into story spoilers, I felt that the developers did an amazing job of wrapping up so many loose ends by the end of the game, except maybe the origins, functions, and history of the train itself.  The lore of the world felt planned and thought out, and there were conclusions to characters introduced earlier in the story that I thought had been dropped off, which felt odd considering how important they were made out to be (looking at you, Rey, and Estella).  I was honestly just so happy with the overall story, how the story was conveyed over the course of the game, and how nearly everything felt wrapped up, that it was just a really nice game to have experienced.  Had it recently been released, I would hope for a novelization, but since the game is almost five years old, I think that ship has sailed.  

I guess I'll just reread all of the documents again.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Gifts of Nightmares

P.S.  I give a little bit more commentary in the descriptions of the videos that are up on YouTube if you're interested.

*I actually finished the game in 6 hours 20 minutes, but then I spent another hour and a half gathering footage for videos and just sitting in the train watching the scenery go by.