All aboard the off-world colony express. I have always had a fondness for trains ever since I was a little kid, I always used to love playing with my granddad’s model train set in the shed, and from that whenever I see a train-related game I can’t help but show interest and that’s how I came across Railgrade. I think I found the trailer on YouTube one day and enjoyed the look of the gameplay that was shown and decided to purchase my ticket and hop aboard.
Railgrade is a management sim about using railways to transport resources and power industry in an off-world colony. You will work on behalf of a corporation called Nakatani Chemicals to help fix and get production up and running again after a disastrous collapse of the planet’s infrastructure.
Using railway networks, you will create complex tracks that will connect various industries so that your trains can transport valuable resources to the necessary areas. Manage the production of resources and where they need to go. This can all be achieved by making your tracks as efficient as possible and using different types of engines to get the job done. Using your creativity, create intricate tracks that will boost productivity and helps get the colony back on its feet.
The game is made up of multiple levels and bonus side missions which provide the player with scenarios that you complete to progress. There is a ranking system where if you can complete the missions within a certain amount of time you have rewarded a rank and get tokens that can be spent on new industry upgrades as well as a few extra goodies. There are over 50 single-player missions for you to get stuck into and help the colony start functioning again. There is a storyline in Railgrade, but it isn’t anything memorable, it just seems to be put in place so that the game has a bit of a reason behind you coming in as a worker for Nakatani Chemicals and having to help rebuild the colony.
I love how effortless the construction tools are in Railgrade. It is so nice to be able to lay tracks, builds, and stations with just a press of a button. There isn’t even a loading time, it is just instantly placed which helps keep the game flowing and not waiting around for things to be built. Once you have set your tracks up and got the layout all sorted you can then customise your trains with their carriages to make sure that they are on the correct route and have everything they need to collect the resources and transport them to the different depots and industries.
By using the different engines and carriages available you can optimise productivity and control the flow of resources to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Some levels have cities on them, and you will need to make sure that the cities are also getting the correct resources so that they can grow and offer more works to help with the colony.
As you progress, you’ll unlock more trains and resources building that can be used to tackle the more difficult levels that become available later in the game. There are different terrain types as well that shack up the gameplay, you will have to make sure you are using the correct trains when tackling steep inclines so that productivity doesn’t get affected. The only sad thing with Railgrade is that the game becomes very repetitive, and you find yourself playing it more for the creative freedom you get when designing your complex rail routes rather than trying to collect a certain amount of glass for the 100th time in a certain level sequence. While it is easy to lay the track down, I find it a bit difficult at times to get the game to lay it down how I wanted. It did take a few tries, but you can get there in the end, it just feels like when it auto-decides how it wants the track to go down it doesn’t always line up with my creative visions.
Graphically the game looks good on the switch both handheld and docked. The animations are clean, and the different environmental areas did enough to make them stand out from one another. The music choice in Railgrade caught me off guard as certain tracks made you feel like you were in a nightclub or on an elevator put in all honesty, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the audio it was just background noise while I was concentrating on the tasks at hand. Even though the concept for the game was simple you can tell that the developers had a passion for it as everything was polished and well thought out. People who enjoy touch screen features like me will be sadly disappointed as while playing the game in handheld mode there wasn’t any functionality. This isn’t an issue as this type of game doesn’t need it, but it might have been cool to see it implemented in some way. One of my favourite features was being able to select the different camera views and watch the trains go around their routes, it made me feel as though I was watching model trains again and there was something comforting about it.
There is more than enough on offer in Railgrade. There are plenty of levels to sink your teeth into, it’s just a shame that they all feel the same and become heavily repetitive. In the early hours of playing when you are being taught everything from the tutorials, it is engaging and fun but after a while, it just becomes tedious as every level just feels like it wants you to do the same thing over and over. There is the element of speed in levels because if you manage to complete all the tasks in a certain amount of time you get a higher rank and more vouchers that you can spend to unlock little perks, these being new upgrades and music tracks. If you are a perfectionist then having the challenge to complete the tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible will keep you playing for hours as there are loads of levels available but for me, I just enjoyed the management sim side of the game where you build your tracks and manage what the different trains are doing. This was what kept me playing and the time limit just faded into the background. There is also a cool little photo mode that allows you to take pictures and add filters so that you can show off your railways, this seems to have come standard in most games nowadays and it’s a nice little touch.
Conclusion
Railgrade is simple at the best of times and doesn’t do anything out of this world to define it from other management sims that are currently on the market. You get your money’s worth as the game is only £15.99 on the Nintendo store and is packed to the brim with content, it’s just a shame that after the first few hours of gameplay it is just repeating itself. The sole thing that kept me playing for hours upon end was the creative freedom you get when making the rail networks and being able to manage the routes and trains that go around the track, combine this with the photo mode and cinematic camera views and you got yourself a virtual model train set that is truly a spectacle to watch when you have spent time constructing these massive, complex networks. Even though the story lacks and the gameplay doesn’t push itself from basic core mechanics I enjoyed its simplicity and enjoyed my time with Railgrade and that’s why I’m giving it a score of 7 out of 10.
Grab your copy here https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/RAILGRADE-2232137.html
Developer: Minakata Dynamics
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows
Publishers: The Irregular Corporation, Epic Games
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