Choo-Choo Charles Review (Xbox Series X|S & PlayStation 5)

If I’m being honest with myself, the thought of a burning locomotive with a joker-like grin on its faceplate makes for a pretty disturbing sight. It’s so disconcerting, in fact, that I for one couldn’t dare to look at Thomas the Tank Engine ever again after coming face to wheel with the sadistic freighter, much less Percy and the “Fat” Controller, otherwise known by his less derogative name, Sir Topham Hatt. But as it turned out, having to touch gloves with the train in the aptly titled Choo-Choo Charles was actually one of the most intensive tasks I’ve ever had to complete — let alone learn how to cope with in the aftermath of its dismissal. For that, I say, thanks, Two Star Games — I’ve a whole new core memory to stow away in the underbelly of my psyche.

To get straight to the point, Choo-Choo Charles has just arrived at its latest platform, effectively giving newcomers who missed out on its PC debut the chance to catch up on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Just as well, because I myself happened to fall beneath that particular umbrella of outsiders, and as such, had every intention of venturing deep into the steam-powered realm for the sake of seeing what all of the fuss was about. The question is, was it worth the wait, or was it hardly worth punching a ticket stub over?

Hello, Charles

Credit: Two Star Games

Choo-Choo Charles invites you to the wooded world of a monster-infested dystopia—a nightmarish hole in which trees barrel and screech, and trains, for some otherworldly reason, operate on their own and hunt for the flesh and bone of intuitive passengers. This is where you, one of said intuitive passengers, begin your journey — aboard an alternative route, and in search of a brand-new locomotive that’ll rival that of the villainous Choo-Choo Charles.

It goes like this: your friend Eugene has called out for some advice, and has gone to the extent of telling you that a spider-like locomotive has been causing pandemonium around the island of Aranearum. As a gesture of good will, you set out to not only study the aforementioned man-eating Thomas the Tank Engine clone, but also secure a way to bring its evil doings to a staggering halt. Sounds all rather straightforward on paper, for sure, but that isn’t to say that such a task is anything even remotely inviting, of course.

Choo-Choo Charles throws you into the boots of “The Archivist”—a brave adventurer whose sole purpose is to eradicate the plague that is Charles, and to prevent it from consuming the world in its entirety. Simply put, Charles has gone haywire, and it’s up to you to figure out why, and not to mention how to go about foiling its plans to expand its reach and digest even more of the island’s population. Again, much easier said than done.

All Aboard

Credit: Two Star Games

Gameplay in Choo-Choo Charles is divided up into several sections, with the most obvious being puzzle-solving. For the most part, the goals consist of venturing deep into the thick of the island’s woodland, and searching for peculiar components that’ll be useful when push comes to shove, and the ever-alluring eyes of Choo-Choo Charles come knocking at your chosen platform.

To make so much as a dent in the campaign, you must locate certain tools, with which you can apply to various upgrades aboard your locomotive. To put it simply, the more upgrades you obtain, the higher your chances of surviving the encounters with Charles are. And to locate such upgrades, you must first brave the unknown by sprinting from shack to shack, all whilst avoiding the whistle of the nearby villain. And it’s within these portions of the game that I, in all honesty, found myself glued to the edge of my seat, as any modern survival-horror game should. It was all there, and those daring efforts to lug a key component back to my locomotive whilst a few hundred yards from the flesh-deprived train stack were completely horrifying, to say the least.

Granted, Choo-Choo Charles isn’t the longest game in the world; you can sweep it under the rug in just under ninety minutes or less, depending on how on-your-toes you can be, and how easily you’re able to forage for supplies in the darkest depths of the woods. For what it’s worth, though, a ninety-minute campaign felt like an eternity — especially when each and every moment had me anxiously pondering and desperately trying to keep my head above water.

Hide-and-Seek, 101

Credit: Two Star Games

There are four areas to upgrade aboard your vessel: Health, Speed, Damage, and Armor. To progress deeper into the game and bring the campaign to its climax, you must apply the scrap metals found around the world to your locomotive, and essentially go toe-to-toe with ol’ Choo-Choo Charles himself. Aside from all of the upgrading that needs to be carried out, there’s also the weapon that you need to keep in tip-top condition—a primary tool that, during the final phases of the story, will aid your quest to banish Charles and blow his many, many spider legs to smithereens.

Getting around in the world of Choo-Choo Charles is relatively straightforward, in the fact that each landmark can only be accessed by boarding your train and following a set of tracks. There’s a map (thankfully), and a series of POI that can be found by searching both aboard your locomotive, and on foot. In order to make headway on the journey, you must plan ahead and keep out of Charles’ absurdly large radar. Sure enough, there’s never a dull moment, and it’s thanks to the game’s pace that I rarely found a lull in the story, let alone in the gameplay itself.

Visually Mediocre

Credit: Two Star Games

I won’t pretend that Choo-Choo Charles’ graphics are on par with some of the other survival-horror games on the market, because honestly, they’re a few notches below the belt. Having said that, the environments are generally pleasing to the eye, and are only really let down by the character models that make an appearance every once in a blue moon. Suffice to say, it’s a bit of a mixed bag as far as audiovisual components travel, and where one node can carry the weight of the whole package, another can ultimately bog it down into a less detailed, questionably simple set piece.

Performance-wise, I did stumble across a couple of flaws, which often led me to either restart the game, or enable that all-important smokescreen in my head that would allow me to overlook the minor technicalities. Aside from the odd frame drop, however, there wasn’t all that much to complain about, which essentially made the overall experience a relatively (though equally stressful) painless affair. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

Verdict

There’s something awfully unnerving about having to dodge the siren call of a locomotive that’s bombing through the woods at lightning speeds. Suffice it to say, it isn’t a feeling I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing at any stage in my gaming career, and so, on that note, I can’t exactly slate Two Star Games for its inability to spin a compelling yarn. On the contrary, I’m all for singing the studio’s eternal praises, as such a concept, although highly unorthodox, is arguably one of the best I’ve seen in weeks, months, and perhaps even years. And to reiterate, this is a horror game about a train, and therefore such a combination shouldn’t really exist. But it does, and I can’t figure out if I’m overjoyed about that, or slightly perplexed, for that matter.

It goes without saying that, if you’re a bit of a fan of the Slender franchise, then you’re sure to find something to cherish in Choo-Choo Charles. In addition to its light puzzle-solving elements, the game also offers an expansive array of genuinely horrifying scenarios and features. It’s also in receipt of a whole bunch of nifty upgradable components and locomotive-centric modules, too, making it a jack-of-all-trades of survival-horror, complete with all the appropriate trimmings, to boot.

When all’s said and done, Choo-Choo Charles isn’t a game you’ll be playing for an eternity, but where it lacks in depth, it most definitely makes up for in numerous other ways. And again, while it isn’t the cleanest-looking marvel on the block, it does provide an enormous selection of unsettling surprises and spine-tingling hide-and-seek moments. Will it ruin your childhood memories of Thomas the Tank Engine? Perhaps. But then, if Winnie’s Hole can get away with obliterating A. A. Milne’s beloved literature, then why can’t Choo-Choo Charles?