A-Train 9 V5.0 : Japan Train Simulator Ultimate Edition

A review for those of you who are new to A9 and are wondering whether this is for you _________________ The Bad A-Train 9, in its current form, is a 15-year-old game. That cuts both ways. On one hand, it looks like a Windows 95 game from a parallel universe, complete with menu buttons as clunky as the gearbox on a discarded Soviet tractor. Many features you’d expect as standard today are missing — no map generator, no save-game sharing, no true modding like Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever. Resolution is locked at 1920×1080, and at higher settings the menu text becomes smaller than the fineprint in a lawyer’s contract. The visuals are oldschool, the engine is ancient, and despite the hefty price tag, you’ll also have to make peace with the fact that you will be missing out on a whole library of gorgeous trains locked away in the Japanese edition. _________________ The Good Now for the flip side — and it’s a big one. Beneath the outdated visuals lies one of the deepest city-builders and arguably the best train-based tycoon game ever made. This is 15 years of bug-fixing, balancing, and menu-polishing wrapped around complex, unforgiving mechanics. It’s not Transport Fever or Skylin…

This game is incredibly addicting! The learning curve is [u]very steep[/u]. Balance sheets, profit margins, urban planing, subsidiaries, stock market, real estate, taxes. A-Train 9 doesn't explain anything, no tutorial. At the same time, the simulation is so deep and intricate that you can spend hours fine tuning the time table of each railway station you built for the new passenger line, just to increase the efficiency of each train and therefore profitabilty. You will feel lost and frustrated during the first few hours and often, the only way to figure things out is through trial & error and reading guides online. Don't expect to receive instant gratification here, you won't get any. Instead, be prepared to see the game over screen a few times before seeing even the smallest progress. Also expect to go "game over" when the day for the tax payment arrives. :) But once you managed to leave that initial state of confusion & frustration and see your company and your city grow, the feeling of your personal investment (your time and energy) paying off is incredible. A few hours later you will be building sky scrapers, amusement parks and more railway stations and material fact…

There are two ways to play this game. The normal game mode features dozens of scenarios where you need to manage your train company. It may seem a little overwhelming at first, but the game is quite simple, and once you understand that you need to supply materials and passengers to the regions in order for them to develop, profiting mainly from the subsidiaries you will build/purchase in these more developed regions, the game becomes easy. Still, the planning part in the more difficult scenarios can be quite satisfying and interesting. Oh, and remember to keep an eye on taxes. They will eat into your profits every month, and take a huge chunk out of your earnings every May 1 and June 1. The second game mode is sandbox (through the scenario editor), where you can create things at will. This mode offers you enormous depth to create your railroads and train operations, and management through timetables can be as complex as you want. Whichever mode interests you most, you'll have a very addictive and enormously satisfying game to play, once you get past the initial learning curve and understand how to play and profit. I don't think any other train game explores the same things as A-…

I love playing this game so much! Since the version 4.0. There's no fighting, no violence, no shooting, no killing. You just build strategy, and it's incredibly relaxing, which is why I love playing this game so much. Well with this new version everyting was going very well but after all, I started a game on three standard maps and continued, saving over them as I went. Then I designed my own two games using map editors and started playing and saving over them as well. Progress was going great, until, after opening a standard game, playing, and saving, I noticed that all my other saves were saved over my most recent save with the same name. This is a serious bug, and I hope the game's developers fix it.

Well, hugely disappointed after purchase. The game itself I'm sure is fine. However, when checking the game information on the store page (right side) its has English checked as ok! Then if you look down on the page way below all the purchase options...One sentence says people in Japan cannot have an English option, (japanese only). So, be aware this is a bit of a trick! This notice should be PLASTERED everywhere on the right side of the store page and info for the game. My refund is pending.

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