Game: Train Valley Console Edition
Genre: Puzzle, Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers | Publishers: Flazm | BlitWorks
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: US $11.99 | UK £10.79 | EU € 11,99
Release Date: July 27th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Blitworks.
Train Valley is a simulation strategy game by Falzm; the game was previously released on Steam in 2015.
Train Valley
All aboard! Train Valley has received 2,215 positive reviews on Steam. Every so often, I like a good train game, so I was keen to play Train Valley Console Edition on the Switch.
In this console edition, you must manage train tracks and trains while you play through thirty levels across different continents from 1830 to the present day.
Campaign and Sandbox
The campaign mode has maps based on various countries such as the Americas, Europe, Japan, and the USSR. The German DLC is also included, which starts with World War I and goes to the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the modern Frankfurt Airport.
The premise of Train Valley is straightforward enough: several stations appear on a map, and you must connect them with railway lines, directing up to eight trains between the stations by ensuring the ‘switch’ at each intersection is pointing the right way. Each puzzle introduces a new element of challenge, like a tunnel or bridge. In addition, each level in the campaign mode has requirements, challenges and restrictions.
Tutorial
The first level is an easy and calm tutorial level in which the game tells you the basics, how to build tracks and how to move your trains. However, it tricks you into a false sense of security about how relaxing the game will be. As, of course, this changes drastically in the third or fourth level!
Once you have built the tracks, trains randomly appear at stations. The trains are colour coordinated with their intended destination station. Each train also has a dollar value for delivering it to its correct station. However, with every couple of seconds that pass, the reward for each train drops. New stations will open up during missions, forcing you to connect the new station to the existing tracks.
Get the Train from A – B
So it’s up to you to ensure that the points are correctly set so the train reaches its correct destination. The quicker it arrives at the station, the more money you get, allowing you to expand your railroad as more stations open up and need to be connected to the network.
However, if you wait too long to let your trains depart from their stations, they’ll decide to go out on their own, which is when bad things will happen! You need to rush to pull the levers on the switches, back up and hold all other trains and make sure that one train arrives in one piece. But before you manage that, another train has decided it has waited long enough!
Pause To Control The Trains
You can control each train by pausing the game, stopping it in its tracks or reversing it to avoid another oncoming train. Though the trains are slow to stop, you must think ahead and plan your moves. If the trains collide, they go up in a ball of flames and destroy the tracks; it is best to avoid that happening.
It’s easy to spend nearly all your money building tracks. While the game will prevent you from spending more money than you have on tracks, nothing warns you that you are spending almost all of your money. Of course, that would be fine if it weren’t for the payment of the annual “tax” expense deducted from your money; if you don’t have the cash, you lose the mission.
Progressively more Difficult
The levels get progressively more difficult as you play through the game, and it can become a little frantic. The maps are small, with little space for winding tracks. Additionally, the tracks are difficult to place on the Nintendo Switch.
I was looking forward to playing Train Valley, only to be disappointed by the control system on the Switch. Every single button on the joy cons is used to play the game.
With a menu on the top left of the screen, you use the L + R buttons to flick to the appropriate icon to lay tracks, destroy a track, change the direction of the track and stop and start the trains. Unfortunately, when many trains are going the wrong way, it can be a frustrating experience to land on the correct icon to change the track direction.
Sound
The game’s soundtrack is a very relaxed bluesy instrumental. Even it lulls you into a false sense of security again and makes you think you’re in for a relaxing time. That lasts until the frenzy of switching tracks and stopping trains on a dime set in.
Conclusion
Train Valley Console Edition is a challenging puzzle game with controls that make playing it on the Switch a tad frustrating. However, I’d recommend Train Valley if you like trains and enjoy a good challenge. I must admit I’d play it on PC over the Switch version. This way you might save yourself having to buy a new Switch after throwing it through the window in frustration.
Final Verdict: I Like It 