My work here is successfully complete then, heh. Always warms me heart to see others discover something they enjoy, what with it being a niche genre and game. Especially for console devices where such deep, complex business\management\simulation games are typically an even smaller niche.
Can you say a little bit about why you like it? The descriptions of it run the gamut from contemplative to very difficult. What does the gameplay loop look like?
My interest is so piqued, but Iām worried Iād end up bouncing off of it.
There is a demo, which is the tutorial.
I find the navigation of the game very cumbersome compared to the dual screen, stylus powered DS version, but I havenāt played in portable mode.
The DS (and PC port) were a quite hardcore game with very demanding scenario goals that required you to master the gameās concepts, to the point it could have felt almost puzzley in a way. Yet, however allergic I am to that concept of puzzley strategic gaming, the complexity of the game made me feel enticed to try again and again. But I got stuck pretty quickly.
Now this all is about the DS game, again. The Switch Demo turned me off because of the control scheme.
Good points I did think through those. Now Iām more excited.
Who am kidding, Load time and frame rate improvements are enough for me!
I think this is about all you need to know: one of the first tutorials involves how to read financial statements.
I havenāt played any prior versions, but the Switch game feels very much like an industry simulation youād typically see on PC, with a light coat of anime aesthetics and a UI adapted to console controls. It feels very open-ended, and not puzzle-y at all. So far, at least.
The controls actually remind me a bit of playing Darkest Dungeon on Switch. You can get comfortable with it after a bit of work, but itās clear theyāre using every input option available to make it function.
Itās basically an industry management sim where youāre running a Japanese mass transit company. You build stations, lay tracks, buy trains, and schedule/route trains. And the towns and cities grow and build up around your work. But you can also buy and sell land, both for development and speculation purposes, deal with taxes, and the stock market, and government agencies, and tourism boards. And did I mention financial statements? Because there are financial statements! (I feel compelled at this point to state for the record I am an accountant.)
And while the controls are a bit cumbersome, the pace is relaxed and the stakes feel low. At any time, you can shift the camera to a view out the window of one of your trains and watch the scenery of rural Japan roll by.
For me, itās the right combination of deep and relaxing.
This all sounds very RRT3.
I love RRT3.
I think I prefer it over the RRT series, personally. I think it might be the lack of competition? At least so far, Iāve been the sole operator in the market, and donāt have to fight other companies for routes. I get to focus on building the infrastructure and making it work as well as possible.
But yeah, if you like RRT, you should at least check out the demo.
One more question. RRT3 has map modes. Paradox games have map modes.
I love me some map modes. Visual representations of geographic data are tight.
Does this game have map modes? I.e. is there an overlay to see, for example, traffic density, passenger availability, etc?
Sort of? Thereās a map with some filtering options, but the real sources of information are found elsewhere rather than viewed through the main map. For example, you can go to the Tourism Board section and pull up a map/charts with economic/demographic information for the region and districts.
That said, Iām still relatively early on with the game and in the introductory scenarios (which really are full-fledged multi-hour scenarios) so Iām fairly sure there are plenty of systems the game hasnāt had a chance to unload upon me yet.
To clarify, I havenāt found a way of changing the view of the world itself, aside from perspective/camera controls. Itās going to look like this, rather than a density heat map or whathaveyou.
Gotta love the yens non reevaluation to analyse those huge numbers :D
By default, the numbers displayed as 2B125M30TJPY instead of 2,125,030,000 until I found the option in the menu to change it. That was tough to parse out for a while.
Just be glad the game isnāt Indian and using Lakh.
Anyhow thanks for the replies, I am definitely intrigued and downloading the demo.
Yeah the translation seems a bit rough: the police itself in the menu is weird!
Nah, they have the right idea. If a currency (or unit of measurement) has to specify everything to two decimals, then it was poorly chosen.
Even without the penny, weāll need two decimals as long as we have nickels and quarters. And I donāt see those going away in the foreseeable future, the dollar isnāt granular enough to stand by itself.
Actually, there are cents of yens. They called zeni (like the Capcom money), and are used in the financial market.
Well thatās just crazy. I take it all back.