The Haunted Hoard: Choo-Choo Charles (PS5)
In the video game modding scene, an amusing trend emerged a while back where people would swap out a fearsome creature like a dragon in Skyrim or the undead giant Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 with something that doesn’t sound like it should be as terrifying: Thomas the Tank Engine. The simple smiling face of the sentient train engine from a kid’s show, the oddness of choosing that character of all things to replace major threats, and how out of place he often looked since he couldn’t move his body very well made for a hilarious change to the source material, but there was still something occasionally effective about the distant sound of a train whistle signifying the coming danger of the game’s main threat no matter how he happened to look. Choo-Choo Charles is a video game that takes that idea and almost plays it completely straight, the living train engine you face not only the deadliest thing you’re going to encounter in this first person horror game, but it’s been warped a little more so sharp fangs and giant spider legs actually make the titular train monster something anyone would be reasonably terrified to encounter.
The island of Aranearum has been plagued by Charles’s deadly desire to eat whatever living things he finds for quite a while when the story begins, the player finding themselves an unnamed archivist recruited by the islanders to be their last hope in actually ending the seemingly unkillable train monster’s life. When you arrive at the island and speak to Eugene, the man who recruited your help, you’ll immediately notice that he has decent voiced dialogue but his character model, despite looking at you straight on as he talks, does not have any lip syncing. No characters in Choo-Choo Charles actually move their mouths as they speak, and while it’s not necessarily a good thing they don’t even have simple mouth flapping to make the game look a touch better, it does prepare you a bit for its low budget feel. A bit like watching a B Movie, you end up prepared for the fact the game isn’t going to go beyond the basics of realizing its idea, but you came to see the giant train spider, so it at least wants to deliver on that element.
To combat a train, you need a train, the player granted their own engine to ride around the island’s rails. While the spider legs on Charles means he can run about as he pleases, this essentially locks your means of fighting back to a restricted form of travel, all your weapons also mounted on the engine’s back. Your personal train is a good fit for navigating Aranearum and the map even tells you exactly where all important and optional objectives can be started so you can gradually work your way up to finding a permanent way to put down the train creature, but to gather important materials or interact with island denizens, you do have to exit the safety of your engine. This can be where the comparisons to the Thomas the Tank Engine mods can feel appropriate, because as you’re wandering around the foggy nighttime forest or mines, you might hear the sound of a train whistle in the distance, immediately knowing you’re in danger and should probably get back to your train. The question arises if you should drop whatever task you’re doing or try and rush to complete it, or if you can even make it back in time before the train comes scuttling towards you at worrying speed, the sight of its approaching you remaining rather effective throughout even as you become more accustomed to facing the monster in train on train violence.
When you can actually man whatever weapons you have for facing Charles, you’ll actually find the typical fight to be a bit straightforward. You need to shoot the creature enough to discourage its attack and send it fleeing, and while you’ll eventually get weapons beyond your machine gun such as a flamethrower or rocket launcher, the strategy still mostly remains to aim for the face and fire while Charles’s main trick is to ram himself against your engine’s back again and again. However, while Charles is a bit single-minded, he also hits incredibly hard even when you’re at your strongest, and one additional part of a fight is taking time to get off the guns and quickly repair as much as you can, the actual action easy but still making the encounters more hectic. You can still feel a palpable danger even once you have Charles figured out simply because he hits so hard and moves so rapidly, although Choo-Choo Charles does surprisingly use its leading monster a bit sparingly. Long stretches of island exploration can go uninterrupted, but this might work in its favor as Charles doesn’t wear out his welcome and often between appearances you’re left wondering if the considerable upgrades you’ve acquired since last time might change how the fight goes. The encounters could definitely be made more effective, but considering these serve as the linchpin moments that most players will come to the game for, they were handled well enough to have some of the desired impact.
Still, with Charles being content to bide his time, you do get a lot of time to go around the island on your little train engine doing chores for the locals. This can actually feel a bit satisfying even when divorced from the horror game context, mostly because side quests tend to tie to acquiring scrap. Scrap can be used for upgrading your engine, making your guns stronger, your train more durable, and making it move faster. Some scrap is scattered around the ground or found in big crates off the side of the tracks, and in fact, the randomly found scrap may undermine the side quest rewards a touch since it feels fairly abundant, but there are a range of quirky people you need to help with odd jobs or other supernatural occurrences in your bid to make the perfect train killing machine. Some tasks like carefully moving through water to avoid disturbing whatever is beneath the surface do feel plain and tedious, but others like needing to jump across two large towers in a surprise platforming segment work a bit better and provide some effective gameplay shifts. When you’re going for main story objectives though, you instead have to worry about a strange cult that arose around Charles, masked figures with shotguns guarding areas with key items.
Trying to sneak by the armed guards isn’t always the best, the stealth options are fairly straightforward and trying to hide behind walls can be ineffective when you might not even know a guard is there until he’s spotted you. The guards are particularly dogged too, chasing after you even after you’ve run rather far off, and while a shotgun blast isn’t instant kill, if you don’t get some distance they can take you out. This adds its own sort of panic to a game that already seems to like that sort of fear most, the player quickly scrambling to either get their work done and bolt or just get back to the train where they can actually turn the tables. It can be a little tedious in larger areas with multiple guards and it does discourage a bit the optional task of finding new paint jobs for your train, but it doesn’t obstruct other efforts too much while still doing its job as something else to be careful around on the island. Notably, when Charles or some other force kills you, you’ll revive back at your train with a bit of scrap missing, this initially a cost you will want to avoid but also the kind of thing that loses its punch when you’re nearing the end of the available upgrades.
Choo-Choo Charles is only a few hours long even if you go for clearing all side quests and searching for the paint cans. However, it does feel like Choo-Choo Charles keeps you busy well during that period while also giving you an earlier off-ramp if you don’t want to spend time with the little tasks that sometimes shift the genre a bit. The story doesn’t dig as deep into what Charles is as some players might hope but it does explain enough, the fact it doesn’t dwell on much also helping the game keep its pace up so you don’t check out of its simple premise.
THE VERDICT: Choo-Choo Charles isn’t ambitious or even put together the best at parts. Fighting the titular train spider doesn’t require much strategy, and while the tasks around the island do shift up their design a fair bit, some are borderline errands. The island, while atmospheric thanks to its fog, does give you a fair bit of useful work to do, and gradually building up your tank engine into the best Charles-killing machine it can be does provide a short but satisfying goal to work towards. Charles himself can still be effective in terms of the danger he embodies and the way he’s presented, so while it can be a bit basic to play at times, you get the spider monster you came for and enough to do to fill Choo-Choo Charles’s short runtime.
And so, I give Choo-Choo Charles for PlayStation 5…
An OKAY rating. I can see some people objecting to how cheap certain things like the characters look, or people might focus in too much on the less exciting side quests, or they might not even like that the game tries a few different ideas for its objectives like the rather weak stealth or a section inspired by Slender’s note collecting while evading a threat. Choo-Choo Charles isn’t aiming too high though, it’s not asking you to dig deep into any systems, the extra scrap around the island means you can upgrade your train without doing side quests you don’t like, and most important of all, you get to face that evil train creature often enough for it to be impactful but not to the degree he becomes a nuisance rather than a threat. Perhaps there should have been a greater toll for dying to him, and it would be nice if he had more tricks so his attacks asked for more effort from you when you do occasionally face off with him, but he seems to be managed fairly well. Sometimes you’re out and about, completely vulnerable, when you hear that ominous whistle, wondering if you accept your fate or if you can make it back in time to scare him off. Other times, you are aboard your train when you know he’s coming, waiting and watching with some uneasy anticipation even if you feel you’re packing enough firepower to make the battle not too difficult. The sense of panic feels like the main one the game aims to evoke, but while its short length may make it a bit harder to justify as a purchase depending on the price, if you do take that step in, you can find a fairly brisk and serviceable exploration of the simple idea of a train monster running rampant on an island.
There is room to make Choo-Choo Charles a more robust experience, to dive into a stronger lore, or to construct more to be afraid of than a monstrous tank engine. However, this little horror adventure can keep you occupied well enough between those moments where you cross paths with Charles, and while it would be fun to see a game with more imaginative iteration or one that can make Charles into something even more terrifying, you get the basics of what you’d hope for from the premise. Choo-Choo Charles is the B Movie of video games, and while we should ask for more, some low budget fare with a fun idea can still fill a few hours without feeling like it failed to give you exactly what it promised.