Adventure games in the mold of the classics are few and far between nowadays. With TellTale Games’ influential The Walking Dead series, a new style of play has been established since the early 2000s, and hardly no developer has dared stray from it lately. That, of course, isn’t the case of Loco Motive, a drop dead gorgeous adventure game that follows the mold of the classics of old in an incredibly enjoyable murder mystery aboard a train.
Developed by Robust Games and published by Chucklefish, Loco Motive opens as Lady Unterwalt, the heiress of a fortune in rail and transportation, is delivering a speech about to reveal who would be the sole benefactor of hers when tragedy strikes and she drops dead among relatives as they are aboard her personal train, the Reuss Express. Now, as one of three suspects to the crime, you have to solve the case and clear your name!
Playing as Arthur, the estate lawyer handling the will, a lover of paper-pushing and bureaucracy, Inland Revenue agent Diana, who’s on her first real mission, and of course, Herman Merman, a bumbling detective author, Loco Motive unveils its secrets much like the LucasArts classics, wherein you pick up items, try to combine them, and put it all to use to solve a myriad of puzzles. Surely, this wouldn’t be an adventure game without plenty of dialogue, and there’s even an “insult swordfighting” (from The Secret of Monkey Island, for the uninitiated) stand-in at one point.
While the game takes place mostly on a train, it’s not as limited in terms of scenery as that sounds, and even though all three characters essentially arrive at different points in the timeline in order to play their story roles, each location is shaken up and still manages to provide new avenues for the wonderful antics that take place all throughout Loco Motive’s more or less 3-hour runtime. Plus, there are moments when the action shifts to places outside the main stage, but those are better left unspoiled.
Loco Motive is presented in the same way the aforementioned classics used to be handled, so pixelated and full of personality that it could fool you into believing this is a long lost game developed at LucasArts during its prime. Animations are simply exquisite, full of little details, giving just about everything that goes on during your time playing a jumbo dose of humor.
In that same approach, the audio part of Loco Motive is absolutely killer. The background music is jazzy and damn atmospheric, and the voice cast delivers some of the best performances you’ll hear in quite a while. I loved Arthur’s reading especially, as a guy caught in the middle of pure insanity who himself can get lost in mundane activities most would not look twice at.
On the Switch, the controls won’t get in the way of your enjoyment. Even though there’s no mouse to point and click with, switching from interactable toggles in the environment is the next best thing and works admirably. Performance does take a hit from time to time with some slowdown, but it doesn’t interfere with the inherent slower pacing of Loco Motive. Portably, the graphics just pop, making this a great choice for playing on the go, even more so if you use headphones.
The entirety of this game is so well put together that it’s easy to get lost in all the mechanics that make up the structure of what characterized adventure games in the 1990s. Yes, you might just get stuck in one of Loco Motive’s puzzles, but thankfully there’s no need to call any 1-800 hotline for tips as there’s a handy built-in multi-layered hint system that can be accessed during most sections. It’s a tightly designed and perfectly scoped game that wastes not one second of your time with fluff, keeping it all going at full force, much like the train you are riding.
Loco Motive is a gem to behold for lovers of the genre or casuals alike. It’s an obvious recommendation made not just because I’m an adventure gaming fan writing this review, but as someone who appreciates a good game, and god dammit, this is one of those! You’d do well picking this up regardless of which system you own – you won’t be disappointed.
