I never thought I'd be into a train driving game, but here I am. Densha de GO! is a long running train series from Japan. It tends to be challenging and strict, but it is still more of an arcade game than a sim. Which makes sense since the game started as an arcade cabinet.
The game design is really smart and fun. It is a bit like a dexterity/high score game. You drive a train and have to make accurate stops. Each route is broken up into short ~2 minute sections which is the time it takes to reach the next station. Along the way there may be speed limits which adds to the challenge, as well as the track going up or down hills which can slow you down or speed you up. When you reach the station you need to gauge your speed and how much braking to apply so you can stop in the exact spot on the platform. More than 1 meter before or after will result in penalties.
So penalties. When you start a route you will have 30 seconds of leeway. If you are late getting to a stop these seconds will start counting down and when you run out it is game over. There are a few ways to earn bonus seconds, such as sounding your horn when entering a tunnel, stopping accurately at a station, and being exactly on time arriving at a station. There are more penalties, however. Arriving to a station late, missing the target stop (with the penalty being multiplied by how much you missed it by), breaking the speed limit, accelerating in the station, not sounding the horn when you're supposed to, and even sounding the horn excessively. Later games in the series are more lenient on some of these and will give you more bonus seconds when you do well making them easier to play than the early arcade games that want you to fail so you'll put more money in.
Despite all that, and even despite the language barrier, I'm having a bunch of fun playing. Each section is short and replayable, trying to manage your speed and make the most accurate stops you can. Nailing a stop dead on and on-time feels really good.
Here is the GameCenter CX episode playing the game to get a better idea than my description of it:
If you are interested in checking it out, I have a few suggestions. Importing just to try is kind of silly, so emulating is probably your best bet. The PSP titles are decent looking and run well with the PPSSPP emulator. It is basically the PS2/PC Densha de GO! Final split into 4 parts. You can find them pretty easily online. The DS game is also pretty cool but there is a lot of text to read (or not read, in this case). The PSP ones have a tutorial thats fairly easy to follow even if you don't know the language. There are straight up PC ports but considering the last actual game in the series was PS2 era they might be hard to locate and hard to get running on modern systems.
Alternatively, if you have a 3DS you can get a similar experience with the Japanese Rail Sim titles on the eshop. Unlike Densha de GO! which uses 3D graphics, JRS uses actual video footage taken from the actual train routes in Japan. The video is in 3D, too! The only downside to that is as you slow down to a stop in the station the video also slows down its framerate and it looks kinda jerky. The Suburbs series are only $4 apiece so you could grab one just to give it a whirl. It has the same general gameplay as Densha de GO! with you trying to make timely and accurate stops.
