After the first station follows the coming of age journey of a girl named YingSing. As she leaves her comfortable and perfect life to venture into the unknown territory of adulthood. Just like the rites of passage everyone goes through, where she is captivated by the idea of having freedom, breaking free and living the life she always wanted. Then reality hits and she begins to have doubts of everything, herself, her decisions, her life.
Gameplay
Being quite light in terms of gameplay, one can call After the first station a walking simulator with all due respect. There are many great games in the genre and this one follows the usual trope with some very light puzzles such as finding pieces to a memory to unlock the next portion of the story. Apart from that, it’s just as simple as moving forward to progress the game and move onto the next level.
Story
Mentioning the story, this is what the game relies heavily on. The only thing that sets this game apart from other games of the genre is the lack of notes for one to read which can detract from the main plot if not done correctly. There’s narration within key moments to each chapter that helps relay what is happening. And it really needed that as without it, one would wonder what is happening here? What is the goal of this chapter?
Needs more shine
From the screenshots, one can see this game has a clean artistic artstyle to it, however when every part is moving then it begins to show how rough it looks. Assets and texture clips here and there. Your character at times can feel like a person of normal height and at times feel like a dwarf walking through areas where giants exist in, with grass being tall, railings seem like wall high fences.
Thoughts
After the first station is balancing on the fine line of being not recommendable to being recommendable. The different locations and the choice for it might leave you asking, what’s the link to the story and why this setting? The symbolism it is going requires some hard thinking for one to see the linkage and often it feels like a stretch. One thing this game can’t be faulted for is the effort it tries to tell it’s story. However, the link between each level feels incoherent which in the end let’s the game down as a whole as it relies heavily on it’s story but ends up being lost in translation.
Buy after the first station on Steam
Hailing from a small Island. Huge football fan. Drinks too much tea.
Survival, Roguelikes, Turn-based or Indie games in general are my go to genres but I like to dabble in all kinds of genres. I tend to have a soft spot for Shmups and Hidden Object Games once in a while.
Comment here