Maitetsu came out back in early 2016, so it’s been almost five years now. Hard to believe this game is already over 4 years old. Back then my reaction was “eh, it’s fine” — the production values looked pretty solid, but the story left me with a lot of conflicted feelings. How do I put this… the game is set in a “fictional world,” but it uses a ton of homophones and pictographs to stand in for the real world. And on top of that, everything is bent toward steam train nostalgia. So what’s this “nostalgia” about? I remember the game sets up a “new energy company” and makes it the villain — says the new energy company clearly has pollution problems, and it’s “evil” enough to want to abolish the current “steam trains.” In the end, the game’s story has the “steam trains” receiving protection from a local deity, proving they can still hold their own in the tourism department, and the town’s “new energy project” just gets shelved. Honestly, I’m pretty confused. Replacing old energy sources with new ones is just the natural order of things, so how did it turn into such a tragic, grand issue? It even gets elevated to a political level somehow? And you say new energy has water pollution problems — so steam locomotives have no air pollution or environmental pollution problems either? And to really drive home how evil the “new energy” side is, the game throws in a hilariously goofy mayor route and a little-sister route, which try to stand up to the new-energy faction and make it sound like the entire town’s residents would rather pick the slower steam trains and reject new energy outright — I was laughing and crying at the same time. It’s kind of like that “I’d rather have a blackout than tolerate a nuclear plant” mindset.