A-train: from A-III to A-7/A-8

[Shashinka]

Anyone played A7 or A8 ? I have the original A-Train (A1) for the PSX, but can't find A7 or the new release of A8 anywhere.

A7/A8 is jsut like playing Railroad Tycoon, Traffic Giant or Transport Tycoon. Or better still, it's basically a video game sim wherer you control a Japanese railroad company.

[stevenh]

I do remember acquiring A7 (or was it A6?) when I was in Japan over the Christmas Holidays. I do believe I still have it on a DVD here somewhere. My main concern was that my Laptop could not handle the Japanese characters (default system fonts, etc...) and even with codepages selected I had a hard time with it. If only I had a better grasp on Kanji.

I might actually try and find it again tonight and install it. It looked like an amazing program... I think the only thing I didn't like about the entire A-Train series was the anti-fluid motion... vehicles moved in large steps instead of using real acceleration, etc.

And now, the shameless plugs... I've helped contribute to the FreeTrain Project which is an English port of FreeTrain by Kohsuke. All fun and games but I never thought .Net was a platform for gaming... it's all dark over there now as well.

Other than that, playing with the Japan Set (Dev Forum here) for OpenTTD is great fun... I might start another thread on this if anyone is interested.

Anyway... back to A7... I'll update if I have any luck finding my CDs :)

[Shashinka]

I saw an add in Japan Railfan for A8. But anycase, I don't see why a laptop would have an issue with the kanji. Granted, it is a beast to read it.

I ahve the original A-Train for the PS1 and it was very fluid with the movements of the trains considering the game is now about 13 years old. From what I saw of A7 on a demo, it looked very smooth. But to play A7 or A8, I would assume one would need a pretty beefy PC and graphic card to handle it. I recall playing SimCity 4 and it had troubles with the graphic card I had.

[stevenh]

As for 'issues', I just mean the fact that default fonts on English Windows XP that I had installed would show Japanese characters as blocks making everything impossible to read. This was in the installer and after going through blind I got the game installed but then had error messages on load (they may have only been warnings) that were just strings of blocks and therefore I had no idea what was going on... I do believe I got the game to load but then with everything in Japanese, I gave up.

As for requirements... My laptop was brand new but had a boring intel gfx chipset. The intro menu was sluggish but I suppose it might've been playable. Now, seeing as that I have new hardware to test on, I do want to give it a try again.

[Martijn Meerts]

Windows by default doesn't install support for Asian fonts. In the language setup you can turn those fonts on and off somewhere, they take about 250mb of harddisk space to install.

And running any 3d on anything other than the latest intel integrated gfx is a no go, and even on the latest one it's bad. Heck, even many nVidia and ATI integrated graphics are bad since they use regular system memory in stead of dedicated video memory.

[Shashinka]

I've had Japanese fonts installed by default on my last 5 PCs so I gave no thought to that.

[stevenh]

Having the fonts installed is one thing.... Web browsing, IME Japanese input, etc is all great... I'm usually talking to my friends on msn in Japanese... the issue is that the standard fonts in the windows theme do not have the Japanese characters in their sets and therefore when messages popup during installs, actually usually the whole install process, is a series of blocks instead of Japanese characters.

And since I couldn't find the DVD last night, I'm all outta luck... might have to install Share10 again :P

[Shashinka]

I'm not sure then, I don't seem to ever have run into that issue with the fonts art any point.

[disturbman]

I don't know if here has ever play this game, but as for myslef it might have been my first encounter with japanese train. I really like it and try, without any success (I had technical problems) to play the other ones. And, if I could, I will be playing the seventh in japanese but I didn't figur out how to do it.  ::)

[Shashinka]

Yeah, I started a thread on this guy ages ago, but it died. On my first trip to Japan, A7 just came out, but now A9 is out. I have the original A-Train (A1) for the PS-1 as it was a US Release back in 1995 I think. I almsot bought A8, but at ¥6500 for a game, inwhich was heavy with Kanji, I thoguht better of it.

[disturbman]

I digged out the old thread: http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,358.0.html

I have the original A-Train (A1) for the PS-1 as it was a US Release back in 1995 I think.

The original game for the PS-1 back in 1995? Not really possible, the first game was published in 1985. As for myself I only played the third version back in 1992, I guess that's the one you are thinking about. As a matter of fact I'm still playing it from time to time as I have find it as an abandonware and still pocess my old discs from back then.



It was really an addictive game, too bad that the computer was not making any more progress after 5 in-game years. What I really like was the notice, it was allmost 200 pages thick and had a part on railroad history. I read it countless times.

But, when I think about it again now that I'm in Japanese modelling is that I can recognize real japanese train in the in-game design of trains. Playing you could spot some EF64 or 65, kiha40, series 485...

I will give A-7 another shot even though I don't understand Japanese at all. :D

[Shashinka]

[disturbman]

Looks like the same to me. :)

[Shashinka]

PSX graphics are pretty bad. I was playing last night. I bought my copy back in the mid-90's long before I ever thoguht about going to Japan or become in a J-fan.

[Mudkip Orange]

I thought this thread was gonna be about NYC.

[Shashinka]

Nope, just the coolest darned Japanese train simulator ever. Better than Railfan, better than Densha de Go!

[disturbman]

I digged out the old thread: http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,358.0.html

Topics merged.

If anyone ever want to try the olde version I can provide the file trhough Email.

That's how it look on windows:

[Shashinka]

What version is it?

[disturbman]

The third, or the first that was realeased outside Japan. I do think the one you used to play on your PS1 is this one.

[Shashinka]

The third, or the first that was realeased outside Japan. I do think the one you used to play on your PS1 is this one.

It looks really different than the PSX version, so I would have to assume buy the GUI it's the PC version in the image.

[disturbman]

Totally, the Mac portage was much more nicer, user-friendly and good looking.

[Shashinka]

Now only if I could find A7 or A8 and a Japanese gf who likes trains willing to hover over me and translate the game during game play for me.   8)

[Martijn Meerts]

Djeez you're demanding.. Just the Japanese girlfriend would be enough for me ;)


On the other hand, girlfriends cost a lot of money.. Money better spent on trains  ;D

[Shashinka]

Djeez you're demanding.. Just the Japanese girlfriend would be enough for me ;)


On the other hand, girlfriends cost a lot of money.. Money better spent on trains  ;D

Good point, but I'm 34 and really like to get some of the fringe benefits of having that gf. Though I do like the trains too. Don't make me choose damnit.

[stevenh]

So, I just found my A7 ISO... drop me a PM if interested.

[Shashinka]

Djeez you're demanding.. Just the Japanese girlfriend would be enough for me ;)


On the other hand, girlfriends cost a lot of money.. Money better spent on trains  ;D

Good point, but I'm 34 and really like to get some of the fringe benefits of having that gf. Though I do like the trains too. Don't make me choose damnit.

Obsolete post now :P

[deltic45]

I have just bought A train 8 for the PC. It is available in UK. Doesnt want to launch in Windows 7 tho  

[disturbman]

Very simple, you have to update something like the security key checker. Just make a simple goodle search and you will find the answer to your problem. I did it but I don't remember.

[deltic45]

Never had this problem before but, as you say it was the key checker. Thanks. Now I just have to learn the game 

[disturbman]

You will see, it's a very easy game to grasp. One quick advice, you can build the material storages undeground. It's very helpfull to save some ground space. But you will have to carefull, you can't have too much height difference between the unloading area and the storage area or between the storage and building area. More than one floor and it doesn't work.

[Toni Babelony]

I've had A-Train (3) from Maxis *MAXIS! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!11* on the Apple-Macintosh (3 floppy-disks), but never understood how stock-markets and such worked. Then again, I was about 12 or so back then.

A bit back last year I received A-Train 6 for the PS2. It's a nice game, though I got very frustrated by the gameplay and quit. It's just very annoying when you can't work quickly without a mouse and keyboard and have to do every damn action with a console-pad. Good thing is that you could work on different levels, rather then only the ground level as in A-Train 3.

Also, please note that there is an open-source version of A-Train available!

http://freetrain.sourceforge.net/

Haven't tried it on the mac, as there is too much hassle with compiling stuff I don't grasp.

EDIT: I see StevenH has already posted this link... RFTTP... *read first, think, then post*

[Harold]

Hi all

for what it's worth here's a couple of A-Train links aimed at English language fans:

http://www.a-train9.com/blog/

http://www.a-train9.com/

[Shashinka]

I actually managed to snag a copy of A6 for the PS2, but it won't play, oh well...

[keitaro]

basically the same as transport tycoon they are all the same just revised engine

so the 8 does it exist and work on english pc's i have found japanese programs regardless of having the jap lang pack installed always fail to work or show wrong characters.

[Harold]

basically the same as transport tycoon they are all the same just revised engine

so the 8 does it exist and work on english pc's i have found japanese programs regardless of having the jap lang pack installed always fail to work or show wrong characters.

The A-Train series does share some similarities with the TT games, and it looks like it might be just like Sid Meyer's RR or Sim City, but in fact it plays somewhat differently and is distinctly Japanese.

You can choose from over 200 authentic Japanese trains - each one has it's own features, running cost, speed, etc. You don't compete with rival companies in A-Train, it's just your own business and you don't necessarily have to aim to build a Metropolis, either. Part of the beauty of the game is the relaxed pace (you don't contend with unexpexcted disasters as with SimCity) and ability to build the type of environment that YOU want - whether it's a big city or rural countryside with smaller, local stations. Alot of players don't bother with the scenarios at all, instead they use the game like a sort of digital N-Gauge model set. They'll construct their ideal landscape in the editor then set the trains on it - their are lot's of videos of their creations on YouTube...

They designed the game play around the Japanese railway conglomerate business model: After the Japanese railway was privatised, the government put strict caps on how much money the numerous new operators could make from their train services. This prompted a diversifying of the businesses into other areas to supplement the rail expansion like hotels, entertainments, housing and suchlike. Some of the train companies became powerful conglomerates. In a few cases whole new towns grew up around a particular station with the rail company controling many local services and housing. In a way they created their own captive market.

Furthermore it 'simulates' the famed Japanese rail punctuality. Micromanaging scheduals is part of the gameplay, as is investing in other areas to fund your rail expansion. You're meant to spend time studying the schedual, looking for a gap to squeeze in your new Shinkansen. A delay for one train might cascade the delay down through the schedual meaning trains miss the optimum time of passenger travel.

A-Train 8 for PC is easily available in the West - and it's in English! A-TrainHX for the Xbox is virtually the same game with different maps. A9 is still only in Japanese which is a sham as it improves upon the previous game in many areas and looks really good.

A-Train 6 is also in English and is available for PS2.

[Harold]

For anyone interested in the new(ish) A9 game here's a short video looking at one of the improved features of the game:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/XSzFAuQzv0s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/XSzFAuQzv0s</a>

[keitaro]

fyi a train 6 or 7 can't remmeber now just came out on ps3 store online in aus i guess same for other countries