Choo Choo Charles: All Aboard The Spider Train

It’s time to climb aboard the spider express! 

Yes, you read that right. Thomas the Tank Engine has officially turned evil, sprouted at least eight spider legs, and has a thirst for your blood in Choo Choo Charles.

Two Star Games developed this single-player 90-minute nightmare and released it in December of 2022. You can find this cursed combination of arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and siderodromophobia (fear of trains) on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Windows, and Xbox. 

In this survival horror game, you’ll need to conquer your fear of spiders and trains, curb your pickle craving, and get ready to face off against a twisted version of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Leaving The Station

Your adventure begins immediately when you board a train. This train will later become yours and your only weapon against the creature that lurks on Aranearum Island. On the back of this train is a mounted gun that you’ll use to fend off the titular villain, Choo Choo Charles, or Charles for short. 

In these first five minutes, you’re thrown into the action of the game and are attacked by Charles. He’ll chase behind your train like a shark hunting its prey, and eventually he’ll catch up. It’s your job to make sure he doesn’t by using the provided weapon. You can’t kill Charles just yet, but he’ll get the point and leave you be, for now.

In order to kill Charles, you must travel around Aranearum Island doing quests for non-player characters (NPCs) to get materials to upgrade your train. These upgrades give your train more durability, better weapons, and speed, all things you’ll need to improve to have a shred of a chance to win the big battle against Charles. 

However, upgrading your train isn’t the only thing you need to do. You must also leave the safety of your four metal walls on wheels and navigate Aranearum Island on foot to find three eggs (the children of Charles). You’ll later use these three eggs to lure Charles into a trap and battle him. 

Don’t worry, though, when you’re on foot, Charles likely won’t attack you. You don’t have to worry about the spider-train beast, but you do have to worry about The Cult of Charles: a group of people who worship Charles and will try to stop you from stealing the eggs. 

Pickles!!!

During your explorations, you interact with many characters. These characters are masterfully voiced to keep the humorous atmosphere and keep the player engaged. There are two major characters I’d like to mention.

There’s The Cult of Charles, which consists of hundreds of masked individuals. When playing, you need to navigate around them without dying, but if you do happen to get close enough to one of them, you can see one of those masks up close. 

The masks are what make these characters so interesting. Their masks are rough drawings of Charles' face, and while horrific, they also add more to the humor of the game. The Cult of Charles acts like spoiled children, their masks looking like children had drawn on a white circle in an attempt to recreate Charles’ face, adding another layer to these characters. 

The other character I must mention is a woman crazy for pickles. In the credits of the game, she’s—rightfully—called The Pickle Lady. She’s one of the many NPCs who give you missions. Her mission is simple: find her a jar of pickles, and you’ll get your reward.

The reason I mention her is not just how hilarious she is to interact with, but also her voice actress. Steph Crothers, an Australian voice actress, put her whole heart and soul into The Pickle Lady’s lines, which ultimately makes the character stand out against the other NPCs. 

Off The Rails

Completing missions allows you to prepare for the big battle against Charles, but the upgrades you get also help you fight him off throughout the game. Charles will randomly appear during your travels and attack your train, which adds the feeling that he’s constantly lurking right out of view and waiting to strike. 

The downside to his frequent attacks is that the battles are the exact same each time. Charles’ music starts to play, he comes out of the forest, attacks your train, and you send him running. That’s it, which makes the battle not all that interesting after a while and adds monotony to Choo Choo Charles. 

The most unfortunate part of Choo Choo Charles is the final battle. Your final fight against Charles seems like it would be a challenge, but Charles doesn't become any harder to fight. Charles follows his normal fighting pattern and doesn’t have any new attacks, making the final battle bland.

Trainwreck

Choo Choo Charles was a game I was strangely excited to play. The idea of taking a childhood concept and turning it horrific always catches my eye. Five Nights at Freddy’s was the first of its kind, taking Chucky-E-Cheese and making the animatronic monsters. I was curious to see how Thomas the Tank Engine could be the next big horror game figure.

He unfortunately didn’t, and it makes sense why. The adventure in Choo Choo Charles is somewhat dull. That is, if you’ve gone into the game looking for an open-world horror game, but Choo Choo Charles is a comedy game disguised as a horror game. 

If you're a horror person, this may not be the game for you. From a horror standpoint, I find this game to be rather bland, but once I let go of the idea I was playing a horror game and instead a comedy game, it became incredibly enjoyable for a one-time play through. Choo Choo Charles doesn’t have good replayability, but it is definitely worth at least one play.

First Class Train Car

Choo Choo Charles is absurd, silly, and downright stupid. If you go into it with that in mind, you’ll have the time of your life fighting this abomination. 

So book your next train ticket, take an express ride to Aranearum Island, and get ready to laugh so hard you’ll die before Charles can sink his teeth into you.

My Rating