Combining train sims and strategic card battlers, this free anime game sounds like a dream, but it hasn't landed how I hoped

New release Resonance Solstice looks to be off to a patchy start despite having one of the most loaded collections of genre tags we've seen in a free Steam release in quite some time. Launched at the tail end of October, right after three of the best gacha games began their battle for supremacy, user reviews would suggest it's not entirely the fault of poor release planning, but issues like "too many different types of currency." We've played enough gacha games to know the pain of juggling too many tokens, but there's perhaps more to this train game struggling to leave the platform than simple coins cluttering a window.

Billed as a real-time card-battling game with train simulation, your task in Resonance Solstice is simple: travel the continent to rebuild and reconnect a fractured world. Ok, maybe not so simple. But if you have a fascination with trains, card games, and anime girls (and/or Dustin), what's not to like? It's what Umamusume was for horse racing fans, only for trainspotters, engineers, basement-dwelling dads, and their ilk. Of course those people showed up because of a long-standing adoration for the final furlong, what do you mean?

In practice, Resonance Solstice walks you through its entire gameplay loop in a lengthy tutorial. You travel between desolate cities on your chosen locomotive, buying low and selling high according to stock market movements.

On the tracks, you click to collect free resources, deal with potential derailment attempts, listen in on the conversations between your crew of anime girls (and Dustin), and take in the sights and sounds of a world that's clearly seen better days. On occasion, you're torn away from the 3D visuals to do 2D battles with your now chibi-fied train team, activating cards drawn from a deck to deviate from the otherwise simple auto-battle brawl.

Even ahead of release, the sentiment toward Resonance Solstice was iffy. One Redditor proclaimed "the 3D train screen is really fucking cool," before hitting the potential root of the problem in saying "the 2D combat is lame af cuz no trains involved." Fair point. Further down the alarmingly short thread, another clearly cultured individual rightfully asked "Can you suplex the train in this[?]" to sadly not even a single updoot. I've fixed that now.

On Steam, Resonance Solstice launched to 'mixed' reviews, with some blaming an annoyingly long tutorial, limiting stamina systems, and the story. The positives? Cool train stuff and the economy management mechanics. One reviewer proclaimed how, if not for the gacha elements, "this would've been a sleeper indie hit."

Perhaps the writing was on the wall from the get-go. Even the spicier posts on its social media pages struggled to break 100 likes, while other games it shared a release window with were amassing thousands on the regular. On the booming Gacha Game Reddit, a post about the Resonance Solstice pre-registration period managed just shy of 200 votes, with pre-load news right before launch struggling to make it to the second half of double-digit land.

But despite the lukewarm launch lead-in, the team is getting kudos from the very same community for keeping its last game, Iron Saga, alive. The free battle pass probably helps, too. Jumping back into Steam user reviews, we see people praising the cutscenes while throwing shade at the basic turn-based card game combat.

Is all that enough to send this one off to the scrapheap? With recent gacha titles like Wuthering Waves, Duet Night Abyss, and the upcoming Arknights Endfield making big changes off the back of user feedback, there's no reason to write this off as a Doomtrain just yet. I can't see it making the list of the best management games with its very mobile-friendly visuals, but I genuinely think its bold mix of genres could help it find a dedicated audience. Someone just needs to pull the figurative fire alarm to get it back on track before it's decommissioned.

If you're at all into train sims, management games, cards, or turn-based battlers, there could be something worth delving into here. If you're looking for a new anime game and felt duped by the lack of actual choo-chooo'ing in Honkai Star Rail, Resonance Solstice might be just the ticket. And with it being a free Steam game, it's certainly cheaper to hop on this train than it is for me to go one town over to find something else to blow my money on. All aboard!

Want to talk post-apocalyptic economics or all things Dustin? Hop into the PCGamesN Discord. You're sure to find someone talking about card games (me) or management sims (also me) in there in no time.