Rain Station Z (Nintendo Switch)
A victim of timing, Rain Station Z launched during a busy summer stretch of gaming releases. Its budget price of just $2.99 likely made it easier to overlook, too. But this is no shovelware. Rain Station Z has good things to offer, and thematically, it fits this time of year better.
Rain Station Z takes place in a post-apocalyptic city. The game tells no unequivocal story in-game. Unlike when we covered Ice Station Z, I don’t mind this game leaving the finer details to my imagination about how this zombie virus caused a mass evacuation. You and a handful of others must stay alive and find a way to be rescued, although the goal really seems to be just surviving as long as possible. After all, “Your only mission is to survive as long as possible’
And you’ll have to survive with diminishing resources. Acid rain (an anomaly that may be the source of this virus) will gradually degrade your clothing, for instance. But you can’t just hang out in buildings. You’ll need food, water, and weapons. Because the city has ample borders, expect to run into fast-moving zombies. If your weapons (or footwork) aren’t up to snuff and you get injured, you’ll also need to find medicine. Meanwhile, the rain never stops.
During your travels, you’ll discover journals from other survivors. These entries grant you improved abilities. For instance, you can run slightly faster (helpful when a quick zombie is chasing you) or improve clothing durability (helpful when acid rain is eating away at your gear). There are limits on how many you can equip, though, and I’m not sure it benefits the game.
The highlights are individual missions. For instance, if you reach the police station, you’ll learn you need a key card to enter. The only problem is it’s in an abandoned cruiser somewhere in the city. Do you risk scouring in the damaging rain? Or you run into other survivors, but they want some of your food, medicine, or even weapons. Do you risk sparing them? I wish there were more missions like these.
I’m pleased that Rain Station Z offers plentiful gameplay options. You can tweak control settings, fine-tune sensitivity, adjust the audio, and more. The game also tracks stats to gauge your progress, with the biggest one being the number of days you’ve survived. Even the online multiplayer has customization options, but unlike its robust predecessor, I couldn’t find players during my attempt.
That said, as impressive as its predecessor was on the Nintendo 3DS, the Switch is obviously more powerful. Additionally, it helps that the developer, Wobbly Tooth, has more experience under their belt. The ambition here feels like it better matches the polish. The city is filled with interesting architecture. A deserted high school, an isolated farmhouse, a railway station, to name just a few. It makes exploration interesting, limiting feelings of detachment and pushing you forward to see what type of structure you can enter next.
Rain Station Z offers more than you’d expect given its budget price. There’s even a free demo to tempt the most frugal gamers. If the dev continues with this format, I’d like to see more emphasis on missions. Expanding these could elevate a good game into a potentially great one. A concrete end goal, with more upgrade options, and perhaps local two-player split-screen would also help.
