Great setlist for an early access VSRG!! Never expected 김아름 in a rhythm game... Very polished too, love the UI. The game does have issues with Steam Deck currently (inputs stop registering in gameplay) but I'm sure that'll be fixed with time. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Definitely Union Workshop's strongest product to date, in my opinion. Dense city scenery is always hard to do right in this game, but I think they've done a pretty good job for this, and it's something I've wanted for quite a long time.

Pros:
- The models for the E233s look great, same with the (currently AI only) E231-500.
- Scenery is great *for the most part
- Quick Drives feel pretty lively all things considered, even though I don't use them
- Good "base" for them to expand further, with laid track (no scenery yet) for part of the Yamanote loop and the Chuo Sobu lines present. They've also stated in the manual that the E231-500 may be driveable in the future, giving more hope for extensions to use it properly.
- Announcements during scenarios that, script wise, are faithful to the real ones. Real recordings would have been better, but likely not possible due to licensing reasons.

That said, there are some less than great things, I don't know if I'd really call them negative points but they're things to consider before buying, anyway:

- Performance is definitely on the lower side with this route, at least for me. Slowest area seems to be around Ueno, with a certain part in the middle of the station causing the framerate to drop as low as 5 FPS... if you own the LIRR route, imagine pretty similar performance to that. Remains to be seen if the upcoming core changes to Railworks/Train Simulator Classic do anything to improve this. The developers make it clear in the manual that you may need to drop scenery settings, and it shows why.
- Some areas of the scenery are a bit weak, whether it be empty spaces that are line side, or lack of detail on some structures. The area around Kawaguchi and the river before it especially, looks quite rough.
- No branding/JR licensing. Expected.
- The sounds could be better.

Should you get it? Yes! But make sure your PC is at least decent, or you might be greeted with a slideshow.

This game released in early access around two months ago and is somehow in a worse state than when it first was available, with the same issues, while the price has been bumped up a ridiculous amount for most regions, and nearly all the content is its own (very expensive) DLC.

Pros:
- Official JR licensed content on PC.
- The video quality is pretty decent.

Cons:
- No native support for resolutions above 1920x1080. It's 2022, not 2010. It was playable at higher resolutions on initial EA release despite not scaling well, but now it's cropped badly and unplayable without using something like Borderless Gaming.
- No native frame/refresh rate limiter, anything above 60FPS results in the playback being sped up.
- Input lag, at least on my system.
- Incredibly barebones UI, with next to no settings to change.
- Base game features so little content, it may as well not even exist, or should be a demo.
- The pricing... which for reasons is higher in every region outside of Japan. No regional pricing either.

How this can be released in 2022 for such a ridiculous price is beyond me. It feels like some intern was thrown the task and they said "here, make it somewhat presentable so we can make a killing off people who are aching for good JR content on PC, and can't play something like Densha de GO". I could have forgiven that it was just a port of the existing driving cab they've had available in person for years, but with all the issues (which were even highlighted by the developer BEFORE its release), I can't recommend it. Instead of pushing the release back to fix the issues, they just throw it into the wild and hope people are too ignorant of the negative reviews, and just buy it. A seemingly common thing in game development/publishing nowadays.

It's a cashgrab in every sense of the word, what an absolute shame. Even those Japanese flash games from yesteryear with live video were more polished. Instead of buying this, go get BVE5 with some community content, or even DTG's Train Simulator and Union Workshop's Japanese content (which has all its own issues too, but at least it's not this).

It took 2 years for this to be released, and that 2 years was absolutely not worth waiting at all. For this product to have been released in the state it did, is pathetic, and it really shows how little DTM actually cares for the products he creates.

Negative - Quick Drive consists don't load, at all. This is something that someone would notice immediately upon testing the product.

Negative - the repaints are essentially a copy paste of the original NJT U34CH, including the same bad horn with popping audio, the same buggy headlights, the same bad physics, the same modeling errors. Only difference is the textures. Nothing was improved, when it very easily could have been... and yes, the Comet Is still crash in consists that aren't solely made of Comet Is/U34CHs. New horn audio is also present in the files, but not used at all.

Positive (barely) - the repaints look nice. Kind of.

Save your money, and spend it on a nice bagel, or coffee, or something that isn't this. You deserve better than to support this developer's practices. Shame on you, DTM.