The Last Express: A Concert for Cath

The Last Express:

Act 3 of The Last Express begins as the Orient Express exits Munich (next stop, Vienna), and Robert Cath considers the many interlocking demands (Click here the previous article on The Last Express) imposed by his fellow travelers.

He needs to demonstrate to Herr Schmidt he can purchase the German's weapons, by displaying the gold that he doesn't have. He's buying the weapons to fulfill Tyler's promise to the Serbians, so they defend their country against any Austrio-Hungarian aggression. Cryptic Kronos expects Cath to deliver an artifact, the Firebird, which disappeared from Tyler's compartment. But first he has to find whoever stole the Egg from Tyler Whitney's corpse. Was the thief also the murderer? And finally, Cath desires a stolen kiss from the beautiful Anna Wolff, who, he's noticed, has beguiled gullible Schmidt.

Where can he find any gold, learn of the Egg's location, or overhear the murderer confessing their crime?

Let this author admit the truth. These needs, wants, desires, and questions are obvious in retrospect, but as time hurries past on the Express, it's difficult to distinguish the necessary from the superfluous, and as the reader will learn, most of these concepts only connected, or were even discovered after the fact. 

Fortunately, Kronos aids the player by telegraphing his opening move aloud. He's not content to simply wait for Cath to deliver the Firebird Egg, and actively searches for it himself. Suspecting Frau Wolff, he invites her to participate in a duet in his car: he will play the piano, and she, the violin. The whole train, including Cath are expressly invited to attend, and many do. But a suspicious, scheming player will suspect Kronos' motives, and will arrange to overhear Kronos instruct Kahina, his servant, bodyguard, and assassin, to enter Wolff's compartment during the concert. Problem: Wolff, a frequent passenger on the Express, keeps her a dog in her compartment, which it guards. No poodle, it bears a similar semblance to its owners namesake. Solution: Kahina compels Anna's neighbor to complain about the dog, and a conductor moves it to the luggage car.
In her haste to attend the recital, Anna forgets to lock her door, and Cath must slip inside before Kahina arrives. A thorough perusal reveals one fascinating fact and one crucial item. Anna's employer is the Austrian secret police, and she boarded the Orient Express to ensure the Serbians successfully purchase the weapons from Herr Schmidt. At the Serbian border, the Austrian police will halt the train, enter, and arrest the Serbs. More important useful though is the key. Somehow, Anna has acquired a key capable of opening almost any door on the Express.

Unfortunately, this is where I missed a step. Instead of locating the gold and the egg, Cath wasted the concert breaking into everyone's compartment, to no avail. Sure, there were inconsequential tidbits, and minor discoveries (Alexei's compartment contains wires, a clock, and pliers) but the two items of value vanished. There's a trick to breaking into the compartments. Cath holds the key to open any door, but conductors rest at the end of each of passenger car. If they notice Cath's attempt to enter a room other than his own, they kindly remind him of his mistake. No matter how many times Cath makes this “mistake” the conductor never questions his motives. To successfully enter a room, the conductor must be away, or a passenger must be between Cath and the conductor, blocking eye contact. The Trick: Once Cath holds Anna's key, he can repeatedly return to the Luggage Car and free Anna Wolff's dog. With its new found freedom, it returns to her room, and the conductor drag it back to the kennel. 

That trick is how I made an irrelevant and important discovery.
Eventually the concert ended, and Cath's fruitless search for the egg/gold with it. Hopeless, he milled about, and then, in an attempt to search another room, returned to the Luggage car to free the Anna's dog. The time being, 5:55, he noticed a door in the Luggage compartment, previously locked and impervious to Anna's key, ajar. Cath stepped inside, looked around and discovered Anna's dead body! And I experienced anther a fail-state, narrated by Sophie Sophie about how the conductors discovered Cath standing over a fresh murder.

When a fail-state occurs, The Last Express helpfully rewinds an interval of time, and in this example, from 6:00 to 5:30. I immediately returned to the Luggage Car, this time to discover Wolff alive. As Cath and Wolff angrily debated Tyler's death and the disappearance of the Egg, one of the Serbian's entered and tried to kill both of them. After a quick combat, the woman fled and the train arrived in Vienna.

A short cut scene followed, with Cath watching as Schmidt huffily removed the weapons from the Express, because Cath couldn't pay him. But as Cath observes Schmidt, he fails to notice Milo, and two Serbians approach. Just as Cath observes them, one slips a dagger into his chest. Fail-state.

Again, the game returned me to 5:30. This time, I wandered the halls, determined not to enter the luggage car, but The Last Express ended abruptly at 6:15: no cut scene or diary rendition. No explanation at all, and I was deposited, again, at 5:30. Was it possible to win from this point? I assumed it was, because the game kept returning me to it. I searched diligently over two more attempts to locate the egg or the gold, but both seemed to have vanished. I even tried to intercept Anna and prevent her from entering the Luggage Compartment after the concert.

But here's a twist. The Last Express cheats! Yes, it fosters the illusion of realism, pretending the characters are real, not just phantoms. But when the game needs them to, they vanish from one spot and reappear in another. Anna never walks to the Luggage Compartment, she appears there out of nothingness.

Eventually, I realized I had failed Chapter 3, and I decided to voluntarily rewind. Here I compounded error on error. At the time, I believed the player could only voluntarily rewind to one of the five major stations. I returned to Munich. I also succumbed to eagerness, and looked at a guide, which is the source of my complete understanding mentioned earlier. Without this knowledge, Act 3 is incredibly difficult. All the moves must be made between 3pm, when the concert starts, and 5:30pm, when it ends. The gold can be collected first. Using the Anna's key, Cath exits the train and climbs onto the roof. Walking to the end of the train, he discovers a glass roof on the second of Kronos' cars. Breaking it before the concert will result in a fail-state, but the music during it covers the tinkling of broken glass, and in the room Cath accesses a secret compartment containing a briefcase of gold. Depositing this treasure in his compartment, Cath must then discover the location of the egg. Two ladies have whispered carelessly about their secret, with the innocent agreeing to hide “it” under her bathroom sink for the thief. If not found before 5:30, the Egg vanishes into thin air (or maybe it flies away). One recollected, it also needs to be hidden for later.

At the concert's conclusion, Schdmitt demands to see the gold, which then needs to be returned to Kronos before Kahina “recovers it”, and off Cath's off to the Luggage compartment to rescue Anna. Now, in Vienna, the weapons stay on the Express, and Cath's head stays on his neck. One could give Kronos the Egg (easiest satisfactory ending), but Cath holds onto it for later.
A few thoughts to conclude Act 3:

Replaying a section, such as I did for the Munich to Vienna run, is tiresome. The first playthrough develops tension by placing a time limit on the player with uncertainty its companion. In a second attempt the frantic energy dissipates, as the player watches events replay and waits for his turn to act.

Just as the conductor never tires of remind Cath that his compartment is number 1, people never complain when he tries to enter occupied compartments. They ask, “Who is it?” and he always replies, “Sorry, these doors all look alike.” And if anyone ever enters their compartment while Cath is in it, The Last Express deposits him in the corridor without incident, as if he has spider senses.

For The Last Express, we're still entrapped by unseen enemies, unsolved mysteries, and unresolved conflicts. The Egg's been recovered, but why does everyone want it? And what does it do?

Next Time on The Last Express: A Bomb, A Hijacking, A New World.

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