It’s been a while since I touched this series. Was planning on doing it all in one go, but Halloween 2025 came and went and I wasn’t able to complete it without the release being weird. After all, who plays a game that’s heavily halloween themed in November of all months? Thankfully though I’m here to rectify that with the third chapter in my HTH series, this time we’ll be riding the rails of the aptly named Ghost Train!

The Story

There isn’t one, moving on.

Okay, I should be a bit more clear. Unlike the beautifully done Terror Town tutorial, we’re given what equates to the bare basics of a tutorial: an option to look at how to play.

Gotta love the box at the bottom reiterating my point on how a tutorial for a game like this should be done. But I shouldn’t be too harsh on it, perhaps they were working on a time crunch or didn’t have a lot of time to allocate to it. On the other hand, maybe this is the best way to do a tutorial for what was once a flash game, just a simple option in the menu in case it’s your first time playing it. In any case, once you start you begin at the very beginning of every train; the locomotive. Our ghost of a host isn’t the classic clown that we’ve all grown accustomed to, as this time it’s a…. pissed off pile of smoke? cursed cotton candy? maybe a haunted cloud?

Whatever the hell you’re supposed to be, your mission is still kept the same. Scare all the unwanted persons from the train, increase the atmosphere for better haunts and reclaim your mobile mansion. This time though, you have to scare FORTY people off of the train, and how does that go? well…..

THE GAMEPLAY

It’s the same as the previous games, but you’ve got three train cars to work with: a haunted house, a carousel and a funhouse. All three have various items to possess for purposes of raising the atmosphere to terrifying. New to this game is the ability to perform what I have come to dub “Atmosfear haunts”, where the screen briefly goes greyscale for a few seconds when executing a particular haunt after certain unspecified criteria is met. For example, in the haunted house there lies a Frankenstein’s monster prop (at least, I THINK it’s a prop, otherwise this steam ghost has some very weird hobbies) laying on a table inert unless you possess it. If the room is crowded and achieved an atmosphere of terrifying you can just spam the highest action, but building up to it works. You might fiddle with the switch, make a few beakers bubble and other minor details to make the room feel uneasy. Then (and only then) do you possess the monster and bring it back to life, terrifying every guest in the room at once. And once terrified, it tends to spread to other rooms (just like real hysteria), increasing your gauge and making it easier to get those guests off your damn train.

Speaking of haunts, the sheer variety of things you can possess and animate is on another level. Sure, it’s limited to things that fit the theme of the specific cars (bats in the haunted house, cannons in the funhouse, etc.) but it’s the animations that really sell it for me. Here are just a few of my favorite items to possess, some for the sheer absurdity of them.

The elephant can even swing a sword with his trunk. But even in a game where there is an area explicitly called “funhouse” the endgame is neither fun nor a house.

THE ENDGAME

One of the major issues I have with the game is the major shakeup to the formula. Both the previous games make your objective very clear: Scare the guests out of the house, but NOT too much lest they do something stupid like jump out a window. Ghost Train completely eschews the formula by making it impossible for the guests to die, even though it would likely be very easy to have them, you know, JUMP OFF THE MOVING TRAIN. No no no, there’s only one way you’re getting them out, and that’s to scare them to the exit at the far right of the screen. But getting them there is no easy feat, for the guests are as indecisive as a college freshman with no clear goal in life. Even if they are absolutely terrified, that does not guarantee that they will go all the way to the right.

Way too many times in my playthrough a pattern would constantly reemerge and frustrate me to no end. And it went something like this:

• Step 1: Scare guest into screaming hysteria
• Step 2: Scare the aforementioned guest(s) to the funhouse
• Step 3: Guest is about to leave, but doubles back into the train car, running as far right as possible to the haunted house OR up and down the funhouse ladder repeatedly until they calm down.
• ???
• No profit.

This happened so often I even wondered if I would ever finish this game. And even when I did win I didn’t develop a bond with the remaining guest like Krickletip and Buzztu of my previous adventures. No, the last two guests just ran out before I could get good shots of them absentmindedly strolling around the cars.

Ending

After what felt like an eternity, every guest was scared away. There was no cinematic cutscene like the first and second games, just a results page. Here’s how I did.

Conclusion

I don’t even know what I can even really say to this game. Of the four HTH games this one is my least favorite. I guess I should be thankful it’s the easiest one to S rank on account of death not being a factor. It’s also in a bundle so I don’t even have to pay extra for the lackluster experience I guess? There really isn’t much else I can really say but 6/10, I will not ride again. Happy Halloween folks from your friendly neighborhood Spartan.

(Also, this game fails the rodent quota. Really don’t see how it couldn’t incorporate a mouse in it somewhere as mice do ride trains).