Let us be immersed in an ocean full of cheesiness and unnecessary dialogue...
I will start with the good. It is a remarkably beautiful game. In all artistic aspects. Simply to take real life actors and transform them into cartoon figures was ingenious. All the animations as well as real-time as stop-motion are breathtaking. Even now, almost thirteen years later. I can't even imagine the amount of hard work put to bring this all to life. Music while scarce is beautiful as well, even considering the fact that later in the game it becomes a synthesizer-violin fusion, which really makes it seem anachronistic. But still beautiful it is none the less. But by far the best aspect of this game is the voice acting. How good it was! Probably for the first time in my life have I heard so many authentic accents performed by actors who bear the nationalities of the characters they're acting for. Not just some twenty year old american barely actor wanna-be college drop out trying to be "original". (someone's god, oh, someone's god, how much it annoys me...)
All of the above mentioned details really set up a good mood. Atmosphere is almost authentic. I was in 1914 for a while. I really was...
...and then came the big bad wolf. Otherwise known as the spider that came along. In this case his face was blurry but I recognized him after a while. It was storyline!
The story had a pretty interesting premise. I counted on a detective-story, but at CD-2 it turned into an adrenaline pumped action with all the stamps and stupidity of a mainstream hollywood (yes, that's right: I'm not giving it a capital letter!) "film" spoiled a great first impression. So called "fighting" sequences are done terribly and seem completely out of place in such a game like this. Just like a black hole, sucking the fun out of the game instead of energy and matter.
My next complain is that our beloved Mr. Cath isn't very bright for a man of his profession. Imagine a guy coming with all guns blazing into a bank and then trying to get past the police with all the money well stolen, in a broad daylight. Something quite similar happens in this game to our protagonist. His own stupidity costs him his life several times in a row. Being a very bad thief is just a very tiny part of a problem with that guy. By far greater is another - making business with people trying to kill him... several times. With such terrible habits I'm wondering how in the world could he get that far as to board the train in the first place. Would've probably died six or seven times trying. And forget about avoiding the interpol all together. Such actions are way above that guy's intelligence.
Whilst characters are done great artistically they're lacking depth completely. Being as flat as my grandmother's pancakes. Most of them, and I mind you almost all of them are underdeveloped stereotypes. We have it all on the Oriental Express: arrogant loyalties and their obedient servants, brutal extremists, irritated communists (even though not necessarily Russian) and anarchists, soulless spies, a pair of rather annoying lesbians and a young girl pretending to be an adult. A nice exception out of the bunch is a lovable rogue for an arms dealer, and surprisingly Mr. Cath himself albeit being a complete moron is very charismatic and sympathetic. A quality rarely found in such combination. Well, Isaac and Miria (google for "Baccano!") were like that, I guess it makes for a good combination after all.
Most of this game's dialogue is a worthless chatter. Latest news of a possible socialistic revolution and international tensions are to the point. So is limited character development. But it just seems like most of the time people really don't have much to say except for your typical rhetorical BS with everyday minor technical details on the boring everyday life.
There are many questions left unanswered as well as many logical breakdowns in the storyline itself. Seems like story was rushed. You don't really need to do much. Puzzles are easy to downright stupid. Not to mention they are so few and far in between. To finish the game all you really have to do is do a couple of things, beat a few stupid puzzles and kick some arse a few times in a very bland fashion as told above. The thing you'll be doing the most is running around the train back and forth. Yes and the steam-punk elements were completely unnecessary. Here you have one more example of stereotypical thinking: ending of the 19th or the beginning of the 20st century almost always means a steam-punk is gonna be there (and where best to do it if not on a train?).
All in all the story is inconsistent, illogical, with too much bad intrigue for no reason. Except for the main political intrigue which seems to be pivotal to the whole storyline. But even that one is underdeveloped, albeit being interesting and holding a lot of potential. There is one more thing that almost escaped my wrath: main character's motivation. He doesn't really have any besides "helping an old friend means much to me" BS. The last statement is unresolved even after the final credits start to roll. So what what was his motivation again? I bet even he can't figure it out. And of course the almighty pacifism just had to come in the end and steal the show. But I won't spoil any of it, you'll have to laugh it out for yourself.
Finally what do we have? Great artistic content, and a lot of potential but in the end a missed opportunity, a game that failed to make a final step and fell into mediocrity because of it. You really do have to play it, for the atmosphere and art. But take my word for it: you will be leaving the Oriental Express with an empty heart.