Train45 Cannot Talk to Characters

The First Ten Minutes Have No Starting-Car Chat

A brand-new file locks Reina and Mai’s starting-car conversations until you finish the opening investigation loop and come back through a rest point. Mashing Z / Enter / confirm on boot does nothing. Japanese boards mark it as a bug; it is a talk gate. Named patch as of 30 August 2026 is still v1.0.5.1 — Elniko did not list this as a defect.

After the rest-point return, starting-car talk opens. That is also when affinity XP from joint Sense starts to matter. Keyboard and gamepad maps: Controls. If a controller is connected, UI prompts swap to gamepad icons automatically from v1.0.5.1.

Ranks That Look Full Still Need the Scene

Filling Reina or Mai’s XP bar does not pop the next rank by itself. Each level waits on that rank’s main event. Skip or mash through it and the next talk — including the hot-spring and intuition topics that grant flyers — stalls. Watch the scene, then talk again.

Chapter 4 storage (3-4-5) is what unlocks the phone map, not those flyer talks. Flyer talks teach the same UI; they do not replace the story flag. Phone Map.

Butler chat is a stall at rest points, not the starting car. Pazuzu’s first beat is the window meeting, not a seat conversation. Konial’s Lv1/Lv2 talks are chapter-6 bracelet work — Xiao Ke OMEGA.

If It Still Looks Broken

• Wrong input device. A second pad stealing focus was a launch bug; v1.0.4.2+ recognizes one active controller. Unplug extras.
• Language still title-screen only. Esc opens Options during dialogue from Hotfix 2, but language stays on the title menu.
• Performance mode. Button-route glow failed in an early build; update to v1.0.5.1 if lights look dead.
• You already passed the gate and the flyers still miss. That is affection, not the talk lock. Reina 5 for hot spring, Mai 6 for pachinko.

Short list of other first-run traps: Common Mistakes. Steam Deck prompts: Steam Deck.