Message #339001

[Trijhak]

Review: Transistor

Graphics: Like Supergiant's previous game, the graphics are astoundingly beautiful, especially when you take into consideration that it's primarily hand-painted. It really gives personality to the character(s) and the images you get shown are amazing. You can tell they were made with care, since they are so beautiful.

Music: It exceeds the quality of Bastion's music, in my opinion. It's amazing. Not only for how enjoyable they are to listen to, but because of their story significance, too. The vocal tracks are especially stunning. They each have something to do with the plot of the game, and once you've played the game you can probably pick up on what the lyrics of them are about. Bastion's vocal tracks weren't really like that, were they? Asides from Setting Sail, Coming Home.

Voice-Acting: Primarily being Logan Cunningham again, it was superb. His voice this time is much more relaxed but still retains the personality he managed to pull of in Bastion. He does a brilliant job, especially in certain parts where... well, I'll just say that the narrator of this game is more with you than narrating you.

Gameplay: This is where the game shines, IMO. There are 16 functions. There are four active slots. Four passive slots. Eight upgrade slots. Each function does something in each. They do something different depending on whether they're in an active slot, passive slot, or upgrade slot. The game actively encourages you to experiment with function combinations, since each time your health goes down to 0, one of your functions is 'overloaded' and unusable for a while. There are some really powerful combinations, and some not-so-powerful combinations. For example, Crash() on its own does 50 damage and temporarily stuns enemies. As an upgrade, it will make other functions stun enemies. As passive, it will reduce incoming damage by 25% and prevent you from being slowed. When upgraded with Spark(), it splits into three lines which do 25 damage each. Meaning it does more damage the closer you are but also has wider range but less damage on a single target in other cases. Jaunt() is dash. With Breach(), it'll do damage. There are so many combinations in this game I haven't even found them all, and you can find your own playstyle. Not to mention the variety of enemies makes you think. A Younglady, for example. will force you to either try and one-hit kill or else, they will teleport after getting hit to somewhere else. You also have to collect cells enemies drop before they respawn. Also, the final boss is a very excellent change of pace.

Replayability: Tons of it, due to the randomised enemy set up in recursion mode and the extra functions you get, not to mention the door challenges.

Story: The story. Like Bastion, it isn't immediately obvious. But it isn't directly entirely told to you either. You have to figure it out after putting together pieces from the Transistor's lines, the lore you unlock by using functions, and the reports of others. For some, this is a huge turn off and some may not understand it.

Still though, Transistor is the kind of game that will appeal to some people but turn others away. It's not going to engross everyone. I rate it 9/10, minus 1 due to how some may be turned off of it and how some may not understand its story.