SuperGiant Games’ Transistor has long been on my “Waiting For With Bated Breath” list and this week my wait ended…with more waiting for a download. The wireless connection at my house this week has been moving like cold molasses through an IV tube 9and that’s being nice) so it definitely didn’t match up well with the ~2.5 GB download that was Transistor on the PS4. So it actually took all night to download. But once it was all installed it was a different story.
Transistor is equally as beautiful as it’s predecessor, Bastion, but in a completely different way. While Bastion felt more Zelda like, Transistor feels more like a strategy game than the hack and slashy Bastion. I have to admit that initially I was a little confused by the game. It felt like I had just been thrown in the middle of the narrative without knowing what was going on. I just grabbed Transistor and ran with it. Literally.
Transistor serves as a mechanics tutorial in that it talks you through how to battle the processes (the enemies) on each level and how to activate the various terminals that give you more information and allow you to level up your attacks with the special abilities of the “essences” of the dead folks that you find and rescue from the processes. And lest you forget what Transistor has told you, enemies and terminals give you informational pop ups as you get close to them.
With Transistor having such an unfamiliar battle system I expected that I would die a lot in the first hour or so, but I have to admit that I did only die once on the first boss. The game (at least early on) is very forgiving and does everything that it can to guide you. I am sure that this is something that will scale up fairly rapidly as the game continues.
The battles themselves are as beautiful as the family is while Red (the female protagonist) is simply walking around and exploring her surroundings. And, as we have quickly come to expect with Supergiant games the voice acting is damn near perfect. Ashly Barrett’s voice of Red is as hauntingly beautiful as it was in Bastion, and perhaps more so as her songs are beautifully muted as if being recalled through a dream since the Red that you play has already been rendered mute by the Process. With the music in this game I found myself constantly wishing that they would play the vocals during gameplay.
When Bastion was released the folks at SuperGiant found themselves pleasantly surprised by the fact that people were clamoring for the soundtrack of the game. This time they were definitely ahead of the game. Not only were you able to purchase the soundtrack at launch (or as a part of the pre-order package) but in the game itself there is an area that you come through that allows you to play challenge mini games to unlock more songs that you can actually listen to in that place. I won’t go into detail of what the space is or when you access it, but the theme was pretty friggin’ cool. I found it hard not to spend the last few minutes of my hour just lounging in the music of the game. These folks have clearly realized that the music is a large part of this game.
Red, as protagonist, is a solid character (at this point). While she starts out unsure of herself, she quickly gets her feet under her and takes off to destroy the Process and get her voice back. She doesn’t run as Transistor suggests, she takes the enemy on head on. She wields her weapon well and the battle system flows well once you get used to it. While it was frustrating for the first few battles it became more and more intuitive and while I initially found the multi-step battle planning a bit awkward (I usually have more of a tank than strategy mentality in games) it quickly became obvious that this was the only way to defeat bosses and after one or two passes it kind of came second nature.
All in all Transistor is a solid game with good mechanics, great music, and a story that makes you want to figure out just whose who and what they’re doing! It’s available on PS4 and PC (via Steam). Reportedly you can play via remote play on your Vita. I’ll report back on that later.
