Transistor

Released on November 1, 2018 by Supergiant Games, Transistor blends action RPG and traditional RPG elements in a cyberpunk setting.

I was driving in my car one night, feeling hyper-emotional, wanting to listen to some emotional music, when Youtube decided I needed to listen to the soundtrack for some game called Transistor. I loved the music, particularly a song called "In Circles," sung by Ashley Barrett, so I researched Transistor as soon as I got home. I found that the game's developer, Supergiant, had first made their bones on a game called Bastion...so I played that first. I thought Bastion was solid, but didn't have overwhelmingly strong feelings for it. I waited to put a little distance between my playthrough of Bastion and Transistor, but finally played through Transistor this week...and feelings I do have.

The art-style is okay, I guess...

Transistor is set in a cool cyperpunk world that feels somewhere between Neuromancer and Bladrunner. The story, like Bastion's, feels a little distant and needlessly convoluted, and for me at least, kind of filters into the background. You're some kind of famous singer named Red who's lost her voice, and is carrying around a giant sword, which is possessed by the voice of a man killed by that same sword when he stepped in front of it to save Red from being assassinated...I think. Turns out Red's assassination has something to do with some group called the Camerata, who have unwittingly unleashed some kind of hyper-aggressive robotic force called the Process, which is now transforming all of Red's home city of Cloudbank into...the Process. Now, Red's fighting the Process, while constantly being spoken to by the voice in the sword. Yeah, I don't know. The story's not the strong-point for me here.
I found it easy to disregard the story in Bastion too, as the focus for that game is the action-RPG gameplay. I found Bastion's gameplay to be solid and fairly fun, though it didn't blow me away...honestly it just felt competent, yet generic. Thankfully, the gameplay for Transistor is more than competent: it pushes the envelope, bends genres, and still has me coming back for more, despite the fact that I've already finished it.

Pictured: AWESOME

Transistor features a brilliant mashup of action RPG and traditional RPG elements. When Red is attacked, the immediate area is generally immediately fenced in. She can then either attack her enemies in real-time, or freeze time, and move around freely attacking, until she's used up her Turn Bar. The cool part is, freezing time generally allows for pressure-free planning. You can test out attack combos in theory, seeing how much damage they'll cause, before ever carrying them out. You can easily test out numerous scenarios before deciding and executing your attacks and movements. However, once you've executed your planned-out turn, you become incapable of attacking for a matter of seconds, until your Turn Bar refills. You can still run around, but for that period of time, you become completely harmless. In real-time, if you haven't just frozen time and depleted your turn bar, you can attack constantly, without worry of using up a Turn Bar...but so can your enemies. With multiple enemies attacking from all angles, things become chaotic, and damage to Red piles up quickly. It's up to the player to decide how they want to play, and if they'd rather play more in real time, or using their Turn Bar. The ability to do both in the same fight, at your whim, is a revelation.

Two bits

Like most RPG's, defeating enemies gives Red experience points. When she collects enough experience points, she levels up, and the player gets the chance to choose new attacks to add to her arsenal, as well as new slot spaces where more attacks can be added. Slot positions are important, as you've got four main slots, with two supportive slots under each, and four enhancing slots on the side. Every attack can be plugged into any unlocked slot, and all have different effects, depending on where you place them, and with what you pair them up. With many earnable attacks, the move combinations feel nearly endless, and offer incredible opportunities at customization and strategy. As the types of enemies change throughout the game, as do the ways they attack you, optimizing your attack customization is paramount, and one of Transistor's most enjoying elements. You can even choose to add more memory, allowing for access to more move combinations at once, though you've got to balance how much memory you choose to unlock with how many and which slots you choose to unlock.

It's so...beautiful.

You'll also want to choose the attacks for your slots wisely, as you'll lose the ability to use an attack when you've taken a certain amount of damage. Take enough damage, and you'll be down to one attack. If that final attack is relatively useless against the particular enemies you are are fighting, you'll quickly be overcome. Thankfully, Transistor features many save points, which are the only places Red is allowed to customize her attack move configuration. The game also features periodic doors to Red's virtual hideaway, where she can relax, partake in challenging practice fights that give her extra experience points, and have private conversations with her sword, which is, by the way, the titular Transistor, brilliantly voice by Bastion's Logan Cunningham.

As you level up, more practice areas become available. Also, I can hear this image.

Thankfully, despite Transistor's indie-game origins, all facets of the gameplay feel extremely polished, and well thought out. While the game isn't overly difficult, failing to strategize, especially late in the game, will almost always result in death. Supergiant did an incredible job of  both forging new territory with Transistor's gameplay style, as well as making sure every facet of that style is perfectly balanced. Thankfully, the gameplay isn't Transistor's only strong-suit. Composer, Darren Korb, as well as vocalist, Ashley Barrett, have returned from Bastion to provide Transistor's music. Bastion's soundtrack was quite good, but Transistor's is even a step up from that work. Korb gives this soundtrack a heavy trip-hop lean, with some noisy distortion thrown in at just the right moments. Barrett sings on select tracks, generally during Transistor's biggest moments, and does a lot of the game's emotional heavy-lifting. While I do wish that all of the tracks were on the level with the soundtrack's best, even the more aurally wallpaper-type moments are, at worst, well-textured and super chill. It's good stuff.

Conjunction Jan's, what's your function?

Transistor does show its smaller developer roots at points. For instance, the game's visual style, augmented by a top-down, isometric perspective, is very cool, and the artwork is beautiful and atmospheric, but it does start to feel a bit repetitive, much like Bation's did. Also, the game is relatively short. I beat it just a bit over 10 hours in...which is, pretty short. Thankfully, though, Transistor allows the victorious player to start a new game with all of the attacks they've previously earned and at the level they had attained at the time they completed the game. My favorite part of starting a second game is that the enemies scale up to the player's level, as well. This not only means that the player can now engage in some absolutely epic fights early on in the game, but that they can now level up much more quickly, and earn even more attacks and attack slots. I found myself having even more fun playing through Transistor the second time than the first.

Dragging a sword/just because I'm bored/Crossing this bridge/just to raid yo fridge/cuz I'm hungry, girl. Now give me a Grammy.

Overall, especially after I found Bastion to be boringly trusty and reliable, Transistor is a delightful surprise. Supergiant have managed to create a truly unique, enjoyable, and addictive gameplay style, while also doing a great job of framing that gameplay within some cool, hip atmosphere. I'm glad Youtube's algorithm decided to bless me with the knowledge of its existence.

SCORE: 8.8/10