I was really disappointed by this game. I played Bastion because it was on sale, and fell so deeply in love with is that I bought Transistor at full price even though Im flat broke just because I had so much faith in Super Giant Games. But the two games couldnt be more different. Transistor just doesnt have that exciting feel to it that Bastion had. I found myself in agony wishing theI was really disappointed by this game. I played Bastion because it was on sale, and fell so deeply in love with is that I bought Transistor at full price even though Im flat broke just because I had so much faith in Super Giant Games. But the two games couldnt be more different. Transistor just doesnt have that exciting feel to it that Bastion had. I found myself in agony wishing the 1000th battle would be over already. A feeling I never once felt during their last game. Theres just to much of the same old thing over and over again. And the combat system is interesting in theory, but is terrible in practice. Freezing time is cool, until its over. For people who are fans of the combat system, please sit down and think about this: The process you (pretty much) have to go through to defeat enemies results in you being completely vulnerable for what seems like an eternity in a field of enemies that are faster than you can run away from. The only options you have to defend yourself at this point are A. Jaunt(), which really cripples you if you have to give it a whole attack slot for the entire game. B. One solitary attack that you can use while recharging if you attach Jaunt to it (which of course often means that attack will be the first one you lose through overload) or C. have a dog with you. Thats it. Doing the thing I basically couldnt win without, the main aspect of the combat system, made me feel like I was being punished. There are many video games that will, for example, give you a powerful machine gun that will over heat and be unusable for a bit if you use it too long in one go. But theres a way to avoid it. always. But theres no way to avoid it in Transistor. The combat system is terrible. The only thing worse than that was losing your attacks. Really? They probably picked the single worst punishment for dying in the history of video games: you get to keep fighting, but were taking your best weapon. And even if you win, youre not getting it back for a long while. I would rather go back to my last save point every time I died. That would have been much less frustrating. And again, maybe this would have been better if they used it better. But with the way the time stop system is set up, you can only win by exposing yourself to long periods of defenselessness, and theres no way to restore health other than some terrible health regenerating abilities. So by doing what the game wants you to do, you will inevitably lose your best weapon, and not even have it for the next battle either. And the battles just got so repetitive and boring. Stop time, run behind, use crash, then spam your strongest thing. then run and take as little damage as you can in the recharge period. Repeat. They added nothing really new. New functions maybe. Although it seemed like they actually came up with the functions in the order you receive them in-game, because they ideas kept becoming less and less creative as it wore on and on. Ugh. In Bastion, almost every level had something totally new. A new enemy that did something no enemy before it had done. A new totally unique weapon that was tailored to that levels challenges. But no. Transistor was the same old cybernetic city that then became even more boring whitewashed cybernetic city. The story was nonexistent. I get being subtle, and I love when games are like that. But on one hand, theres dark souls, where the main aspect of the game is the challenge, and the story is completely inconsequential. If you dont want to go out of your way to find it, no big deal. Then theres transistor. A game that is clearly trying so hard to get me engrossed in the games story and become emotionally attached to the characters, and yet refuses to tell me anything about them. Its infuriating. Bastion was somewhat similar, but it wasnt as bad. Its like between making Bastion and Transistor, SuperGiant Games quite literally got a serious allergy to telling the player anything directly whatsoever. And Bastion was simpler. There was a great disaster. the world is falling apart. we need to gather stuff to power this safe haven so we can be safe/fix this. Did I know everything? No. Did I know enough? Yes. In Transistor there was not one point where I had any idea what was happening. They threw around the word Carmanata every 3 seconds without ever telling me what that meant. Were they a radical group? A group of higherups gone rouge? Did two of the four final bosses really kill themselves before I got to them? Why is the city turning white? is there normally giant bone whale beasts flying around? I dont know enough about this universe to be surprised by that. Why could Red just fix everything so easily at the end? Why didnt she try that earlier? Why were they kidnapping famous people? that was never explained? Not to mention the music was awful. Probably one memorable track in this game. I know Bastions track was hard to live up to but come on. Also Royces voice made me want to kill myself.… Expand
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