Now Playing: Transistor

I almost didn’t buy Transistor in the recent Steam sale. I’m so glad I did. It’s an action-RPG, set in the futuristic city of Cloudbank. You play as Red, a singer without a voice, on a mission to save and restore Cloudbank from an aggressive transformation called the ‘Process’.

I won’t say much more than that, because I really don’t want to spoil anything. The narrative aspect of Transistor is handled superbly, slowly unfolding before the player as they progress. The world building is also fantastic and perfectly paced.

Though Red may not be able to speak, the developers inject a lot of personality into her character through her animations, and her interactions with various information terminals. The cast of Transistor may be small, but the two primary characters possess an engaging bond that drives the player through the story.

 

This is a game with a lot of lovely little touches and attention to detail. The aforementioned terminals are a neat glimpse into the world, but also to how Red responds to it. And then you have the ‘hum’ and ‘flourish’ buttons. ‘Hum’ certainly has a special context within the game with regards to the character, but it’s also wonderful to listen to. And though ‘flourish’ may seem rather pointless, it injects a little life into Red and the world about her.

In terms of visuals and style, Transistor is a gorgeous game. With a variety of environments and enemies, colourful effects and lovely character designs, Transistor looks fantastic. It also has a superb soundtrack which perfectly complements the action. So, as far as visuals, sound, character and story, Transistor hits every target. But what about the gameplay?

It’s a mixture of real-time and turn-based combat. You have four active ‘functions’ which are your attack abilities. There are 16 in all and you’ll unlock them as you progress and level up. You can attack in real-time, but due to enemy numbers and the speed of combat, you’ll need to use the turn-based system if you want to succeed and survive.

You can pause the action, allowing you to queue up a chain of attacks, or to reposition within the combat environment. You then ‘execute’ this planned turn. Once completed, you’ll have to wait for the turn-based pause to recharge. It’s a neat little system that adds a fair degree of strategy to combat encounters.

 

You’ll be facing a variety of enemy types, and although the game does a good job of introducing new enemies as you progress, it also upgrades existing enemies with new skills, always keeping you on your toes. As you defeat these encounters, you’ll level up, allowing you to select new functions, or unlock new upgrade/passive ability slots.

And this is where the combat system, though quite simple in practice, becomes a lot more interesting. Every function has a primary ability, but also an upgrade and passive ability. By combining different functions, you can build a diverse selection of offensive and defensive abilities. It allows you to enhance or modify every function in various ways depending on how you combine them.

It’s a lot of fun experimenting with this system, building different combinations and seeing what works best for you. The game also includes a small number of challenge style rooms to test your skills in various ways such as speed or efficiency. And efficiency is a key component of Transistor combat – finding the least number of moves to defeat an encounter. It’s a little puzzle-like, in a way, and if you want to make the combat even more interesting and challenging, there are 10 ‘limiters’ you can activate, with various impacts on your own abilities, or on enemy abilities.

Overall, I found the combat system fun, engaging and enjoyable to play – but it’s not without its problems. Some of the combat ‘arenas’ that you get locked into are quite small and restrictive, somewhat limiting your strategy. And because you can’t rotate the map, it’s sometimes easy to lose focus on where enemies are as they become obscured by scenery.

 

It can also play havoc with the targeting system, whereby you’ll often be told your attack will be ‘blocked’ even though there’s no apparent obstacle. As a result of all this, some fights end up being more messy than truly tactical. Battles, I must admit, can also get a little repetitive over time, but thankfully this isn’t too much of an issue as new/upgraded enemies are introduced.

I would have really, really liked to see more boss fights. There’s only a couple in the game, and your very first is great. It’s a shame there’s not more ‘big’ encounters like this, with multiple stages to fight through. I also would have liked a little more exploration of the city, as most of the time you’re pushed along an extremely linear path.

Transistor isn’t a very long game (I beat it in about 9 hours) but I’d say it’s long enough. Any more and it would have just been padding the experience. But though it’s rather short, it does have a decent degree of replay value. There’s a new game plus mode (which I’m already getting stuck into), allowing you to restart with all of your unlocked levels and abilities.

It’s an opportunity to play through the game a second time and appreciate all the details you didn’t pick up on the first time through, but also to challenge yourself by using the various limiters and facing even harder opponents.

Overall, Transistor was an enjoyable, intriguing and frequently touching experience. With fantastic visuals, style and sound, great characters, a superbly unfolding narrative, plus a solid and engaging combat system, it comes highly recommended.

8/10