Transistor (2014)

3 hours in and I can't decide how I feel about it.

First of all, the aesthetics are super great. Love the art, love the music.

The gameplay concepts are very interesting. You have this set of customizable and interchangeable moves that you use to fight groups of enemies in enclosed spaces. You can just use the moves in real time as much as you want (which I tried to do as much as I could), or you can start a "turn," which freezes everything and lets you plan out several moves in a row, including movement, attacks, etc. and then you execute them super fast while the enemy is still basically frozen in place.

But as a tradeoff you can do almost no actions on a cooldown period after a turn, so you're just left using the rather slow basic movement and trying not to be a sitting duck until you can do stuff again.

At best, it's a really interesting challenge of finding when is the best time to do your own actions and when should you use turns. At worst, it just kinda turns into barely surviving by using turns as soon as your cooldown is over and just kinda running for your life during cooldown.

It's more intriguing than actually fun so far, unfortunately. I've tried lots of different setups and haven't found anything I've gelled with yet.

But the aesthetics are great, and I want to know more, so it hasn't been hard to keep playing yet.

Also instead of immediately dying when you run out of health you lose one of your moves. It can later be re-equipped if you survive and visit two more save points, which is an interesting idea, but sometimes I find myself just hobbling through an encounter with like, one move left when I honestly should have died.

I didn't really come to understand how to beat the second boss at all but I still did, with one move left, by just using turns at every opportunity and generally being a wimp. I guess whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion to a certain extent.

I wish I could give Transistor 6 or 7 starts out of 5. I think it might be one of my favourite games. The hybrid real-time turn-based gameplay is right right my alley and it suits my not-excellent coordination. My only some minor quibble is around balancing. Some attacks are much more powerful than others and some of them are next to useless (turning enemies into allies is pointless if you cannot harm them, for example). This goes against the core concept of trying different load-outs that is otherwise encouraged by forcing the player to use every ability in order to read up on the details of the story and the world. But, as I said, for me it's a is a minor issue.

Specially compared with the impactful art design. This is probably the best videogame soundtrack I've heard. It fits perfectly within the game but it also stands on its own. It's different layers are highlighted at different time through the game and some not-so-subtle changes to the music follow the evolution of the world around you. The "hum" button is delightful. It has no gameplay effect, but I still sometimes I was compelled to press it, just to listen.

In this, my third playthrough, I've also noticed how well they crafted the world. The "world inside a computer" vibe is made clear by all the computer terminology and small facts like being able to choose the colour of the sky. But there's nothing tron-like about it. There's no green over black monospaced lettering, no futuristic blue glow, no city blocks made to look like microchips, and certainly no electronic music. Instead, the city is a monument to colourful art-nouveau architecture.

In a world where Indie games are everywhere, it's hard to find one that really stands out as both different and full of fun. That's exactly what Transistor is though. After getting told repeatedly to play this game from people I finally decided to give it a shot, and as I was playing I wondered why haven't I done this sooner. The art style is what really stands out and adds to the unique game play quite well. The city landscape is painted beautifully with bright colors that also paint a gloom picture for this town.

I understand the game play won't be for everyone and that you will either love it or hate it. The combat varies from fast paced to a slower pace depending on how you approach each fight. The developers do a nice job of letting you decide on how to play and give a wide variety of upgrades to use. Whether you stick with the same line up of moves or switch out each battle can impact your enjoy-ability of this game. It took me awhile to understand what all the upgrades do and how I can be effective with each one.

My only draw back is on the story and that's not to say it's a bad story by any means. I assume they were going for a less is more situation, but it's hard to really get behind a character if I don't fully understand the situation they are in. I might have just missed it on my first play through and here's hoping that during my second run through I understand a little more of Red and her story.