![]() Taking the time to plan out moves can certainly lead to enhanced combat proficiency and, given the diverse and challenging new types of Process introduced as you progress, this is often critical to one’s success, but that window of vulnerability after executing the moves can spell a quick end. This all makes for a wonderfully dynamic battle system that caters to players of all skill levels while allowing for a suitably satisfying level of risk and reward. When you’re ready to go, the set of selected actions is executed in rapid-fire succession, but Red then can’t act for a few seconds while the gauge recharges. ![]() Everything you do - from running to using abilities - takes up a portion of an action gauge at the top of the screen, which limits the number and type of actions you can perform at once. This mode gives you time to breathe and highlights things like explosion ranges and trajectory lines to ensure that you can make every action count. However, for those of you that would prefer to maximize your combat efficiency, the action in a battle can be paused at any moment in “Turn() mode” in which actions can be planned out. Battles are handled primarily in a live-action setting you can equip up to four abilities or attacks at a time and these are all governed by a cooldown system that prevents you from using the more powerful moves too often. Transistor is a relatively linear experience, oriented around the arena-style brawls that take place every couple of minutes with another band of Process. ![]() It’s this regular and largely inconclusive flavour text that drives the narrative forward, making you care about Red and the Transistor in sometimes surprising and powerful ways. For example, the two have a favourite restaurant known as Junction Jan’s, and when you pass by the now lifeless and deserted location, the sword wistfully remarks how he doesn’t even recognize it without the foot traffic. Transistor does a great job in the broad narrative strokes, but it becomes something truly special in the little moments along the way that establish the relationship between Red, her lover, and the world they lived in together. The narrator’s confident, sultry tones are a great fit for the dark atmosphere and help ascribe a satisfying level of emotion to events. As Red cuts through Process bots and explores the neon-lit streets of Cloudbank, the sword talks at regular intervals, commenting on enemies and locations and offering up plenty of background information that gradually unravels the ongoing mystery behind the events taking place. Much like how Bastion had a narrator describing events as you progressed through the adventure, Transistor tells its story almost entirely through the voice of Red’s lover, which emanates from the sword she wields. Right from the get-go, Transistor does an utterly fantastic job of setting a sombre and mysterious atmosphere, and it does this largely through its unconventional approach to storytelling. Left with nothing more to lose, Red then sets out on a quest for revenge against the mysterious organization responsible, as well as the strange force of robotic creatures - called ‘The Process’ - that they command. The plot follows the story of Red, a kind-hearted jazz singer who’s lost her voice in the wake of a terrible tragedy which also saw her nameless lover’s soul absorbed into the eponymous Transistor sword. Transistor takes place in the far-future cyberpunk city of Cloudbank, a towering high-tech urban landscape where everything from the architecture to the weather is decided by the people on a day-to-day basis. Amazingly, the company managed to do just that with Transistor, an ARPG in a similar vein to Bastion that not only met the standards of its predecessor but surpassed them in some ways. ![]() It was a tall order, then, for the studio to follow that act with something that could raise the quality bar again it’s tough capturing lightning in a bottle once, let alone twice. Supergiant Games made its name when it released Bastion in 2011, producing an unforgettable RPG with a strong art direction and compelling story that would go on to become an indie classic in later years. ![]()
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