Transistor

Got it because I loved Bastion. If you're like me - lower your expectations, this is no Bastion. It's a great game with nice, innovative mechanics and an engaging story. The events have a lot of depth to them, and the relationship between the two main characters is shown amazingly. And because of the story, I would recommend it. Music is also great, and you get into the mood quite easily. There is one bad feeling that I associate with this game, though - lack of control. You don't get to learn the upgrade menu, you're just thrown at it with no explanation - and it took me the whole playthrough to understand it. There was one cutscene, to carry on with which I had to mash every key on the keyboard, until I gave up and pressed Escape (if I recall correctly). In the training levels you're sometimes given abilities you don't have yet with no explanation of how they work. The fights are dynamic, and one mistake can really hurt after a while - but predicting the exact outcome of your actions isn't at all easy, and the damage estimates sometimes don't work for no clear reason. Don't get me wrong - I really liked the game and recommend buying it, but it has its issues - it's no masterpiece.

granted, I only came to gaming relatively late in my adult life. regardless, I can barely say enough good about it. it does have a few flaws as far as inconsistent tone. you have an elegiac, serious atmosphere, almost a tragic one, and then some silly enemies or music or bit of business throws off the tone. this does not happen often. the flavor text for the character biographies, fails, hard, in that the writer appears to have difficulty with writing prose. so, ironically, the two things which tend to matter to me the most, namely atmosphere and writing, fail, and yet I still love this game. you get the feeling that this world exists (tonal weirdness notwithstanding) and that for the duration of the game. I feel doubly blessed, though, because the game has not had sequels, spin-offs or tie-ins to reduce the novelty of it. your imagination can fill in the gaps. oh, and I forgot to mention the music. best music in any game I have played so far. have I made clear how much I like this game?

Transitior is like two animals mutilated and stitched crudely back together by a foolish game director who insists that it's working and it's what we do and it's what we've always done and it will have twice the appeal of either animal prior to vulgar vivisection. The story for me is what needs to go, or never to have gone in. The combat shines and the mechanics and art combine beautifully. I just wish there was none of the waffle before, during and after action so I could zone out and enjoyed this game as a series of semi-tactical battles and it's gorgeous setting. Oh. Dear.

As other reviewers already noted, game's strong points include beautiful visuals and melancholic songs that creates charming, haunting world. Game is not very long - it took me a bit under 10 hours to finish it first time; however, the neatly done "new game+" mechanics allowed me to play it straight again without making it boring. In the first playthrough story felt a bit rushed and cryptic; however, during the second playthrough I paid more attention to the details - most of the things fell in to the place, and story turned out to be more connected and reasonable than I expected at first. Yes, it might not be the most innovative story, but then again, most of the stories in this world are old, differs only how they are presented. And this one is presented in a painfully beautiful and (IMHO) immersive way. Also this game excels in including LGBT people as a natural part of the world, not some kind of “special case” people. There is this one gay couple presented so naturally I didn't even notice at first. And a lady whose gender happens to be neither M nor F. You notice if you pay attention to details, but overall those are just minor details, because all characters have their interests, professions and stories. Thus, LGBT is handled not as some kind of "token" issue, but as a natural part of the world - the imaginary world provided by Transistor really treats LGBT people as inherently equal. Even it maybe is not done entirely flawlessly, it is still a beautiful perspective and I liked this point of view very much. Of course, it is not how the real world happens right now, but sometimes we need our space to dream. Gameplay-wise 3 things must be noted: 1) interesting combat mechanics with some planning-ahead; 2) in-game possibility to change difficultie via various limiters; 3) new game+ (recursion) comes with harder enemies, new tests, new items, as well as some new/changed text lines (I think). Conslusion: I suggest it for feels, not for long term hardcoredness.

The game has great voice-over, art style, music and combat. There is many different combinations you can come up with in the combat which is very nice. Thou the combat can feel like they want you to be punished at times and loose your most highly cost ability which can make the combat really frustrating depending on how you built your skills. The thing I mean with my interruption of both the story and the combat is how you learn more about the different characters that is involved in the story. They come from the skills and depending on how you use them you learn more about the story. This can become annoying as you have to use them in different ways to learn everything about them all. This is what interrupts the flow of the story and the combat. I wish they would have done this differently.