My childhood favorite, so much warm memories. But 9 euros for 15 year old game, which can be beaten in a day or so? Feels like someone is trying to take an unfair advantage on my sentimentality.
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.
This game pleasantly suprised me. Instead of your average "collect various things, interact with them on other things" this game focuses on deductive process of the crime-solving, and does it (in my opinion) very well. It is done very Puaroit-style - you observe people and endviroments, you draw conclusions from obtained clues, and sometimes just watch in the mirror twisting your moustache :) Added nice visuals and pleasant music, it is overall great experience. I would really like if Microids/Anuman made similar games of other Puaroit novels. Cons: controls during "little gray cells" scenes sometimes were annoyingly clunky. However, it might be because I use trackpoint, not the usual standalone mouse.
This is the revamped edition of the game that is one of childhood favorites. It is funny, colorfull and the music is sweet, lovable earworm. With today's eyes I see that it is rather short, and with some trial/error puzzles it is rather annoying that you can't skip the failure animation. Also that revamped Comic Sans sometimes seems a bit too contemporary for such an old feeling game. Today I also see that the amazing, witty humor is highly soviet/postsoviet specific, so if you are from completely other corner of the world you might find it confusing. However for people from this part of the world this is the much loved recognition that there were such times and we had to live there. If you do understand Russian, I suggest to play the Russian version over the English. No, not because English version were poorly done (it is actually good!), but there are some things hard to translate and Russian fits the atmosphere better, and, well this ir Russian game. Very russian game.
