"Transistor" by Supergiant Games
$20 on PS4 and Steam
Alan Hovorka is a sophomore journalism major and writes the column ‘Relative Value’ for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper or the Daily. Write to Alan at afhovorka@bsu.edu.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
For five minutes, I stared at my computer screen, wondering if “Transistor” had frozen on a first day, game-breaking bug.
As I sighed, I could feel my impatience, frustration and annoyance growing. Naturally, I pressed Ctrl, Alt and Del to open the Task Manager. Those glaring red words “Not Responding” were not there. I Alt-tab’d back in and clicked on the screen by accident. And then it began.
“Hey Red, we aren’t going to get away with this, are we?” the screen asked.
“Transistor,” an action, role-playing game by Supergiant Games, dropped May 20.
Almost everything in the game is a spoiler. Every little detail in the game contributes in telling the story of the characters, even the soundtrack, and the game doesn’t hold your hand.
You have to pick up the pieces of the story as you go, anywhere and any way you can.
But, here is what I can tell you.
You play as Red, a renowned singer in the Utopian cyberpunk city of Cloudbank. A group of four people have made an attempt on the player’s life — you have to get to them before they get to you.
And luckily, you’re not alone as Red. The player possesses a weapon called the Transistor.
This weapon acts as the main speaking character, whereas Red is a different spin on the silent protagonist.
I found myself deeply relating to Red, even though the gist of her interactions was humming, nods and facial expressions. I shared her sorrow and joy.
It’s been a long time since a silent protagonist made me feel that way. And the way Supergiant Games develops her throughout the game was almost mind-blowing, mostly through her interactions with the breathtaking environment.
Cloudbank is reminiscent of the cities in the “Matrix,” “Blade Runner” or “Tron” with its stylistic traits of cyberpunk and its ever-changing landscape. What’s even more interesting is there are no traditional cutscenes in the game. The developers chose to use concept art with animated elements.
The city and these cutscenes help form the game’s identity through these styles and the hues of red, blue, green, orange and gold. And lens flare, plenty of lens flare, done tastefully.
In all, the game’s aesthetics are captivating and give the environment a sense of vibrancy and life. It makes the experience complete in a way and enjoyable, never tiring.
As far as the mechanics and gameplay go, they were fairly flawless. The leveling system didn’t feel at all like a grind and actually told part of the story.
The player’s abilities, called Functions, can be combined in a variety of ways to create effects and work to keep the combat fresh. There’s always a new way to do better in combat if you fiddle around with them.
There are no levels of difficulty, so the game scales with you. If that sounds too easy or casual, don’t worry. There are ways of modifying the game to be harder, which is called Limiters.
Overall, Supergiant Games crafted a memorable story that is intelligent and subtle. At its core, the story is about people facing the end of their world. What makes it special is a lot of the details surrounding the story are open to interpretation, and the story becomes existential toward the end.
And for that reason, I still don’t know what I exactly played. I can say it’s a science-fiction, role-playing game. Anymore than that, and I’m at a loss.
I don’t know what the characters are. It’s possible they are humans in a faraway, heavily digitalized future, but it’s equally as possible that they’re something else entirely.
I didn’t know if the ending was going to be happy or not until the last minute of the game. There were so many questions and few answers, but it wasn’t annoying.
Some questions in stories, and in life, don’t deserve answers or need them. It ruins the experience, and this is one I am glad to have had for $20.
If you like games driven by stories, personal stories or simply love science-fiction, cyberpunk and role-playing games, I recommend this. You can download it for PS4 or on Steam.
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