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Transistor Review
Like Bastion - the previous creation from the inappropriately tiny Supergiant Games studio - Transistor is an impressive feat of storytelling above everything else. Set in a bizarre, off-kilter future, the game tells the strange tale of a singer named Red who has lost her voice in the city of Cloudbank; a city seemingly (at first) on the brink of a war of some kind. The plot is unveiled through minor interactions with the environment and near-ceaseless commentary from the gigantic sword that you're wielding, which may or may not be possessed by the soul of one of Red's former lovers.
Like Bastion this is an isometric action RPG animated in a hugely inviting hand-drawn style… but this is an immeasurably more complex proposition than the earlier game. Ostensibly an instantly recognisable brawler of sorts - with various different commands mapped to the PS4's four face buttons - Transistor steadily brings so much depth to the party that the game you finish isn't anything like the game you begin. Firstly, fights allow you to pause time and turn combat into a turn-based affair that can be (if you're very clever with how you shape your skill tree) almost entirely one-sided.
Unfortunately the game is prone to that same annoying trait that befalls too much sci-fi software and literature - too much sci-fi anything, really - in that it's overtly fond of deliberately evasive language. You have to learn so many unusual words (and remember precisely what they mean) in such a short space of time, that younger gamers in particular are likely to be completely flummoxed by it at first. When the completely malleable nature of the labyrinthine skill tree - which is completely baffling initially - is revealed, it's difficult not to feel impossibly intimidated by it.
You can use weapons passively, aggressively or use them to buff other elements of your inventory, and you can use special Limiters (which lie on a completely separate upgrade tree) to make the gameplay even more taxing for yourself. There are so, so many variables to tinker with that it's tempting at first to find a workable load out and just stick with it; but Transistor thrives on your desire to experiment with it. You can plough through the entire game with the skills that you're initially given if you like - and you can even pretty much ignore the R2-triggered slow-motion skill - but you'll be missing out on what makes the game so special.
Discovering (and remembering) what a Purge is and what a Void can do for you is what makes the experience so rewarding, and that process of discovering which combinations work best for you has arguably never been done better than this. Transistor a unusually short game that demands a great deal of patience, but not only does that patience pay off handsomely, despite an inevitably downbeat finale, there's more replay value here than you can shake a spark plug at. Supergiant has - with apparent effortlessness - gone two-for-two, and Transistor (on both PC and PS4) is more or less unmissable.
9/10
Review By Chet Roivas
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