As soon as you enter the world of Transistor and the city of Cloudbank, you don’t know what has happened, you don’t know what’s going on and there is no exposition or text to tell you about any back story beforehand. You’re flung right into the action; everything is shrouded with a sense of mystery. And that’s a good thing. As you progress through the visually appealing world you begin to learn the lore of Transistor through the game’s main story and accessing OVC Terminals spread about Cloudbank. These factors all attribute to the game grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you in.
As you progress through the story, you play as the protagonist Red who, in essence, acts as more of an Avatar for the player to use. Though some character is built for Red, any connection you really feel with her is through the game’s star, The Transistor. This is because the character of the Transistor feels uncannily human as he talks to Red throughout the game, creating a connection between the player and himself.
However, the reason for the situation you find yourself is initially unclear though quite grim, setting the tone for the whole of the rest of the game. It is all dark, gloomy and full of misery. For such a beautiful looking world, it couldn’t be more desolate as you take on The Process, the game’s main legion, under the control of the Camerata made up of Sybil Reisz, Asher and Grant Kendrell and Royce Bracket. Playing through the game, I couldn’t help but feel the Camerata were created mainly as an excuse for the Process’ and the Transistor’s being in Cloudbank. Apart from the likeable-to-hate villain Royce, the other members of the Camerata do not seem so necessary. Yet, even with this personal pitfall, the Camerata still pull sections of the game together in a way that works as well as giving a great and enjoyable final boss fight, taking advantage of the Transistor’s full capabilities in combat.
The combat is where the game shines brightest as you are thrown into it right at the start of the game. There are two ways to go about this; one being you can fight and activate the Transistor’s functions in the normal flow of battle OR you use the much preferred ability to stop time and plan an attack against the Process with each use of the Transistor’s functions removing turn-use time dependant on its power. In this form of combat you can also gain Backstab damage upon which different functions have different affects upon the enemy when you hit them from behind. As you make progress and level up, you gain more abilities and powers such as Crash, Flood, Breach, Jaunt and Help, being able to hold four of these abilities in a function slot. It gets even better as each of the four abilities hold two additional slots to enhance the abilities of the four functions as well as passive slots to enhance the character of Red in combat too.
Though the story and antagonists are not particularly gripping, they are enough to keep the player interested, and seeing the game gives you an option to recourse back through it to collect what you’ve missed, these won’t hinder your choice to recourse at all. This is due to the fact that they are completely outshined by the combat system and the remarkably human nature of the Transistor sword. These two factors truly make the game an enjoyable experience as you figure out combos with the functions and learn to love the Transistor. It is an original concept dealt well and it would be a shame to miss such a game from your games library.