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Transistor - sci-fi action-RPG from the makers of Bastion

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
Does anyone else find calling a fucking sword "transistor" just deeply embarrassing?
It can join "Irving" (yes, really) on the list of embarrassing sword names.

Even then, AN Irving would be perfectly reasonable, especially if (the) Irving(s) was a character in his their own right and not just a background detail. Transistor is just stupid.
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Let me guess...

They love it because it pretends to have depth in the story, is easy enough it doesn't offend their ego(s), and has a slick presentation.

Edit:

Professionally she’s a singer, but that’s not her identity. She is action. She is fury. She is silence. The only thing left when everyone else is long gone.
Dohohoho. Grayson never fails to disappoint.
 

Decado

Old time handsome face wrecker
Patron
Joined
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Messages
2,544
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San Diego
Codex 2014
Let me guess...

They love it because it pretends to have depth in the story, is easy enough it doesn't offend their ego(s), and has a slick presentation.

Edit:

Professionally she’s a singer, but that’s not her identity. She is action. She is fury. She is silence. The only thing left when everyone else is long gone.
Dohohoho. Grayson never fails to disappoint.

Pretty much. His writing oozes his desperate need to puff up his feminist cred, and also get laid. I love this hilarious/pathetic gem:

I could write multiple articles dedicated to how Red and Transistor’s interactions are handled. I won’t, though. I’ll let you go discover that. We can talk about it again later, and be all like, “And then that one part…! And he said… I KNOW, RIGHT.” We will do this while sitting on a bed and consuming ice cream. Mandatory ice cream. Those are my terms.

He just wants to sit on the bed and talk. Probably while wearing his Pooh Bear pajamas and watching Mean Girls.
 

SuicideBunny

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
8,943
Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
is easy enough it doesn't offend their ego(s)
not that easy, or my twitch skills suck... plus you get to unlock and use limiters as you level up, which have adverse effects on combat but give you quicker lvl up, which in turn gives you way more things to play with. the whole powers system is pretty damn neat.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,375
Let me guess...

They love it because it pretends to have depth in the story, is easy enough it doesn't offend their ego(s), and has a slick presentation.

Edit:

Professionally she’s a singer, but that’s not her identity. She is action. She is fury. She is silence. The only thing left when everyone else is long gone.
Dohohoho. Grayson never fails to disappoint.

Pretty much. His writing oozes his desperate need to puff up his feminist cred, and also get laid. I love this hilarious/pathetic gem:

I could write multiple articles dedicated to how Red and Transistor’s interactions are handled. I won’t, though. I’ll let you go discover that. We can talk about it again later, and be all like, “And then that one part…! And he said… I KNOW, RIGHT.” We will do this while sitting on a bed and consuming ice cream. Mandatory ice cream. Those are my terms.

He just wants to sit on the bed and talk. Probably while wearing his Pooh Bear pajamas and watching Mean Girls.

Dear fucking lord, that's incredibly awkward to read, even at a distance and quoted. I really wonder what the average normal friends he inevitably has in real life think of this sort of thing.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
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DiNMRK
Power system is neat.
Having powers work differently depending on whether they're in a primary, augment or passive slot was a really good idea. There's a lot of interesting combos you can pull off. Experimenting with this was the high point of the game for me. Other games should blatantly steal this mechanic.

Combat is 'k, but way too easy.
The stop/go freeze time mechanic is cool. You get to pull off some sily combos at the cost of being unable to use any powers for a while after until it recharges. Unfortunately, combat is also way too easy. There's a dash move you get basically right at the start that's ridiculously spammable. And it works while in cooldown after a freeze time as well. So essentially you dash all over the place to avoid damage until you can freeze time. Then you combo enemies and dash away again. repeat untll success. I've got all the limiters I've unlocked active and I've still to die. Also, if you "die", one of your powers gets locked until you've completed a number of encounters. but nothing stops you from swapping in another power in its place.
There's a decent variety of enemies. But they aren't used as creatively as they could be. The "backdoor" challenge chambers with forced power setups and enemy layouts are the most interesting combat encounters.

Graphics are 'k.
Lots of bloom is a little annoying. But the art direction is pleasant aside from the silly oversized sword the main character is dragging around.

Music is nice.
I'm digging it. It's pleasant to listen to and doesn't try too hard to steal your attention away from the gameplay.

Level design is shite.
Basically a linear corridor where enemies sometimes spawn. There is no exploration to speak of. Just a few clickables you can click to get monologues from the narrator.

Narrator is awful.
Just like bastion, but even more full of himself. And he never. Shuts. The. Fuck. Up.

Story is meh.
Not nearly as clever as the devs think it is.


:4/5::0/5:

'K for an afternoon or so, but quickly wears out its welcome.
If they turned up the difficulty of the combat, had some better level design and a way to toggle off the narrator, I'd give it an extra troll head or two.
 
Last edited:

MicoSelva

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TotalBiscuit, predictably, loves the living shit out of this game.

The skill system looks very interesting IMO.

If they turned up the difficulty of the combat, had some better level design and a way to toggle off the narrator, I'd give it an extra troll head or two.

It seems you can tweak the difficulty to your liking by switching various features (called Process Limiters) on and off, it is described in TB's video at 13:20.

EDIT: reviews seem to praise it to heaven, except some guy named Tom Chick who gave the game 2/5 .
 
Last edited:

Scroo

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Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Of course critics are praising it into heaven, it's artsy after all. No one wants to actually admit that a fine piece of art praised by everyone is actually pretty mediocre since if you do so you just have no idea.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

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I'm running with all the process limiters I have unlocked like I wrote in my last post. :P
If they gave the dash skill a 5-second cooldown, it'd be fine. As it is, I can dash about once every second. Heap augments on top of that, such as the ones that stealth me and/or leave decoys behind. I'm not a good twitch game player by any measure, and I'm finding the game laughably easy.

Even the encounters where I don't have dash equipped aren't that difficult. They just take a little more time to do, since you're reserving some of your freeze time action to run away.


It is a shame, because the powers you get to play with are actually really interesting. And there is a fairly big variety of enemies. With some balance tweaks and better encounter design the game could've been really good.

As it is, it's a super-casual hack n slash with a retardedly shallow "story", pretty graphics, chill axing music and a hipster narrator that makes "game journalists" jizz themselves.

My recommendation is pick it up for a dorra in a bundle in 6 months.
 
Last edited:

nil

Cipher
Joined
Jan 1, 2012
Messages
317
OK, I just beat the spine boss and I give up. I pretty much hate it.

Gameplay: There is walking and combat. Walking is "walk, click on thing, listen, keep walking". There is nothing to find except "story".
The combat is... I have no idea how they came up with this. If there were elements, statuses and skill combos, it could work. As it is, you pause, spam the one skill that ends up doing the most damage, run around like a headless chicken while you wait for pause to recharge and repeat.
Though the skill system itself really is neat and gives you a lot of customizability.

Story: Oh fuck. It's one of those games that thinks the less it let's you know, the smarter it is. Everything is PROGRAMMS!!!. Skills have ()-s after their names 'cuz FUNCTIONS!! I don't even know what the main character is trying to do. I think it could be called pretentious.
The sword talks with the voice of the narrator from bastion just because he is the voice of the narrator from bastion. And he really never does shut up.

Note that I'm pretty pissed, so this is hardly an objective opinion, and it might change later, but fuck.
(Also, I loved Bastion)
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

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Well, you do more damage if you use different skills for combos, so there's that.
At the moment, my freeze time combo (I refuse to call it 'Turn()') is:

Dash through enemy with +damage augment to get behind them.
Melee (that stun attack you have at the start) with +backstabbing augment to lower armor
Walk to line up additional enemies
The linenblast thing you start with for combo damage, try to hit 2-3 enemies. Iirc it has bounce as augment.
Dash through enemy and into cover
 

TheLostOne

Savant
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
770
Location
Limbo
It's a fun game, but not enough of a game to be worth $20. I like the art, music and ability customization. Story and gameplay are meh. Combat isn't bad, but not good enough to carry the game. (Un)fortunately the game's short enough that I finished it before I got too sick of the mechanics.

I liked it, but I would have been happier getting it on a steam sale a year from now.
 

AlexOfSpades

Arcane
Joined
Aug 19, 2013
Messages
494

Lastly, it’s worth pointing out that a single playthrough of Transistor won’t take you long. My first run clocked in at around six hours, and I completed most challenges and unlocked every character profile. That said, I feel like it was a good length given that I actually like short games.

What. The Actual. FUCK. "Being short" is a good thing now?

The trailer captivated me, i like the song and the art style is cool. The gameplay seems lacking though. I'll pick it up when it's on sale.
 

Trash

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Dec 12, 2002
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I love how utterly fucking pretentious that RPS review is. Makes one wonder if the person writing it does it on purpose or really has no clue how pedantic and sad they sound.

Then I read the comments and get even more merriment from people actually calling the mechanics from Bastion 'deep' and hard to understand. God, I love that site for their updates and news on stuff I wouldn't hear about otherwise. I hate it for their tone, their fanbase and their fucking inability to actually know shit about games.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

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Like I already said, the high point is the skill system. If another—better—game stole it I would be a happy camper. Fiddling around with various combos to find what works appeals to my inner CCG nerd. And making every skill either a main skill, an upgrade for a skill or a passive does lead to some interesting decisions on where to slot them.

People who are willing to ignore the story and like messing about with loadouts will find some entertainment here. Not €20 worth, but some. Get it for a buck in a bundle in 6 months, or see your favourite source of quasilegal filesharing.

Still. The music is nice:
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I love how utterly fucking pretentious that RPS review is. Makes one wonder if the person writing it does it on purpose or really has no clue how pedantic and sad they sound.

Then I read the comments and get even more merriment from people actually calling the mechanics from Bastion 'deep' and hard to understand. God, I love that site for their updates and news on stuff I wouldn't hear about otherwise. I hate it for their tone, their fanbase and their fucking inability to actually know shit about games.
Nathan Grayson is the personification of pretension.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
OK, I just beat the spine boss and I give up. I pretty much hate it.

Gameplay: There is walking and combat. Walking is "walk, click on thing, listen, keep walking". There is nothing to find except "story".
The combat is... I have no idea how they came up with this. If there were elements, statuses and skill combos, it could work. As it is, you pause, spam the one skill that ends up doing the most damage, run around like a headless chicken while you wait for pause to recharge and repeat.
Though the skill system itself really is neat and gives you a lot of customizability.

Story: Oh fuck. It's one of those games that thinks the less it let's you know, the smarter it is. Everything is PROGRAMMS!!!. Skills have ()-s after their names 'cuz FUNCTIONS!! I don't even know what the main character is trying to do. I think it could be called pretentious.
The sword talks with the voice of the narrator from bastion just because he is the voice of the narrator from bastion. And he really never does shut up.

Note that I'm pretty pissed, so this is hardly an objective opinion, and it might change later, but fuck.
(Also, I loved Bastion)
It seems the devs could use a few...

:troll:

...pointers.
:yeah:
 

Renegen

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
4,062
Lol that music link got hit on copyright grounds by LIBERAL HIPSTER AVANT GARDE INDIE DEVELOPER.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
I haven't played this but I did finally get around to playing Bastion and imo it's nowhere near the level of Obsidian's Dungeon Siege III when it comes to gameplay but it's so much better when it comes to graphics, music, storytelling, art direction, and camera (fixed perspective ftw) that I can see why it was praised to the heavenzzzzzzzzz while Obs was blasted to hell (price and its expectations also likely played a factor).

So I'm not surprised Transistor is once again more style over substance. I'll still check it out when it's discounted though, I love style. :cool:
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Did someone steal Roguey's account? Praising Bastion, Dungeon Siege 3, and World of Goo?
 

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