Zero Punctuation: Transistor - Like Bastion But...

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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Was that will.i.am when the word "creative" was uttered? 'cause it certainly made me laugh. Also I think the description is broken, it's the same as last week's description.
 

C14N

New member
May 28, 2008
250
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Oh no, not another joke about trans-gendered people. Looks like the description is a little off too, I don't think this game was published in 1995.

I keep being interested in this game and checking it out on Steam but that combat system that Yahtzee brings up is the thing that keeps driving me away again.
 

Zydrate

New member
Apr 1, 2009
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"Forced myself to play over the last half hour".

That's exactly my problem. I played for 23 minutes before the information overload finally clicked with my brain with a big message saying, "I'm not having any fun". His explanation to all the "function" nonsense is also part of it. The information is rapidfire and I didn't have any TIME to learn any of the mechanics. Then I kept dieing against the second Jerk unit because despite the game "teaching" me something literally minutes ago, it was too quick and leaked out of my head.

I'm too scared to give it a second go. But 20 minutes for 30$ is not a good play-to-cost ratio.
 

castlewise

Lord Fancypants
Jul 18, 2010
620
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I thought Switch() was useless until I realized that the Cheerleaders would make *you* invincible if you use it on them. Then the game broke.

I think Jim Sterling had the right take. Its a fun game (and I quite liked it) but its not as deep or clever as it wants to be and tries to cover things up by being confusing.
 

Jandau

Smug Platypus
Dec 19, 2008
5,034
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Huh, Yahtzee confirmed and validated my opinion. I feel strangely content and fulfilled... :p

Seriously, though, I didn't get into Transistor. I loved Bastion and was all set to love Transistor, but the whole game felt like the developers weren't quite sure what they did right with Bastion, but would really like to do it again, so they stumble around, trying to mimic the previous game while not being the same. And it kinda doesn't work...

Everything is just so needlessly vague and feels like it's trying waaay too hard to be artsy. The setting, the story, the writing, etc. It all felt so insubstantial and pointless. Verbose when they should be to the point, uninformative when information is required. The sad thing is, the underlying ideas and setting are pretty cool, but the way they're presented feels pretentious and needlessly obfuscated. The problem isn't what they're trying to say, it's HOW they are saying it (or not saying it).

As for the gameplay, there really is only one aspect of it, the combat. Ok, preparing for combat would be a second aspect. And both of those are good ideas with poor execution. The combat feels clunky, unresponsive, imprecise and just plain isn't fun. The setting up of custom built abilities is a good concept, but the results are too unpredictable and vague and I just couldn't enjoy any of it.

I was a few hours into the game before I realized I wasn't having fun. But I wanted to, I really did, it's just that the game tried too hard, failed to get there and I couldn't help but feel embarrassed for it...
 

Namechangeday

New member
Aug 13, 2012
145
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CrankyStorming said:
Something tells me this isn't a HAL-developed SNES game from 1995 as the video description suggests.
I think this game is secretly a unreleased HAL-developed game. [insert conspiracy here].
Either that or the video description has been eating to much copy-pasta. I mean, look at all that pasta at the end ofthe video!
 

Malbourne

Ari!
Sep 4, 2013
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It's too bad that much of the gameplay could have been better served by lengthier pacing, but then I suppose the story itself would have felt a bit more taut. I'm glad that Supergiant played on their strengths by making background story an incentive for experimenting with the different abilities and playstyles.

In media res iz nize for immediate engagement in a story, but it's not so forgiving when it comes to tutoring. Given all that, though, the save arena was a good break from fighting and provided a fun locale for practice or relaxation.
 

Sigmund Av Volsung

Hella noided
Dec 11, 2009
2,999
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I liked it beginning to end and I found the combat of a sufficient enough depth that the end result was satisfying.

Put it shortly: I loved it, up in top list of games of the year so far.
 

MowDownJoe

New member
Apr 8, 2009
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It's definitely a divisive game. I enjoyed it and going through Recursion mode a second time, but the fact that Red is mute for the whole game made it kind of hard to get a bead of her character. Especially why
she kills herself in the end
. Like... that came out of left field. The only time we get any idea of what kind of person she is comes when she's commenting on news posts. "I need to warn people about the Camarata and the process... wait, no, that makes me sound like a nutjob. I'd sink my career."

But yeah, I was groaning at the programming puns after "The Empty Set". Like... did the final boss need to have the name "Bracket"? Really, game?
 

scw55

New member
Nov 18, 2009
1,185
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Transistor is strange. It's a "short game", that I could only play an hour at a time.
The projected combat was kinda annoying sometimes. Like those Young Ladies that would phase if hit once, meaning once you realised, you had to shove in a large strike.

In one or the final encounter, I didn't enjoy my single skill combo (which my build was based around), was disabled because I was like what is going on?!

Loved the game. Great conclusion. It's different from Bastion yet has similarities.
 

Yahtzee Croshaw

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Aug 8, 2007
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Hmm, oddly I liked transistor a fair bit more than I liked Bastion, but I can't really say why, both have a similar tone, and as noted, a pretty similar structure. I simply enjoyed the flexibility of combat I guess ( although I did find a few combinations that completely broke the game, even in NG++).

About the nebulousness of the story, I very much liked the sense of digital sci-fi melancholy that it had. Like recovering files from a corrupted hard drive of sorts, and piecing together what used to be there... like some sci-fi archaeologist.
 

hawk533

New member
Dec 17, 2009
143
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Well, this review basically served to remind me that I really need to go back and play Bastion since I bought it a year ago and just never started it. I'm glad to hear that I can give the spiritual successor a pass at least.
 

NuclearKangaroo

New member
Feb 7, 2014
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hey i didnt know this game involved programming, im a programmer, i love programming! im a walking programmer stereotype
 

Karavision

New member
Oct 13, 2011
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Please stop fucking referencing transpeople. I am trans, you are not offending me in the slightest and I do not believe that you have anything against us.

But, it is clear that you have a very 1995 understanding of who we are and all this does is start that goddamn tumblr wardrum that will make it a pain in the ass to browse /v/ for the next month just like last time with the Papers Please shit.

And before you guys jump on me and scream censorship; I am against anyone forcing him to change anything that he wishes to say. I am just asking him to consider that 4 people have been killed over their identities and gender expression in the last 30 days. It is not his fault or his problem or his responsibility to make us feel "ok" but I would be eternally grateful if he simply forgot that we exist, at this point..