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[Skyrunner]

in Circles and _n C_rcl_s at the same time
I made it a Youtube video.

Best with In Circles at a lower volume than _n C_rcl_s. It's a pretty strange effect.

[quinnr]

Slight spoilers in this post.

So, I picked this up on a whim. I was replaying Bastion the other day and realized I still hadn't played Transistor yet. I don't really know, I liked the game a lot as a whole. But Bastion set a very high bar for it, and I don't think it quite met it. The combat system was...well, it was amazing actually. I had a bunch of fun figuring out how to set up interesting combos. It wasn't difficult, the only time I died was on the last boss, and that was because I took some things not suited to the fight. On my second try I beat it without losing a single function. But I suppose it could be fun playing with more limiters. Combat also gets quite repetetative with few types of enemies to face. The creatures in Bastion each had a backstory, and personality. The Process, as the story goes, is quite impersonal and robotic. It made me a bit sad.

My main issue, though, is how linear the story is. Bastion had a few places where you could make choices. While playing Transitor, it feels like there are portions of the game where these decisions were meant to be. You get an option to stare at a poster for longer, or look away, but the game eventually makes you look away anyways. The two spots near the end I felt this the most though.

Spoiler: Major End-game Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Particularly, when Red is about to place Transistor into the thingie, and when Red revives Ruck's body and kills herself. I really was expecting an option to let the city go to hell or rebuild or something.

However, all of these comments comparing the game to Bastion aren't really fair. It is a different game, it's just that I went in with those expectations in my mind. It is a great game and the story was wonderful. I'll probably play the New Game+ at least once just to try out some limiters and complete the not-super-challenging (at least the few I did) challenge levels. Recommend for sure.

Edit: Oh, I also have to replay to redo that one meaningful choice in the game!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

WHAT FLAVOR OF FLATBREAD?
There better be different lines for all of them. D:

Seriously though, I made absolute certain not to miss a terminal in case they had something important, but I guess it wasn't really necessary :S At least till the Camerata make their appearance.

[i2amroy]

Spoiler: meaningful choice (click to show/hide)

IIRC the weather choice near the end also has an effect on the game visually.

Spoiler: End game stuff (click to show/hide)

I always got the feeling that even though the city was destroyed there were still survivors who had managed to flee before the city was completely converted (as implied by some of the news reports). I'd guess that eventually someone would wander back into the city, find the transistor, and then recreate the city however they wanted to.

Also I'm a big fan of doing jaunt() boosted with jaunt()+breach(), with the other breach() as one of my passive skills. You can just turn(), dash like 25 times, then turn() again in another few seconds since you recovered so much in the first one. Recently I've been trying out another playthrough with a non-turn() focused build, it's definitely a very different feeling.

[BurnedToast]

I am very interested in discovering how the game's sales are.

Mostly because the industry says this game must fail... but I think that is bollox.

Ohh trust me Skyrunner the reason is dumb as heck. I'll tell you the second this game succeeds.

I will say one image is a bit odd given that she runs this guy through... but her sword doesn't penetrate him. I swear it is longer then that image suggests.

Well, the game might not have been a massive success like bastion, but with good reviews and decent sales I think you could say it was "successful" at least.

So what was the secret reason the game was going to fail?

[puke]

Finally picked this up and played through.  Really enjoyed the combat mechanics and options.  I liked the story telling, it seemed clear to me what was going on.  That is, the slow reveal through the various character back-stories had the pacing about right and I was figuring things out at what seemed like a narratively appropriate rate.

Some of it was diluted by all the characters who were not relevant to the plot, whos back-stories you uncovered.  Mainly they existed to give context to the various functions you unlocked, but I suppose they also created more of a sense of a living (or, once living) world.

Whoever said that the characters were not confused must have missed the narration during the M. C. Escher levels.  And actually, the narrator seems pretty confused most of the time -- even though the protagonist seems to act with certainty and purpose.  I think this works well.  You come into the story in-media-res, Red is acting with purpose and drive, but you dont quite know what fuels it or why until about half way through.

I agree with the complaints that the game lacks agency.  Bastions mid-game choices were artificial ones, you could either do the side levels or not.  The weapon trial levels were fairly optional, but if you didnt do all the hooka hits and eat all the stew, then you didn't get all the backstory and the end game reveals probably would have sucked.  But Bastion did have a major end-game choice, and this did give you some agency after a very linear game.

Transistor lacked any kind of end game choice.  There were two points where there could have been one, and both times I was very much against the direction it went.

The more I think about it though, the less upsetting it is.  Initially, I might have been upset that a strong female protagonist was showing such a blatant sign of weakness and dependency... but that might just be a modern reaction based on the media-climate of the moment.

Being an urban person through and through, I have to sympathize that

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

even if you could recreate all your favorite places, "Junction Jan's, or all the drinking placed down on the canal" that it would be empty and meaningless without the people.  And since it was clearly a virtual world, isnt the reasonable thing to go where at least a few people are?  Or the one you care about?  Frankly, I think the idea of moving to a subsistence farm and never seeing another living person besides my wife sounds pretty awful, and I'd probably off myself if it came to that -- but I wouldn't want to walk around a dead city with nothing but the voices of ghosts to keep my company either.

But to the ACTUAL choice in the game, forget if each one comes with text, does each one come with its own cinematic still?  I saw her eating a picture of the actual flatbread that I ordered, and I want to know if that is customized for each choice!