Some people have said that this is the Citizen Kane of videogames. In reality, its enigmatic nature makes it closer to the Lighthouse of videogames. That is, if The Lighthouse had blade saws and zombies and gunboats and building an antlion army and a trashcan and a soda can. Needless to say, this is awesome. The only times I got frustrated were when I was stuck in the mentality of "kill every enemy you face," which obviously won't work in some chapters. Every chapter is uniquely brilliant, and the story is very compelling. Overall, a fine addition to my collection of favorite games.

But minus half a star for not having any music during the final fight.

Honestly it feels great when a hyped up game manages to live up to your expectations and even overdelievers

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope is a really great Indie 2D Platformer made by former Wayforward employees called Yacht Club Games, after a successful Kickstarter, this game was graced to the many consoles it's on. Shovel Knight I feel not only does exactly what it sets out to do (I.E being a modern styled NES Platformer) but is one of the best 2D Platformers I've ever played.

The game takes a lot of inspiration from the world/level structure from Mega Man and Super Mario Bros 3 along with movement from Ducktales while standing on its own and being better than all 3 of these inspirations. Shovel Knight's level design is great as it feels pretty challenging and fair while using Shovel Knight's simple, tight and fun movement as you traverse these mystically 8 levels with many enemies and unique landscapes as this game will test all of your platforming skills ending with some gruelling yet fair boss fights (apart from Propeller Knight he sucks)

While it's reminiscent of a late 80's NES Game, the game isn't stuck in the past unlike say Sonic Mania, Mega Man 9 or 10, which are the pinnacle of the series (not Sonic Mania lol) but admittedly don't advance the series in any way at all. Shovel Knight obviously isn't a part of the series but does this for these types of platformers in general, many tropes in this game are either gone or completely subverted.

Most notably, lives are gone and the punishment is losing at a maximum of 3 Bags of the Treasure. I'm not gonna talk about whether or not lives belong in games or not since it depends on the game, but it works in its favour like Super Mario Odyssey which shamelessly stole this system. You don't need to get the Treasure but you probably want to, since you need them for buying shovel/Health/Armour/Magic upgrades or relics, optional items which can be bought by a vendor. These are pretty hit and mis. and one of the only major issue with the game, on one hand they can provide a nice little game changer such as the Mobile Gear, Phase Locket and Propeller but most of them come of sort and are very situational. Another issue is that i kinda feel there needed to be a bit more enemy variety and how you approach them since a lot of the encounters feel really one note.

Shovel Knight also adds a few other new ideas that makes it really feel like a great follow up to this enjoyable while dated era of games, such as digging stuff with your shovel, collecting music notes which can unlock music to be played in the Hub World earned by doing a challenge in the stage, along with the World Map system that's sorta a mix between Mega Man & Basa of all games and Super Mario Bros 3 where you unlock multiple boss stages at once, this allows for a good amount of choice/replayability while also increasing the challenge significantly, You've also got 3 Hub Worlds (4 with an exclusive Streetpass Arena from the 3DS) which allow you to talk to NPCs and upgrade your equipment, finally similar to Super Mario Bros 3 you've got optional Boss fights with characters such as Solar Strike or Black Knight which are harder than the main bosses but give you a lot of treasure, There's even a neat risk reward system with the Checkpoints where you can break them to gain a Gem but you can't spawn there anymore.

One last thing that Shovel Knight excels at is its presentation and surprisingly the story. The game has this really charming 2D Pixel art that doesn't hold back with a colour palette that's not limited by Console limitations and with great animation , along with great designs for the main knights and even with the unique side characters. The music is also pretty great and memorable, i find music that's trying to element an older soundfont doesn't sound that great in my opinion but here the soundtrack uses the limited soundfont to produce some amazing themes. But lastly, the story isn't anything amazing but it's surprisingly in depth, it follows Shovel Knight going on one last adventure after finding out the Enchantress has gathered 7 Knights to take over the land it has a lot of charming dialogue with the main theme of what it means to be a Knight/Adventurer and without delving into spoilers, there's a lot of moments where there's a good amount of character development/moments, it's not super in-depth but it's definitely admirable that the game wants to develop it's world and characters such as every boss having a Mega Man Powered Up of Boss Preludes.

So overall Shovel Knight is a great 2D Platformer that isn't a major game changer but definitely shakes up a lot of NES Platforming tropes making it probably better than any of the games it's taking inspiration from so I'll give it a good recommend if you haven't played it already, if this is how good the first game is then i hope the DLC can uphold or even surpass this game.

To me, the original Plants vs. Zombies is still one of the best tower defense games I have ever played. Mostly due to nostalgia, yesss...but great nonetheless. Plant variety is great, the game is humorous and the soundtrack will forever hold a place in my heart. The minigames are definitely the strong suit of this game, with a lot of fun and fresh ideas that provide a nice challenge in between other levels. After 100%-ing it, I can definitely say that the game drags on a little too much after a while. However, when taking breaks, it had me coming back to it.

One tip for people who want to get the "Better off dead" achievement: play to the second wave every try, because you might get a level filled with only sunflowers and long-ranged shrooms. This made it a lot easier ;)

Will never understand why I gave some my favourite games of all time some pretty underwhelming quick looks, so I'm gonna be doing some rereviews of some of my first few reviews on this site, mainly this one since I finished Going Commando so I need some ground to base on why I didn't love Going Commando as much as this game, speaking of.

Yeah I really like Ratchet and Clank, yes I know it's pretty jank, yes I know the controls don't feel that good when playing plus the lack of strafing hurts this game age, yes Ratchet's is a near irredeemable asshole in most of the middle act of the game and yes, The Boob Easter egg is is cool but like, this game is brilliant, obviously it has many flaws but I'm willing to forgive them for reasons I'll get into later.

Development wise, Insominac made a trilogy of great Platformers, Spyro The Dragon and Disruptor, after Year of the Dragon, they lost the rights to Universal, which was a blessing in disguise since they didn't really have much ideas for the Purple Dragon, I mean don't get me wrong, Spyro 3 is a great especially in Reignited where the extra playable characters are actually fun to play as but you can definitely tell they're were lossing ideas fast, so they were making a new ambitious next generation game, that's not Ratchet & Clank, you see originally they're making a game called I5/Girl with a Stick, while Sony liked the game, Ted Price and most of Insomniac weren't that happy with the game so scrapped it in favour of a action packed space adventure using the wacky weapons of Disruptor and the collectahon aspects of Spyro along with more Zelda akin puzzle solving and exploration to the dismay of Sony, which meant they had a short amount of time to develop the game, despite all the odds against them when doing a few playtests the game received much praise which would continue on to the release though was heavily criticised for things that I'll get into later.

So this why I'm more forgiving of the game's flaws then most people, this franchise has probably the most fucked development cycle out of most other franchises until now and while this one is more tame it's a miracle how this game had such a quick development cycle and managed to become some what unscathed, though the cracks will show at points like with the HUD having some miscolored text, some glitches during a normal playthrough (which is not the case in terms of Speedruning) and some odd gameplay omissions.

The story and writing of this game is pretty decent though there's one fatal flaw that dampers the entire story, the Year is 5354, there's this little mechanic guy called Ratchet who is lombax (a weird lion monkey thing) who wants to explore the galaxy but is stuck on a shitty mud planet, Veldin, he gets his chance when he meets Clank, a defect from the Main Villain, Chairman Drek who wants to create his own planet from using other planets, so the duo decide to have an agreement after realising they can both have their goals fulfilled, essentially it's just the phrase "help me help you". While it sounds straightforward, the journey is far from that throughout each planet you meet a variety of characters from robots, humanoids and a plethora of unique aliens and anthro characters, while I could list my favourite characters there's just too many to choose from as lazy as that may sounds, but if I had to choose my favourite interactions, just anyone from Qforce in Up Your Arsenal lol and the Plumber ig he's pretty funny (but while we're here let's savour the time he isn't used as an almighty demigod), but every single one of them depsite their short time show a lot of personality in terms of their writing and voice acting, most of their purposes revolve around the paywalls and to serve as natural exposition for the world (and for insufficient padidng) which they do pretty well explaining the political and commercial satire of the world in a funny and fresh way, but the main characters are written well for the most part until the first boss with Qwark, Ratchet's characters gets so insufferable inFamously annoying too Clank, I kinda dig his character initially and the dynamic between Clank, he's not so willing to be a Hero unlike the 2016 game where he's a wide eyed naive nerdy scout, he's also just done with everyone's shit possibly due too his secluded nature, like the Mayor of Novalis, talking badly about his idol, Qwark and the other character interactions, this only becomes a problem after the 2nd Boss, his attuide until the last few levels isn't very fun to watch, while the set up is there better than most media with this, the execution is not very good. I don't mind it when Clank spouts back at Ratchet but when the dude is just minding his own business, it's just insufferable to see him do it, i feel like there should have been at least another incident a little bit after the Qwark Boss that sets Ratchet fully into dick mode, along with more clapbacks with Clank and more people calling him out on his attitude, I also think the turnaround is a bit too quick and segmented since depending on the story could not make sense after but i feel as if Ratchet should realise that he needs Clank more than he realises knows it. I feel you could make the argument that Ratchet doesn't know many people but I feel they should have played more into this maybe touching a bit on his Origins though maybe still keeping a bit of the mystery. I also think giving Clank a bit of an arc about how staying by book won't get results since he is basically a newborn at this point with not much of a moral compass would be better since he just says static throughout, though is still an enjoyable character. But Ratchet's character issues don't take away for what is a pretty solid story overall and i can at least appreciate them trying to develop the main playable characters and give them an arc which apart from Sly and uh Sonic Lost World (for the wrong reasons) do that but anyway, this is mainly due to the 2 villains of the game, Chairman Drek, an evil businessman who is a bit of an outlier in the series since he isn't a sole comedic villain but when he does have his funny moments, it doesn't undermine the threat he poses since the dude is literally is destroying thousands of ecosystems for his own secret monetary gain, displacing millions of his own people by his own violation and will do it again, I mean it would be a horrible idea to make him into an overly comedic and forgettable villain with a phoned celebrity performance and brushing the whole entire twist as a joke while also not being the main villain of the game i mean that would be a terrible idea. Luckily to balance the seriousness of Drek, we got Captain Qwark, a washed up hero who decides to endorse Drek's new Planet to spice up his image, he's a pretty funny character and plus unlike other games in the series, they use him very sparingly plus the twist being at the start of the game when we first meet him in person gives us a huge amount of time to give us some pretty interesting and comedic interactions with the Heroes also showing us how everyone in the Galaxy is out of their own hind and there's no true heroes, I love how they don't shy away from makings him as irredeemable as possible yet still make hin funny all emblematic through his penultimate appearance where he's only selling us a Gadgetron PDA as Steve McQwark no big death or sting operation just this which is pretty great seeing as it also strengthens Ratchet's character since he knows Qwark's is not worth seeing as they have bigger and more important fish to fry instead of trying to tell us Qwark was a really great guy and deserves redemption, yeah I've insinuated this but yeah the 2016 reboot sucks, not only is Drek and everyone else has some good ol character assassination but they add some pointless fluff to the story, you see there's a reason why there's 2 villains in Ratchet 1 that are both radically different and it's kinda genius. They both represent the satire of this world, Drek politically and Qwark commercially, so then why make both of them into commercial wacky characters and also having a definitely not obvious twist villain from the 3rd game who has nothing to do with the story. I know this is a review about the 2002 game and not the remake but I feel it's important to mention seeing just how bad they screwed up the story, but that's for another time. So Ratchet 1's story is solid, Ratchet's character is pretty annoying and has a underwhelming make of for it apart from the ending which is really great however barring that it's a solid story, it's a simple story about how friendship can come from the oddest of people, the dangers of greed/popularity and how it doesn't matter where you come from, you can anything great no matter how small or big that may be and oh yeah it talks about commercialism i guess, It's not as thematically deep as Sly or heck even as funny intentionally or unintentionally as the Jak series but i think mainly for it's fun and satirical writing and the great zany cast of the one off characters and villains, though our Heroes and structure need a bit of work before i can truly call this story great.

The presentation of the game is pretty good, I wouldn't say it holds up incredibly well but is serviceable enough but I'd say out of the holy triforce of PS2 Platformers first entries, i think this may have the worst presentation out of them, despite Sly not really pushing the hardware as much as the other too. First of all the PS3 Port of this game fares better than entire trilogy and looks pretty nice on there, though the suck/water HUD sticking out is pretty glaring despite being in the original too, the music doesn't loop properly and some models look bad like what the hell happened to Al and Moby to the transition good lord but 16:9, the framerate being smooth, skippable cutscenes and the resolution increase is all i need so I'm fine but anyway speaking of HUD i really like the haphazard and rusted UI it makes the game have it's own unique feel too it, this is turn goes to the music and… yeah I'm not really a fan, like it definitely fits the stage and game as a whole pretty well and some tracks go hard like Veldin/Pokitaru, Novalis, Rilgar, Kerwan and other tracks but on the whole while it's a good ost, it's just not all that memorable. But what is memorable is the voice acting, i feel like this was the era were video games started getting considerable better at Voice Acting (mostly) and this is no exception, Mikey Kelley definitely has an odd line here and there but does a solid job as Ratchet, David Kaye gives my favourite iteration of Clank he has done being a lot more robotic yet still giving some personality, Jim Ward's performance as Qwark sells the washed up and pompous Hero pretty well and Kevin Michael Richardson uses his well known deep voice to sell the satirical yet sneed remarks of Chairman Drek along with all the NPCs not slacking one bit with their one off performances, selling the characters pretty well, i feel that was a bit of an issue with the Spyro trilogy which is why I'll always prefer the Reignited Trilogy lol, but they pull of the performances pretty well. However they didn't skip out on the next generation appeal of the game in terms of the artstyle, i really dig it, character animation and designs despite some odd moments, look really great and expressive, each stage looks amazing, no wonder why each stage opens with one shot to showcase what it entails, they take normal conventions of a platformer (I.e Plains, Desert, Ice, Forest, Beach and Lava) and make them really unique due to the more, I don't think it's the right word but Cyberpunk aesthetic and also due to actually being conjectural and important to the plot and enemies living there, the enemies don't feel like they're just plopped in there for wacky gameplay reasons but rather if it fits the world or even plot at some points, like all of them feel unique despite having some repeated themes, like a desert/canyon of Veldin, Umbris and Arida or a City like Kerwan, Rilgar and Olantis or a Green Plains like Novalis or Eudora and makes them unique such as Veldin being both homely and yet mysterious at the same time, both masterfully working as a starting level and an ending level despite Drek's Planet being right there, Umbris being a mechanical obstacle course built on a Volcano, Rilgar being City built on the Ocean, Olantis being essentially destroyed in a thunderstorm while serving as a neat little obstacle course, and Eudora being a forest deprived of its trees while Novalis is more of a Canyon setting. So overall despite some rough points the presentation is really nice.

And that is comparable to the gameplay, pretty noticeable rough points but very fun overall. The game is a simple platformer with some quaint third person shooter elements, you have main and side missions that can either advance the story opening new planets through getting/buying Infobots (the stars of this game but inside of a counter you get a cutscene either as a message or a commercial), or can give you a new item like the Bolt Grabber,Gadgetron PDA, Map-O-Matic, Persuader, and Nanotech Upgrades, the gameplay loop of this game is very satisfying and kinda reminds me of a Zelda styled Metroidvania with a lot of platforming and shooting mechanics which is exactly what they were going with, i feel Ratchet & Clank unlike the other games in the series isn't trying to be a third person shooter, more so it's the only game that's solely a platformer through and through. Now I've heard a few issues with the game in terms of the combat and controls, I don't see it. Like I don't know but i feel the issue might come down to playing future games before this and expecting that perfect blend that Going Commando does when this one is trying to do something a lot different, that being said i do like the combat in this game but admittedly it could be somewhat better and more well suited to fully balance the platforming and shooting gameplay which I don't think apart from maybe Going Commando and Into the Nexus, the series doesn't really attempt to balance them ever again to this degree, though is still prevalent throughout the series. The game for most of its levels has a pretty strict separation in terms of Platforming, Puzzle Solving and Shooting along with completing Skill Points and finding Gold Bolts to purchase stronger weapons. The Main story route may entail 2 of these but apart from very few instances most notable and inFamously the final level, all 3 aren't mixed unlike Going Commando which does it for the main route.

The platforming of this game is really good, they complement Ratchet's movement which could be better, his turning speed is way too slow and pulling off advanced moves is a bit taxing sometimes but i think it comes down from how well designed it is, it's the right amount of challenging and fairness along with using the Grapple hook and Heli/Thruster Pack in order to give the player a more interesting experience, it's not like it's up to Galaxy 2 or Generations levels of platforming but i feel it remains fun and interesting enough throughout.

Shooting wise I feel it could be better (especially with particular levels), but i still I really like it, I feel the lack of strafing isn't as much as a design problem as people think due to the game mostly being designed around it, the "strafing" that is there is so slow and clunky that it can't really be used on a regular combat basis, like i feel as if instead of a strafe, i feel the game should have had the camera focus on the enemies and a better lock on system since the camera while serviceable is so slow which is especially showcased in the combat sections but nonetheless, this combat is really fun to play around , I don't know if it was intentional or not but it feels very strategic to get around, not every situation can be fixed running and gunning like the other games especially with the 2016 game, you could go for a sneaking approach, go on the move with the thruster pack, use the Pryociter, Suck Cannon and Bomb Glove to control the crowd, use the variety of drones too either have a shield, control a remote control drone or have the agents of doom wreck everything in site, want to get in close? Use the Wrench and Walloper, need to distract the enemies? Pull out the decoy’s and use the Taunter in order to fully take advantage of the enemies at hand, want to go a long distance for those annoying agents Chairman Drek has sent? Use the Blaster, Devestor, Visibomb and Tesla Claw to stay far away from your enemies as you decimate them into dust. You can’t just stick to one strategy for the entire game, rather experiment with each weapon. I love how each Weapon is useful throughout, they don’t become over or underpowered, unless you’re talking about the RYNO which can be useful in every situation. Each weapon feels fairly priced in terms of their ammo and cost, though it’s not helpful since a lot of the time your Weapons have half the ammo when you purchase them.

This also holds true to the Gadgets, each of them are used as either an additional movement for Ratchet or as some variety to spruce up the game, The 2 Boots allow either allow for grinding on rails Sonic Adventure 2 style or stick on metallic surfaces, i feel while they have good ideas kinda boil down to the same thing whenever they pop their head up, Grind Rails feel a bit too mindless even with enemies and the spectacle doesn’t really make these sections any better, Magna Boots aren’t really that fun too use, since you move really slowly and you can only use the Wrench which is annoying in a stage like Orxon, the three Packs that Clank make movement more fun, especially the Hydro-Pack which make the water segments along with the O2 mask a blast to play, lastly i feel the Hydro-displacer, Holo-Guise and especially the Metal Detector feel way too situational in my opinion, You never really need the Metal Detector since the game gives you enough Bolts already for the paywalls and weapons you need to buy but the Hydro-displacer and Holo-Guise only really has a binary use, which is fine but i feel it could have been a fludd type of deal where you can shoot water, maybe it could act as a Weapon that pushes enemies off the stage or stun them or maybe for the Holo-Guise of having more of the robots attributes.

But there’s still a lot more variety in this game, you’ve got the covenanted Turret section in every platformer of course can’t forget about that, You’ve got some admittedly decent ship sections with the sparse amount of times you use it mainly with Qwark's Boss, 2 times you also have some Hoverboard races, these are decent especially with gaining your speed throughout and performing tricks but they do have some trial and error here and there. There's also the trespasser gadget which serves as a neat little challenging puzzle minigame that doesn't overstay its welcome most of the time it's introduced in a stage and gives a good enough pace breaker of the non-stop action in each stage.

Speaking of pace breaker, Clank's gameplay is the definition of a pace breaker but in a good sort of way, i feel the main appeal of these is the context surrounding them, the first Clank stage is the first Clank's separated from Ratchet since his birth and is exploring the vast vacuum of space with only a few Gadget Bots in site, the second context shows us the destruction of the planet, Orxon, a toxic wasteland that evolved seemingly normal creatures into insane beasts of nature (So Twitter) so much so that Ratchet couldn't leave the ship, Orxon is a bit annoying due to the lack of checkpoints and the Gadget Bot AI being a bit finicky sometimes, but the entire stage's atmosphere is amazing being forbidding and showing us how much greed has affected the society of this series, but that's all you can do with this little buddy, making him better than any Kazzoie, Daxter and Tails. He can turn big, Giant Clank is awesome, he's admittedly used for spectacle and the framerate chugs really heavily but it will never not be fun smashing stuff as a neat little role reversal at the end of the game.

However despite my overwhelming positive feelings on Ratchet 1 i have a few issues is that I feel some levels have some insanely strict and sparse checkpoint positions, these are mainly in the more obstacle course levels such as Orxon, Umbris, Kaleebo, Olantis and Veldin Part 2, these are well designed stages, especially Veldin which while does have so Bullshit moments with Drek's Agents but is incredibly well designed putting everything to the test you've had on your journey while acting as an amazing callback to the first stage being the last stage, but the issue with these stages (especially with Veldin) is that when you make one tiny mistake it's back to either the beginning or a considerable amount of progress lost which i guess amounts to the unlimited lives and quick loading, it doesn't help when they're invisible and you don't know the progress in the stage. One other issue is the boss fights, apart from the final boss which is a tough as nails and unforgettable boss fight with a bullshit final phase, a lot of them boil down to the simple Platforming affair now with shooting, they don't use the strategic nature of this game to any use plus there's not many of them, hell one of them you can even skip.

But on the whole, Ratchet & Clank is a pretty fun time, it may show its age at points for not commiting to a blend of Platforming and a 3rd Person Shooter and being an early PS2 game, which may drive some people away then I guess Rift Apart (?) Going Commando, Into the Nexus and the remake (albeit heavily dumbed down) is going with but looking past that, Ratchet 1 is quite a unique experience that can't be replicated anywhere else especially in it's own series, with a good dry satirical, witty and great humor yet surprisingly emotionally story that has a lot to say in terms of our world while not shoving in it down our throat/making it still enjoyable for all ages, the strategic and infinitely replayable gameplay that remains challenging and fun throughout with impeccable and memorable level design for a reason, (there's a reason why Metropolis is so famous throughout the gaming landscape and has been used countless times throughout the series) topped with a unique and slick presentation, Ratchet & Clank is an amazing 3D Platformer.

This is a tech demo for Bayonetta: Revengeance, and it rules. Witch Time, directional parrying, moveset-changing weapons - Transformers: Devastation is every gameplay concept from Platinum's other properties mashed together. Complete with all of Platinum's terrible habits, like locking game-defining mechanics behind upgrade shop menus, boss fights in space that are visually incomprehensible, and cramming its hallway core levels with hilariously unnecessary lore-dumping trinkets. All the bones are there for a prime Platinum experience, and you can hear the game's ligaments screaming in agony as they try to hold together the meager assets present into a deliverable product.

My knowledge of Transformers as a property is a smattering of random movies and episodes spanning decades and art styles, and each exposure still felt strangely similar. Optimus Prime is always somehow just realizing he'll never get back to Cybertron, or that the Transformers shouldn't kill the Earthlings. Starscream is somehow not the main villain, but often has high heels. Bumblebee is yellow and useless. There is always some random dinosaur or dump truck carrying dirt who are not Autobots, but hanging out like I'm supposed to know why they're there. Every character uses so much lore-heavy jargon that all sounds the same - I have no idea what is important or actually someone's name. Was the Dinkletron Bunglecore from the planet Cybertron Ligma introduced two seasons ago or right this second from Master Nut Washer Bolt Lock?

In that regard, Transformers: Devastation perfectly captured what the series feels like to me. Nothing is explained, nothing makes any sense, it feels like I stumbled into a filler arc on the third season of a show that'll get canceled soon. But you get to play as a T-Rex who can dual-wield swords and breath fire! The dump truck full of dirt is EVIL this time! Starscream gets two boss fights, and they are hilariously some of the easiest combat encounters in the game - including when compared to the trash mobs immediately preceding him! Absolutely wonderful~

I don't have any strong attachments to this franchise, but I still felt giddy and delighted any time a sweet electric guitar lick would loudly punctuate a character introduction, even if the back of my brain asked "wait, is this a new Decepticon or have I fought this guy like three times already?"

I yearn to visit an alternate universe where this team got triple the time and budget to make a sprawling character action game with more unique movesets, a plot that spanned more than four locations, and the breathing room to maybe actually explain what any of these big robots are like as characters. It totally blows that this game has been digitally delisted, and I would heartily recommend tracking down or renting a physical copy before this game is lost to time, mis-labeled as licensed game trash. It deserved so much better.

just part of my yearly or so revisiting of these games. i constantly feel like i'm in some state of playing either a Resident Evil or Silent Hill title and can't keep away from them for too long, it seems.

this is my first run since i started messing around with Retro Achievements so this was a slower and otherwise more thorough run through the game than some of my typical breeze throughs. there's tons of little variances that can happen due to decisions that are both apparent and not which makes for an impressive amount of replay value if one cares. which isn't even getting into potential challenge runs and the like.

this time i just did Jill on Standard but i intend to eventually play through again as Chris and maybe consider no healing and no save runs plus Arrange difficulty.

+ Timeless design philosophy
+ Immersive, subtle first person storytelling
+ Choice and open ended gameplay
+ Weapon feel and variety
+ Impact on industry through mod support

- Slippery controls make first person platforming miserable
- Some antiquated puzzle and combat design
- Terrible sound mixing shows age

ARPG with tactical traditional RPG mechanic mixed in, kind of like the Fallout VATs system. I kinda hated how you temporarily lost your skills upon death which forced you to try other builds. It's like, I have my stomping build all planned out, just let me destroy people. The story and soundtrack weren't terribly memorable though the aesthetic and visuals were very well done as in all Super Giant games. The ending kind of felt like a slog, and being forced to use other skills due to death is just annoying, especially since you only have to fight one type of enemy so once you have the correct build mapped out to kill them, it's really easy and losing this build makes the task magnitudes more tedious. If you liked Bastion you'll probably like this game however I don't think it's the best introduction to the Super Giant style of games.

Style versus substance used to be a major debate in the video game industry- which do you prioritize when you’re divvying resources to each of your departments? Does the arthouse division get a bigger shot in order to craft interesting visuals or do you hire a larger writing team to hone in on the mythus you want concocted?

As major game engines and larger talent pools have gotten more economical, I wonder if this still remains as potent an issue as it once did. When I reviewed Close to the Sun (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/464801/), I made a similar observation/question, and ultimately came to the conclusion that it isn’t as big a dichotomy in today’s day and age.

But what do I know, being an amateur critic? Without intimate experience inside a company, I can only postulate about the nuts and bolts that go into game development. Regardless, the reason I have begun this review on such a tangent is the contrast between Transistor’s aesthetic splendour and atrocious storytelling has genuinely left me mind-boggled. How can a game be so resplendent yet engage in such outdated scribal schemas?

What do I mean by this? You guys remember how, back in the days before voice acting, everything narrative-related had to be conveyed through text? Well, when you had a title that was particularly heavy on lore, it resulted in either essays worth of dialogue or (more commonly) large swaths of optional content you could dig through to find.

That latter tactic is still maintained, but rarely do you see post-2010 releases use it as an excuse to do the bare minimum in the base game, which is exactly what Transistor does. On the outset, you get a cyberpunk tale that dips its toes in the trappings of the genre, focusing on the machinations of a group of high-ranking government officials known as the Camerata. They’ve released a virus onto the city of Cloudbank that simultaneously corrupts the architecture and spawns malevolent robots, causing an evacuation. The sole person standing in the way? Red, a former lounge singer targeted by the cabal- her voice has been stolen, and the only way she’s getting it back is via a high-tech sword known as the Transistor.

The Transistor is more than just a weapon: it houses the soul of an unnamed man who saved Red’s life, and is capable of amazing feats like absorbing other spirits. But it also acts as a good transition point (no pun intended) to the kind of flawed storytelling you’ll consistently get in your 6+ hours: how did the Camerata even build it? What is it made of? Why was it haphazardly thrown at Red if it’s integral to their operations? How does it assimilate consciousnesses? Who was the man that was even killed? Why did everyone join the Camerata in their goal of purging Cloudbank? Why does Cloudbank even need this Atlas Shrugged revamp?

I’m sure there are answers in the game, and the reason I’m sure is because 99% of EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF PERTINENT INFORMATION is stored in supplementary data banks you can probe through Access Points strewn around the cosmopolis. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? If you want to know ANYTHING beyond the vague ruminations of the Transistor, you’re going to have to digest paragraph after paragraph of exposition dump, unlocked via tokens called Functions (more on that below).

Oh, but it gets worse. Each Function’s biography isn’t divulged from the get-go; you need to modify them with additional ones to get the full story. And as there are literally over 30 of these, it is abysmal that the writers expected players to mix-and-match them tens of times just to experience the full scope of the cast and their impact on Cloudbank (which, lo and behold, exposes the events prior to the start of the game).

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I didn’t bother rummaging through most of them. My philosophy is, if the developers don’t care enough about their tale to tell it properly, then why should I go above and beyond? I’m all for unconventional methods of storytelling, but this is either lazy or the result of a diminished budget for the writer’s table. It’s as though they only had two staff members- one to draft out the main game’s conversations, the other to handle all the discretionary descriptions from the terminals.

It’s a shame because there are a lot of interesting ideas here (or that I gleam to be here), from the whole brain in the vat approach of the psyche to the concept of public opinion literally impacting the ordonnance of a city. But you can’t get invested in any of it unless you put in the effort to find the one memoir that contains the relevant facts, and even then it won’t matter since the main narrative is constantly just pushing Red to the next beat without dwelling much on prior revelations.

The only non-mandatory readings I will praise are the news stations placed around Cloudbank. They reminded me a lot of the bulletin displays from the original Deus Ex, which depicted a third party’s (or state-influenced third party’s) reporting of current events, and it was just as interesting here to see how journalists would announce, describe, or speak about developing circumstances, and give their opinions on what the citizenry should do. They were short in length, numbered just enough in totality to not be platitudinous, and even provided Red the choice of responding to them, which would lead to some interesting words from the Transistor.

So, if most of the energy was put towards the graphics, do they make-up for such writing flaws? Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but my gosh, is Transistor gorgeous. Cloudbank is a metropolis drenched in fulgor- you’ve got your typical neon signposts burning on high, but also a number of other synthetic sources that bathe the cityscape with color. Not since Planet Alpha (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279180/) have I played a video game that embraced the full scale of the visible spectrum: this is a society that operates on artificiality, rainbow illusions molded by the will of the people. Every pavement and edifice seems like it’s made of malleable smart glass, a variegated mesh of hard and soft light constructs bending to please the masses. At a time when most cyberpunk works opt for the grunge style of their roots, it was fascinating to see SuperGiant Games take a different approach; a techno-dystopia hiding its vice under manmade mirages.

Outside of your standard gameplay, you get some cutscenes seemingly modeled after French anime like Martin Mystery and Totally Spies! (side note, the buildings in both Blade Runner and Neuromancer were heavily influenced by French architecture, explaining the country’s continued sway on the genre), and these look good, with facial expressions in particular being vitalized on the canvas-esque backgrounds.

Voice acting is principally left to Logan Cunningham as the sentient cutlass, and he is truly superb. I don’t know how to describe it, but there’s something very nice about his elocution that makes him pleasant to listen to whenever he speaks. It’s not that he’s calming (although he certainly can be) so much as he’s fully conscientious about everything he’s saying (or about to) say. If you guys ever get a chance, check out a bodybuilder named Stan “The White Rhino” Efferding in interviews and you’ll get a sense of what I mean: some humans just have the ability to be very soothing to listen to.

His performance goes a long way towards carrying Transistor above the aforestated pitfalls of its story. You’re dealing with vague notions, underdeveloped themes, drunk moments, and even a cringey rushed love tale between the Transistor and Red, and yet somehow Cunningham makes it all bearable. He’s simultaneously brutally honest and gentle, like a morally-inverted HAL from 2001.

The other voice actors for the Camerata are decent, if a little too nerdy sounding (read- slightly nasally, upper voice registers). Red apparently has speaking moments attributable to an actress called Kristin Wilson, but I don’t recall hearing her speak- instead, it’s her singer, Ashley Barrett, who deserves recognition. A gifted chanteuse, significantly aided by the option to have her hum a song at the touch of a button.

Sound effects are meager in quantity. Enemy robots creak the same, most of your attacks contain a replicated echo, and, most disappointing of all, Red’s dragging of the Transistor produces no reverberation on the ground. Like seriously, you’d think you’d hear this slick scrape, like the abrade of Surtur’s rapier in Thor: Ragnarok.

With regards to music, this is one area where it’s going to come down to personal taste. I’m someone who firmly believes in electronica for a cyberpunk OST; SuperGiant and in-house composer Darren Korb, on the other hand, went for a soundtrack many have labeled as Jazz synthesizer. Objectively-speaking, it sounds great, but subjectively I didn’t think it suited the townscape around you. YMMV.

Finally, I can talk about the gameplay, which some have compared to Fallout 3’s VATS, but that I find to be more remindful of the stop-and-go system in BioWare titles. You walk around levels until you enter a combat zone, in which case you’re walled off and forced to defeat all the baddies. While you may clash with them in-real-time, you’re better off utilizing Transistor’s freeze frame wherein you grind the spatio-temporal continuum to a halt, enabling you to map out an attack scheme. This scheme is limited to a turn meter that drops depending on your movement and choice of strike, with stronger moves taking up more cap.

Overall it works, but can get repetitive given that battles are the only gameplay you have here (besides a single puzzle). Fans may counter that you’re given a lot of leeway for experimentation, and that combining this with the locking of bios behind the polymerization of Functions encourages players to engage in said experimentation. To reiterate, I don’t think most people will find the story or world that compelling to go through the hassle of trying out all these combos, but even if they did, your standard attacks will work 99% of the time. Yes, there are variations on drones (some can end your turn prematurely, others can dodge after being struck,etc…), however they don’t alter the fights in any vital way- you still destroy everyone by knocking their HP to zero, and so I just don’t see anyone deviating significantly from whatever strategy they find feasible.

That is, unless you get hurt. Rather than die, Transistor has an interesting dexterity interface wherein the full depletion of your constitution culminates in you losing access to your highest-consuming Function, forcing you to either live without it until its restored, or replace it with a substitute. I thought this was an interesting method of avoiding game overs, and certainly removed potential frustrations that would’ve arisen from mistakes.

Transistor is an ARPG, and so there is an experience system in place. I don’t think new levels raise your durability, but they do provide the option to increase your memory storage/slots for new mods, as well as open-up Limiters: special retrofittings that appreciate your exp. earnings in exchange for some combat degradation.

A training dimension periodically appears during your playthrough, giving you access to challenge rooms that necessitate you completing their mandates (i.e., survive, beat in a set time) whilst using preselected Function(s). They’re kind of cool, but wear out their welcome with the repetitive objectives each chamber contains.

Overall, as beautiful as Transistor was, I can’t quite recommend it at full price. A lot of people have gotten something from their runs, and considering the massive following SuperGiant Games has accumulated since the success of Hades, I imagine there will be more players seeking out the company’s past library. Opinions will vary of course, but the weakly-executed story and repetitious fighting weren’t entertaining for me.