Transistor is an incredible game that I wish was even better. It has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. It also has absolutely gorgeous graphics. Those aren't what I wish was better though, its the gameplay.
The gameplay is very unique, a fusion of turn based and top-down action. However I don't think this fusion was successful. The turn based element is fun, its cool to plan out your actions and learn how to eke the most that you can out of each turn. However once the turn is over, abilities are disabled, and the player is left to flop around like a fish out of water. That's half of each combat where you're impotent! Even when not experiencing a turn cooldown, the combat outside of the turn isn't very engaging. However, there is potential to this system, and it manages to be enjoyable, however other parts of overall combat design bring it down.
Even though Transistor is very short, I felt the game had a lack of enemy variety. There is an extremely small amount of them, and the majority of them are introduced very early on. The game attempts to accommodate for this for having the enemies gain new abilities over the course of the game, however most of these new abilities didn't significantly change the way's I dealt with them. I won't delve into specifics, but even when the game introduces new enemies, sometimes they are overused to the point where the novelty wears off very quickly.
One final aspect to the gameplay is the functions system. The amount of options presented to the player is very cool, and there's a good trickle of functions over the course of the game so that the player isn't overwhelmed right at the start. There is a very impressive amount of potential builds to be created with these functions, however the games "encouragement" to experiment with them is clumsy to say the least. Whenever your hp bar empties, a function is disabled for multiple upcoming combats. This will likely be a function that was very important to your build, guaranteeing that the you'll need to change up your build. I understand the intended affect of this: to get the player to experiment with different builds, however it simply isn't fun to deal with losing functions. The game should have simply allowed players to experiment on their own terms, instead of forcing them to.
There is still a lot to love about the game. The story while for the most part is just ok, ends well, and the music and visuals are incredible. I just wish the rest of Transistor reached the same heights.
The gameplay is very unique, a fusion of turn based and top-down action. However I don't think this fusion was successful. The turn based element is fun, its cool to plan out your actions and learn how to eke the most that you can out of each turn. However once the turn is over, abilities are disabled, and the player is left to flop around like a fish out of water. That's half of each combat where you're impotent! Even when not experiencing a turn cooldown, the combat outside of the turn isn't very engaging. However, there is potential to this system, and it manages to be enjoyable, however other parts of overall combat design bring it down.
Even though Transistor is very short, I felt the game had a lack of enemy variety. There is an extremely small amount of them, and the majority of them are introduced very early on. The game attempts to accommodate for this for having the enemies gain new abilities over the course of the game, however most of these new abilities didn't significantly change the way's I dealt with them. I won't delve into specifics, but even when the game introduces new enemies, sometimes they are overused to the point where the novelty wears off very quickly.
One final aspect to the gameplay is the functions system. The amount of options presented to the player is very cool, and there's a good trickle of functions over the course of the game so that the player isn't overwhelmed right at the start. There is a very impressive amount of potential builds to be created with these functions, however the games "encouragement" to experiment with them is clumsy to say the least. Whenever your hp bar empties, a function is disabled for multiple upcoming combats. This will likely be a function that was very important to your build, guaranteeing that the you'll need to change up your build. I understand the intended affect of this: to get the player to experiment with different builds, however it simply isn't fun to deal with losing functions. The game should have simply allowed players to experiment on their own terms, instead of forcing them to.
There is still a lot to love about the game. The story while for the most part is just ok, ends well, and the music and visuals are incredible. I just wish the rest of Transistor reached the same heights.