I've been playing Transistor over the last couple of days. If I wanted to describe all of the aspects of this game using only one word, that word would probably be "novelty" or "beauty". Even now, after almost 6 years and a half past the game's release date, it's still looking sharp and novel, rather than tedious and old; a quality that a lot of games fail to maintain a few years after their release.
Transistor is a game that makes you fall in love with it from the very beginning. Even if you don't quite relate to the game at the beginning (maybe because the story or the combat system might be a little confusing), you can't help but appreciate its beauty soon enough, after playing it for a few more minutes. The reason is simple and yet quite hard to explain; this game is utter beauty, and you just know that by heart! It does a fantastic job on every single aspect a video game could possibly shine through and be uplifting.
This beautiful frame above is the first thing you see after opening the game, and it's not just a "still" dead photo. It's a strong living emotion that permeates through your entire body and mind: There is some severe dramatic event going on before your eyes, a very beautiful and sensational piece of music fills up your ears, a few little elegant particles are flying in the air giving life to the whole thing, and before your know it, you can already feel yourself in the middle of an engaging narration! To be honest with you, when I first went through what I just described here, I didn't want to skip to the next scene; I just wanted to sit there and savor the beauty of what I was seeing and hearing!
To talk about the different aspects of Transistor, I'm not really sure which one is more beautiful in this game; its art style, its music, or its gameplay and story. To me, they are all the best things they can be! And yet, they are masterfully intertwined together to present an integrated whole fun experience. In other words, Transistor is not just a game; it's a masterpiece collection of music, visuals, gameplay, and narration.
The art style of the game is truly breathtaking and admirable. It's funny that I usually don't take a lot of screenshots when I play video games, but when I was playing Transistor, I couldn't resist the desire to "wait for a moment" and just enjoy the magical beauty of the scene I was seeing; and that happened to me quite frequently during the game! Every single thing about the visuals of the game, from the lighting to the colors and shadows, to the characters and their unique visual features, to different environmental elements, makes every scene in Transistor look like a damn fine artistic frame! This is undoubtedly a result of an excellent art direction and a truly distinctive aspect of the game in general.
Another very distinctive feature of the game is its music and the significant impact it makes on the overall experience of the player. Imagine being able to listen to a lot of greatly sensational tracks that really put you into an emotional state that are also fitting to the gameplay, the story, and the visuals of the game at any given moment; the result would be what you experience in Transistor. To add yet another level of awesomeness on top of that, there is a gameplay feature called "humming" in the game. When you press and hold the humming button, your character would stop in place and start humming with any music that is playing at that moment, while a projector light sets the stage for you! And that is fitting to the narrative side of the game as well because the main character is actually a singer! How awesome as a mechanic could that be?! And again, that was something that made me stop several times during the gameplay, and just savor the experience!
The gameplay and the narrative of Transistor are also very unique and one of a kind. You get a weird-looking talking sword at the beginning of the game, and the very fabric of that sword is where almost all the mechanics of the game take place and make sense: All your skills and upgrades, your combat mechanisms, and even your only way to jump in the air (!) is through that sword. But that doesn't tell everything about the sword, as it's a very significant aspect of the story as well. The sword talks to you about everything: About any minor detail you see in the environment, about other characters in the game, about how it feels and what it wishes for, and so on! You almost feel like that it's not just a sword in your hands, and that it has its own characteristics and personality! And when you finish the game, you realize that there was good reason for all that within the boundaries of the game's narrative.
The combat gameplay is yet another unique thing about Transistor. A very cool feature about the mechanics of this game is that whenever your character levels up, you get to choose between various skills that then could be used in very different ways. They could be mixed and matched together in a vast number of possible ways to create new gameplay features! And every time you unlock a new skill, a whole new set of possibilities opens up for you to explore and get creative with! There are also special areas in the game where you can get disconnected from the intense gameplay and story of the game briefly, and go try different combinations of skills and abilities of your choice. This way you can discover many cool new things in the game while getting some rest and prepare for more.
To wrap up, I would just admit that Transistor is one of the best games I've ever played. And this has probably been one of the longest posts I've written so far about the games I play, and yet I believe this game deserves even more admiration, and that I have failed to fully explain all of the impressive details that shape this wonderful game! Supergiant Games have proven their deep understanding of video games and art in general, and Transistor, being only their second officially released game, is a true masterpiece! To describe Transistor in a sentence, I would say "Transistor is not just a game; it is art, in its purest form." Let's just stand up and applause Supergiant Games for this piece of art and other masterpieces they have created for the gaming industry! They deserve it.
P.S: I am going to put the soundtrack playlist of the game here; hope you enjoy it!
Comments