Genre: TBS (turn-based strategy)
Length: ~5 hours
Premise: A voiceless singer, a talking sword, a vague villain. Won't say more, partly because there's not much more to say about the plot!
What I liked
Like Supergiant's earlier game Bastion, visuals are the first draw. In Transistor, the overall art style is low-key, yet the streets of Cloudbank manage to glitter with beauty. Though protagonist Red meets danger on every corner of Cloudbank, the game's ambience feels more like strolling through the city on a romantic evening. And like our narrator's running dialogue (he's the aforementioned electronic talking sword), the soundtrack that runs underneath it all is pleasant, with muted guitar notes.
Even the combat feels relaxed and kick-back. Of course, this is a turn-based strategy, in which fights pause for you to plan attacks at your leisure. Unlike many TBSs, though, you decide when to freeze time in the middle of a fight.
But what we're actually interested in here are the ability combos.
The mechanics of Transistor take getting used to, and there isn't much of a tutorial. But it isn't a difficult game.
Real death occurs only after losing four lives (so to speak). Each life is attached to one of four active ability slots. Losing a life causes the attached ability to be temporarily locked, suspended from use until two save-points later. It's a great balance between easing combat difficulty and penalizing the player for poor planning.
Access Points, where you can save the game and swap abilities, are available frequently. I like that in any game!
Meanwhile, the Break Room that occasionally appears lets you literally take a break from the game on your own private-beach dimension, complete with hammock and beach ball. More importantly, the Break Room offers optional training exercises to test your newfound abilities.
Areas for improvement
Great premise for the plot, but rather fuzzy exposition. While the narration is intriguing, it aims at being subtle and mysterious but unfortunately overreaches—it's way too subtle and vague. So, having more information about the villains and protagonists would address what I see as Transistor's main flaw.
Experimenting with ability combos was exciting, but somehow combat itself wasn't. Maybe because I'm not a terribly clever player and didn't figure out great combos—hence not feeling often that I managed to hit sweet spots during combat or pull off really satisfying moves.
Combat might be just a little more exciting if there were a variety of sound effects for different moves. Or if enemies displayed more animations when hit.
Bastion vs Transistor
I make this comparison only because I wasn't sure which game to buy (I ended up buying both and trying Bastion first). They're two very different games, you see, apart from great visuals and music and narration. Bastion is an action game; Transistor is a TBS.
Bastion is simpler gameplay-wise. It's more tedious (button-mashing alert!) but, ironically, ended up being more satisfying. Conceptually, I like Transistor much better, but it was anticlimactic plot-wise and less exciting combat-wise.
Which game to buy, if you were forced to choose? It depends entirely on which genre you prefer.
That aside, would I recommend Transistor on its own merits? I would, if you're up for turn-based combat planning and are keen on the art style. But is it a great TBS? It's fresh and decent, though not in the ranks of "great."