Well. I did it. I got all of the Steam achievements for Transistor! Steam says I've put 33 hours into this game, and I'm willing to believe it. It took a lot of practice to get the finer details of the combat mechanics into my head, and I just can't hurry through the game even on my third playthrough. The colors, the designs, the music... it's all so lush and I can't help but want to soak it, to linger long over the finer details of Transistor's world. The way the story is built up in layers, so even though it's lightly told it's got this ring of realism to it. You've got the story of Red and the Camerata and the destruction of Cloudbank, and you've also got the story of Red and The Boxer, this soft romance, and you've also got this story of Red and her emotions - her music is melancholy, her choices are desperate, and even the most strategic combat reflects anger. Like... gods, the ending of the Spine fight is just jawdroppingly visceral.
I just love Red - she's this brilliant artist that's had her art, her voice(her AGENCY how's THAT for a theme?), stolen from her and her partner taken for her at the same time. And the Boxer - he loves Red so damn much and only wants her to safe, and her only concern really is him. To touch on the ending - I've seen the criticism, and I think it's bunk. It's made pretty clear by the end that while Red can fix Cloudbank, she can't get her voice or the Boxer back. She could rebuild the city, people would come back but what was she supposed to do, become some sort of God of Cloudbank, presiding over an empty city? The only way she could become whole, to get her voice and her love back, is to go into the Transistor. There's this theme of self destruction/suicide in that... so Cloudbank is digital right? it's a virtual city? And the process is what shapes the city. So the city destroys itself, and in the game you have this metaphor for death with the country, but then at the end Red's choice seems less of a destruction and more of a... restoration, for lack of a better word. She goes to the country, though whether that's the country-country, the real world outside of the virtual world of Cloudbank, or another virtual world like a facsimile of the country... *SHRUG* Love is another theme - the Camerata's love of the city, wanting it to exist as it is, Sybil's obsessive love of Red, the Boxer's soft and concerned love, and Red's love carrying her through the end of all she knows.
I love the Boxer too - gentle, supportive, protective. I connect with his adrift nature - Cloudbank is a place where anyone can be anything, and he doesn't know what he wants to be and that makes him an outsider in that system, and right now I'm really feeling that. Life is easier if you have goals - with goals you fit into the system no matter what your goals are, but what if you just want to live? To exist? It's hard. In the game one of the locations briefly visited is the selection offices, and I doubt that's meaningless. Just like the final goal being the cradle - a journey from death to life.
There's all these delicious details - like the bridge with the statues of Red and the Boxer, reaching for each other and being separated and then on the return trip coming back together. That that's the only thing Red restores, the bridge she created. Red's ring, which only appears after she puts on the Boxer's jacket. The figures in the containers in the final battle, which I honestly did not notice the first time. There's also this digital ghost that shows up and it's very subtle, but it shows the which direction to go which is surprisingly helpful - it's a fairly linear game, but the locations can get visually confusing. That final song, not the credit song but the one before it, that just goes builds upward while never resolving until the credits hit. Amazing.
I love this game. I can't keep my head about talking about it in any serious fashion because I love it. I have Red as my computer wallpaper, and as the wallpaper and lock screen on my phone. The music is just... I find myself listening to even the instrumental tracks a lot, and I don't usually like instrumental music. It's perfect background for writing, or for walking between pools of lamppost light in the park at night. Doing that I feel like I'm in a sort of liminal space between worlds.
A note for accessibility - I played with a keyboard/mouse and my fingers kind of ache for that. A controller would have been better for me, but I don't have one so *shrug* The difficulty is pretty low for that first trip through the game, and only ramps up when pursuing the achievements. There are some easy builds that make the game a breeze too(Purge + Breach + Crash FTW). I put the effort in for those achievements because I love the game, it gave me something to do and it felt fair - the achievements felt achievable and not grindy. It's a game I found it worth putting that effort into.
I'm going to have to uninstall this game before I get sucked into yet another playthrough just to wallow in the story and the art and the music and the most shippable damn romance in gaming. I should go play Bastion now. Honestly I bounced off Bastion the first time I tried it, I didn't get sucked into the way I was with Transistor, but that was a long while ago. I have it on Steam and my 360, I wonder which would be best?
Anyway, some Good Videos about Transistor -
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