Forgotten Gems: Transistor

There are plenty of amazing games that live on in the cultural consciousness long after their release. Take games like Minecraft, Bioshock, Dark Souls and Portal as examples. These games often deservedly feature on lists of the greatest games of all time inside and outside of their genre. But there are many excellent games that are lost to time when it comes to these discussions despite initial popularity and critical success. Forgotten Gems is about taking a look back at these games and giving them some of the recognition they deserve. Today's topic: Transistor.

Transistor cover art

Developed by indie darling Supergiant Games, creators of consistently excellent games such as Hades, Bastion and Pyre, Transistor is a sci-fi action RPG. Set in the city of Cloudbank, you play as an ex-singer and recent murder survivor named Red and wield the titular sword; Transistor. You discover the plot as you play both through the game's narrative and through in game dialogue and descriptions. The lore is well crafted and presented in a way that promotes an air of mystery around what is happening to the city, how Red ended up with the Transistor and why robots with the ability to evolve are trying to kill you. This will be a spoiler free article because I implore anyone that hasn't played the game to buy it and experience the story themselves.

The art style of the game is beautiful. It makes use of lots of bright colours to further cement the cyber themed aesthetic but doesn't overuse them or overwhelm the player. The deep reds and teals are striking which lends itself to the design of Red and the Transistor on whom these colours feature prominently. Supermassive Games have a proven track record when it comes to this visual feast as all of their games display this smart technical use of colour to create a diverse and interesting looking world. When it comes to the soundtrack there are no disappointments either. The rich tracks bolster an already excellent atmosphere and really helps immerse you in the world. Much of the soundtrack ranges between somber, slower tracks and tracks made to hype up combat with high intensity.

Transistor's time stop mechanic in action

Transistor's combat uses a unique blend of realtime combat with the ability to freeze time and queue up a series of actions. Using this time stop will allow you to use your abilities effectively but will leave you vulnerable afterwards as you will be unable to use them until the time stop refreshes. You are able to use your abilities outside of the timestop with no penalty but when you have a system this cool, why not use it right? For the abilities themselves you have four slots, each with up to two modifier slots that can you can slot other abilities into to change how the primary ability functions. Abilities can also be placed into passive slots when they are unlocked, with abilities, modifier slots and passive slots being unlocked on level up depending on which options you decide to pick. Putting this all together creates a fun and customisable system that rewards creativity with different combinations and playstyles.

While it may not be talked about as much as some of Supermassive Games other hits, without Transistor we may never have gotten any of their other stellar games. It is a game unlike any other and well worth the time to experience. Much like Bastion, the main story is completable in a handful of hours too so it's not a massive time sink like many games which expect you to put in 50 hours just to finish the plot so it's ideal for picking up and playing over a weekend. For those looking for more of a challenge there are even hidden challenges like time trials and survival modes that increase in difficulty and plenty of achievements to unlock. So if you're looking for a forgotten gem of a game, be sure to check out Transistor or follow Critical Win for future articles like this.