Transistor
Dec. 28th, 2015 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI spent seven hours on my first playthrough and five hours on my second. I loved every minute.
The best part of Transistor is probably the music – and this is saying something, because the gameplay and graphics and storytelling are incredible.
My favorite track on the OST is the final boss music, Impossible. Not only is this a cool song in and of itself, but it also manages to perfectly fit one of the most interesting and challenging boss fights I've ever survived. Because Transistor is an RPG, the player can pause the action of any given battle to plan and execute a turn. In the final boss fight, the player's opponent also has this ability, meaning that the player has to sit there unable to do anything while the enemy plans and executes his turn. The fight is crazy and suspenseful and exhilarating, and extremely difficult, and very fun. The song that plays during the battle (of which the OST version is a linear remix) conveys this dynamism while reprising the three major themes of the score.
Transistor is yet another game in which I sympathized with the villains, whose motives are much more relatable than those of the protagonists. There are so many plot holes and gaps in characterization regarding the good guys that it was difficult to care about them as much as I cared about the bad guys, who were fascinating to me. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear who the bad guys are as individuals, and what their relationship to each other is, and what they're trying to do. Since the player is able to uncover all manner of information about the villains (even as the two protagonists remain a mystery), it's easy to form a strong affective attachment to each of them.
The game also felt a little sexist in that the female protagonist is completely open to the gaze of the player while not being able to speak, while the male protagonist is able to create and manage his identity with his own words. If there were tons of games out there with female protagonists, this wouldn't feel like a big deal; but there aren't, and it does.
Next up is Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and then Bastion. I'm also planning on spending some intense quality time with Wind Waker and Final Fantasy VI over the next few months.
The best part of Transistor is probably the music – and this is saying something, because the gameplay and graphics and storytelling are incredible.
My favorite track on the OST is the final boss music, Impossible. Not only is this a cool song in and of itself, but it also manages to perfectly fit one of the most interesting and challenging boss fights I've ever survived. Because Transistor is an RPG, the player can pause the action of any given battle to plan and execute a turn. In the final boss fight, the player's opponent also has this ability, meaning that the player has to sit there unable to do anything while the enemy plans and executes his turn. The fight is crazy and suspenseful and exhilarating, and extremely difficult, and very fun. The song that plays during the battle (of which the OST version is a linear remix) conveys this dynamism while reprising the three major themes of the score.
Transistor is yet another game in which I sympathized with the villains, whose motives are much more relatable than those of the protagonists. There are so many plot holes and gaps in characterization regarding the good guys that it was difficult to care about them as much as I cared about the bad guys, who were fascinating to me. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear who the bad guys are as individuals, and what their relationship to each other is, and what they're trying to do. Since the player is able to uncover all manner of information about the villains (even as the two protagonists remain a mystery), it's easy to form a strong affective attachment to each of them.
The game also felt a little sexist in that the female protagonist is completely open to the gaze of the player while not being able to speak, while the male protagonist is able to create and manage his identity with his own words. If there were tons of games out there with female protagonists, this wouldn't feel like a big deal; but there aren't, and it does.
Next up is Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and then Bastion. I'm also planning on spending some intense quality time with Wind Waker and Final Fantasy VI over the next few months.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-30 11:46 am (UTC)I enjoyed Bastion with a controller. I think I did 1.5 plus games but I never did get all the achievements.
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Date: 2015-12-30 03:04 pm (UTC)It's not the prettiest game, and the gameworld is completely static. Nothing moves expect the camera - not the water, not the trees, not the tall grass, not garbage blowing across the street. I suppose this can be excused as artistic license, but it still feels lazy and, to be honest, the opposite of tonally uncanny.
Unless there's some sort of major surprise that hasn't been foreshadowed, the story also feels a bit lazy. Oh, did science go too far? How original.
I think Rapture might be one of those games you need to play with a room full of stoned people to really enjoy.
Either that, or a "director's commentary" style walkthrough that helps bring the player's attention to all the small details. It's not clear what the player can and can't interact with; and so, short going up to every surface and humping it with the action button, I'm sure there's a lot that any given player will miss. I also feel like this game wants me to be sitting there and taking notes, which I'm not interested in.
I mean, it's a neat game, but for the scenery and accents (and actual decent acting) I'd rather just watch PBS reruns of All Creatures Great and Small.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-30 03:33 pm (UTC)I still haven't played Dear Esther so I'm not sure why I got so wound up about it. I think just because Rapture. C'mon, it's the rapture! I can't escape my childhood indoctrination. That stuff lives deep in the marrow of my bones.