Gadgetory

what's up Internet Kevin here on well on my own channel now now don't worry I'm not leaving techie tomorrow or TLD it's just that due to things like scheduling I haven't always been able to post all the game reviews I'd like to and so now I have my own channel to do that with I'll still be posting things like accessory reviews on TECA tomorrow or iOS game reviews on TLD or if there's a really high profile title I'll probably post something over there and here as well but this channel this just can be focused on games themselves and to kick things off today I'm reviewing the second game from one of my favorite indie devs supergiant games transistor which is available on ps4 and PC I personally play the ps4 version for this review now supergiant games is the dev team responsible for 2011's big indie hit Bastion which delivered an excellent balance of visuals music and simple but extremely enjoyable gameplay that could potentially be quite challenging as well so the big question is does transistor live up to this legacy well let's take a look at it and break it down first let's take a look at the game's aesthetics both the visuals and its audio now it's very easily apparent that this is definitely from the same dev team there's a lot of things that are heavily reminiscent to what we saw in Bastion but there's enough changes and twists to really make it feel like its own the world is an interesting cyberpunk inspired setting using a lot of darker colors offset with plain white with more vibrant colors used rarely to make some things really pop out like the protagonists red hair or enemy's eyes well the music is very similar to that of Bastion there's a noticeably higher amount of electronic influence making it fit a lot more with transistor setting and make it feel like something new rather than just a continuation of the same in short aesthetically this game is just beautiful there's enough familiarity with the style from Bastion to feel welcoming but with enough variation to give it its own sense of uniqueness now another familiar the slightly different approach in this game is its storytelling which uses the same voice actor as the narrator from Bastion but now in transistor hasn't taken on the role of the game's namesake a talking piece of hardware that's shaped like a sword the protagonist Red has lost her voice at the start of the game and so almost all of the dialogue consists of one-way conversations where the transistor babbles about events or what you plan to do next well different it does serve a very similar purpose and storytelling and transistor does have the important addition of having some speaking roles delivered by other characters the plot itself throws you into the events really quickly with little to no explanation and players need to pay a decent amount of do a lot of little nods and lines to understand the full scope of the story it's a tad too vague at times for my personal taste but the center focus and the major events of the plot still make for a very enjoyable tale overall now while the visuals and music and storytelling are all very familiar the nuts and bolts the actual gameplay are entirely different creature while combat can be handled in normal real-time as a top-down action game players are able to make use of a turn mode that pauses gameplay allowing you to queue multiple actions for a planned out tactical combo with the downside of temporarily leaving you incapable of fighting for a few moments there's actually a surprising amount of little rules to make use of in the combat to gain the advantage using some moves in order to get a special combo damage bonus or just positioning yourself behind enemies for backstab damage what makes this really interesting though is the game's character setup system using programs red can equip a number of programs each of which can be used in one of three different ways serving is one of your four active skills to use in combat as an upgrade that augments how another equipped active program works or as a passive skill that offers some kind of constant bonus one little thing that I really love about this game is the fact that each program is linked to a character who either exists in the game's main plot or its backstory and making use of a program in all three of its capacities can unlock biographical info to help reveal more story tidbits it's not just a cool way to help players and cover more information but it's a great way to push them to really experiment with all the different uses of each program so you can really get a feel for how you want to use each one to complement your play style now just like in Bastion this game only has one traditional difficulty setting which is fairly forgiving at first but as you get farther you can unlock these things called processes processes are things that make the game harder in some very specific way and reward the player with a small boost in experience kind of like the idols in Bastion just playing the game with these turned off will work fine for those either looking to get into the scope of the story and enjoy its aesthetics but if you want to challenge then this system is perfect for completely changing up the experience from being a lightly paced story focused game to a really difficult tactically focused action game now there is one big downside to transistor that does share with Bastion and that's its length one single playthrough only takes about four and a half to five hours six hours top if you do all the different side challenges and take your time reading all the in-game bios now this is remedied a bit this time around by the fact that transistor does have a new game plus mode which does scale up all the difficulties so if you want you can do a single playthrough you just learn all the story and then really challenge the game on its harder difficulties in new game+ now an answer to the question I posed earlier about whether or not transistor lives up to Bastion I can confidently say that for me personally that it most certainly does music and art are just as strong if not stronger and the gameplay is significantly deeper and more engrossing once you learn all of its ins and outs as I said earlier the story is a bit too vague at times but never so much that it sours the rest of the experience and taking the time to read the game's unlockable BIOS helps to solve this problem as well overall I'd have to say that transistor is another must play with the only thing holding back is whether or not you're willing to spend $20 on it right now if you're looking to just do a single playthrough and that's it then you might want to wait for a sale but if you're the kind of person who's gonna tackle it on new game+ multiple times to get the most challenge you can or if story is just that important to you then it's easily worth it's $20 price tag well that was my review of transistor if you guys want to grab a copy for yourself you can find it on Steam for PC or got a ps4 you can grab it on the PlayStation Store now thank you guys so much for watching this video this is the first of many that I have planned for my own channel and if you enjoyed it please make sure to hit that thumbs up button to let me know and if you want even more content or you're just migrating over from tech tomorrow and TLD then make sure you hit that subscribe button as well you can also follow me on my personal twitter at Kevin Kent's and we can hear my up-to-date thoughts and what games I'm playing right now or just whatever random mundane stuff I'm up to an everyday life now once again guys thank you so much for watching this video I hope to bring you guys even more content soon including reviews of Wolfenstein and watchdogs but until then I'm Kevin Kenson I'll see you later