Transistor

One of the games of all time. It's been almost ten years since I played Transistor but I still think about it, listen to the soundtrack and recommend it to people. Going to play it again sometime soon

I've beaten this game several times, and it brings me to tears every single time
I don't know what black magic Darren Korb is using, but he is the best thing that happened to videogame OST's since Akira Yamaoka

Hi Red… Hey
So supergiant Games were truly giant long before people realized it. Transistor isn’t just a game , it’s art in every form: story, music, painting, poetry, emotion. Every pixel, every chord, every whisper from the sword is crafted with purpose.
It’s one of those rare experiences that, when it ends, leaves you hollow yet fulfilled , aching for more, but knowing deep down that the story is complete. The ending hits so good it almost feels wrong to replay it, like reopening a letter from someone you’ve already said what you wanted to say to them.
When the final pieces connect, you understand something profound: being human with all our love, grief, and choice is a beautiful thing.
And if you didn’t feel anything by the end, maybe you’re not human at all. Maybe you’re just another {Process}.
Because in that silence, as the credits fade and the music swells, all i wanted to hear is just one thing…
Hi Red… Hey

One of my favorite games of all time, and still my favorite Super Giant game. One of the first games I played when I got my first gaming PC. Something about the world just struck me so much at the time, maybe how unique it feels, it still has that feeling over a decade later. And somehow they made turn based combat more palatable, which is in my opinion Supergiant's greatest strength: They make genre's you would not usually like playable!

For those who have come to check out prior Supergiant games from Hades 1 and 2: this is going to be a bit different gameplay-wise from those games. However, in terms of gorgeous artwork, music that will live in your head rent-free for eternity, and Darren Korb and Ashley Barret doing that thing they do Again (which is "being amazing"), you'll once again not be disappointed.

Honestly, in some ways, Transistor's art gets to shine in a particularly unique way compared to other Supergiant games. This is because of the clear art noveau influence that you see everywhere from the lovely posters depicting the protagonist, to the delicate and intricately crafted backdrops you traverse to, to a couple of interesting places. For those who know: breaking something's heart gets to be particularly stunning because of this.

And this also works out really great as a contrast to your enemies. The Process really stand out starkly in contrast, with their monochrome white/red color scheme and hard lines that encroach upon all of this gorgeous scenery. This does something good on a technical level, because you will be able to near instantly pick out your enemies in a stage. However, it's also great on a storytelling level, as you get to see this invade everything that our protagonists clearly love.

As for the music, I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to gush about it as it deserves. I just know that I really dig it, and it fits in with the setting perfectly. You're not going to find a lot of the more.... classical? hard? rock that you will find in Bastion and the Hades series, I will say that. However, much like the setting is a mixture of art noveau and interesting scifi, the music also manages to be the perfect reflection to that. (You can still hear a bit of rock influence however, in songs like Old Friends.)

Additionally, having the protagonist you control being a singer, whose songs come up regularly and who can hum along to the background music, is a fun little detail. Does it add anything? On a technical level, no, but it heightened my enjoyment, so I think it is a good addition.

It goes without saying that the story is excellent, and that all the prior qualities before really enhance it. A lot could be said on the philosophy behind the game, what the antagonists are arguing for, what the setting tells you, and the ending, but I think that is something people should play through and figure out for themselves.

However, even without going into that, I can say that the game does the best thing any story can do: it gets you incredibly invested in the protagonists, Red and the man in the Transistor ("Blue" to keep things short).

Which is a little bit of a feat. There's a joke/headcanon in certain online communities that portrays some silent protagonists (see: Link from Legend of Zelda) as mute, but we know in most cases that's not actually confirmed. That's not the case in Transistor. Red really CAN'T speak; her voice being robbed from her is one of the things that sets off the story.

Yet there's never any doubt that Red is her own person, with her own personality, who is reacting to things - even before you get into stuff like reading the optional file on her that comes with you using Crash() in all its capabilities. You see her in a flashback, holding onto herself, rattled by what has just happened. You see her blatantly ignoring Blue's directions that would have them "skip town", instead charging right back to confront the antagonists instead of running away. There's teasing little smirks she gives to Blue when she has to leave him outside a restroom. You really get a feeling for her, so long as you're paying attention.

Additionally, even if Red is silent, the good news is that Blue in contrast never shuts up - potentially because, without a body, talking to Red is really all he can do. So through him, you get context for so much: who the Camarata are, what's considered the norm in Cloudbank, and even the kind of person that Red is.

And through both of them.... You really get a sense for how much these two love each other, so much. The way Red holds onto the Transistor with a desperate longing, whether when humming or during so many little cutscenes. The way Blue is so violently protective of her, raging at the Camarata for targeting her.

They love each other. And, through that, you quickly grow to love them both in turn.

Finally, the combat system. It is quite different from any of the other games that Supergiant has put out before - but that's generally the norm, honestly, with how committed they are to doing A First (tm) for each of their games. Bastion is different from Transistor is different from Pyre. However, I do find it to be a very interesting system. It kind of mixes in a sort of... turn-based planning to it, while also making the player have to deal with real-time battle while often not having access to your battle abilities. It really makes you have to think carefully about your movements, and what you are bringing with you to each battle.

However, while I did say that this is nothing like Hades way of playing... I will say, for those who liked how different weapon/upgrade/boon combos could make something new, they might like the Transistor way of playing for that. Three things contribute to the battle system for Transistor:
1. An active slot (Switch() makes an enemy flip to your defense)
2. A secondary slot (Switch() on, say, Cull() makes it so that anything too tough for you to one shot goes to your side)
3. A passive slot (Switch() makes you a small bonus friend when you collect the remains of enemies)

So fiddling around with how everything influences everything else can be a really fun part of the game for those who are into that aspect. I do thing that it was likely one of the building blocks for how things would interact in the Hades franchise, and I think that's neat.

anyway tl;dr this is a great game and you should play it

Playing a studio's games in order is a very interesting experience. I can see in many ways how Supergiant improved since their previous work, Bastion.
Transistor struck me right away with how it handles new players to the game. Bastion was very candid about giving you explanations on almost everything, down to the tutorials, mechanics, and lore. Bastion's narrator gave tons of exposition. Although his voice acting was great, it told a little too much, spoonfeeding the player to a high degree.
Transistor is entirely the opposite. It explains too little, for better or worse. It doesn't explain almost anything. It does its best at presenting a story without spelling out to you what is going on to its benefit, since I was able to wrap my head around Transistor's plot much easier than Bastion's. As you may expect, the practice of NOT spamming the player with exposition that may or may not be relevant makes the plot easier to digest.
On the flip side, you have to figure out Transistor's gameplay aspects and mechanics on your own. The way Functions, the game's rearrangeable abilities slot in, the way you unlock things, what happens when you hit 0 HP, and etc. You inevitably learn things like how Functions can slot into others as Upgrades, or you can slot them into Passive slots to provide different uses. While I respect this decision to have minimal explanations, it was jarring for the first 30 minutes or so of the playthrough. Inevitably I did get used to it, but I do wish some things were actually explained. Limiters for instance add a debuff in exchange for a positive effect, a recurring feature in Supergiant games, also being seen in Hades and Bastion. However, there's no clear explanation on what they do beyond "+x% Player Level". What's that mean? I had to look it up to know that it meant experience. I also didn't know that Functions with a higher load get disabled first until really late in the game when an alert popped up while I was adjusting Functions in my loadout. I... kinda feel like that would've been nice to know earlier?! Though, it's totally possible this was a bug and it should've popped up sooner, it doesn't change my point that Transistor is very reluctant to explain anything to you about its mechanics.
The game feels incredibly punishing when a Function you're relying on (Jaunt and Breach in my case) keeps getting disabled. When a Function is disabled, it must be 'repaired' for 1 checkpoint. Meaning once you find a checkpoint after it gets disabled, you need to find another checkpoint before it is usable again. I suppose the idea is to make you change up your loadout and get you out of your comfort zone, but it simply doesn't feel that fun, and feels like more of an annoyance than anything. If I knew that higher load caused Functions to get disabled first, I would've strategized better by slotting upgrades into the Functions I don't mind losing as much. I don't mind that, I think that's kinda cool design, to make the player think about what they slot upgrades into. Slot stuff into your best Function for more power but run the risk of losing it first, or slot stuff into other Functions to conserve your best Functions while neutering the potential of them? Most players I feel will naturally slot upgrades into their favorite Functions so it would've been nice to know, is all I'm saying here.
Transistor's combat is not what I expected at all. It's fairly unique and I think that creativity wins Transistor a ton of goodwill in my book. It's a combat system that I struggle finding the words to explain, which I think is a sign that it is indeed unique. What it kind of reminds me of is the VATS system in old-school Fallout (which was also isometric), making the player use some strategic thinking while time is frozen. Red's real-time combat is a bit slow and doesn't feel the best, abilities she uses getting disabled briefly after using a Turn, so it feels like the game is geared towards primarily using Turns. Entering Turns fills an Action Bar for each action you queue up while time is frozen, including movement. When you're ready, you hit a button and Red's actions play out.
When I first engaged with the combat, I was surprised that Supergiant didn't just make another isometric Action game like Bastion, but also impressed. Part of me wondered why they didn't just make it a straight-up Tactics game, but the uniqueness of Transistor's combat really works. It's outstanding to me that a studio experimented like this so early in their catalogue, and not only that, but pulled it off with aplomb as well. It's truly commendable, and it's aged well too since Transistor feels charmingly unique even in 2025, over 10 years later.
Transistor's story is one I can't spoil but I can easily see that Supergiant has improved in the writing department after Bastion. As stated earlier, not spoonfeeding the player with exposition makes the plot easier to understand. I watched a video explaining the game's plot afterwards assuming I missed something, only to say, "Oh, I knew all that already." at the end of the video. That's a really good sign for a game's storytelling if I'm able to say that. Transistor does the lone narrator thing again here like Bastion, where the narrator is one of the only voices you hear through the game, but making the narrator more personal to the character means it works so much better. It gives you someone to latch onto through Transistor's heart-breakingly bittersweet plot and ending.
Red is also an extremely underrated female protagonist in gaming, both when it comes to design and character-wise. Although Red is mute for the entire game, you get bits of her personality whenever she uses a terminal, since she uses the comment section of public terminals to write things to the narrator, giving you bits of her personality and cadence with each one you find. It's extremely clever, and I have to give a lot of credit to that.
Despite some enemies that quickly became annoying, especially late-game (Screw you, "Man"), Transistor respects your time. I finished Transistor in only 4 hours total, despite the Howlongtobeat page reading it as 6 hours. I didn't use Limiters and I didn't indulge in the arena side content, so maybe that's why? Am I just good? I don't know - but I don't think this game is that hard without Limiters, since losing abilities acts as a great cushion, allowing you to avoid death multiple times in a row. There aren't difficulty settings either, although there is a New Game+.
I have to mention that this game doesn't even have a main menu. It really banks on throwing you in. The game autosaves when you enter new areas or hit checkpoints. You can't manually save or reload, and the settings in the menu are minimal. Even when you beat the game, you're asked if you want to play New Game+. If you say no, the game literally just closes itself for you. It's pretty funny, actually, and I don't entirely know the reason why they don't even have a menu, but maybe it's an artistic vision angle?. I couldn't find any info on this, so I'll have to assume that's the reason.
Transistor is a wonderfully unique and bittersweet game. I'm genuinely impressed that Supergiant made something like this as only their second game. I'd highly recommend giving it a shot if you like Supergiant's games in the first place, or if anything I said appeals to you.
Score: 87

TL:DR
You should buy all games of "Supergiant Games" and play them all. They are well crafted, story wise ultra deep and it is always refreshing to play something new that hasn't been done before. Get a good pair of headphones and enjoy the story. While the combat may be lacking a bit, this game is all about the story. All games of Supergiant have a deep and engaging story. I advise you to buy all their games when on sale and enjoy the whole bundle. I recently played Pyre, which I am unable to rate somehow and "Pyre" may be one of the best games I have ever played. It is a mix of a graphic novel and Basketball. You wouldn't believe it to work, if you haven't tried for yourself.