Transistor

If Bastion was the wise elder child of The Supergiant family, then Hades is the prodigal son and Transistor the eccentric one in the middle (Pyre is the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten). Despite Frankie Muniz single-handedly painting middle children as dysfunctional egotists, Transistor is far more methodical and restrained in design than its siblings. In retrospect, this was quite a risk for Supergiant to undertake, since Bastion was their only successful release at the time.
Taking the isometric perspective from Bastion, Transistor plays similarly at first until players are introduced to Turn(), a core combat mechanic that allows players to play in a limited turn-based fashion. In addition to being a cool diegetic accessibility feature that adds depth, Turn() explores a different venue of skill expression than the twitch-reflex abilities of real-time combat. Fortunately, for those Turned() off by this, one can simply button mash.
Transistor's story explores a sci-fi narrative combining elements of revenge and mystery. It's not as strong with its themes as Bastion was with its post-apocalyptic optimism but players will find much to love with Logan Cunningham's stellar vocal performance and Darren Korb's soundtrack featuring high-energy electronic tracks to sultry lounge tunes. At its current asking price, you'd be a fool not to partake.

Don't let the title fool you, this game is not about semiconductors.
greatgame/10

Still to this day remains my favorite game. I've replayed this game and honestly bought it multiple times on different platforms, Steam being my latest.

This game is nothing short of a masterpiece. To talk on specific points:

-Art and music alone are god tier, the art still catches me off guard even after playing it so many times.

-The story and writing is beautiful, with a very small cast of characters but a lot of information available about different important figures in this world. It has a deceptively high amount of worldbuilding for a seemingly very simple story. The game is narrated in a very interesting way, where the man stuck in the PC's sword commentates on the MC and the world in a way that is oddly effective at establishing the nature of his and the MC's relationship, despite her being mute from -story events-.

-The gameplay. The freakin' gameplay. As someone who likes turn-based and tactical type things, this game scratches that itch with the ability to either play more fast-paced RTS or use a "Turn" feature where you line up and quickly execute your skills in a long combo, then have a cooldown where you avoid the enemy onslaught. It's nice because it both appeals to two kinds of players and also provides two approaches for enemies.

The skill system is extremely cool, giving you a decent lineup of abilities that can be used actively or installed into other abilities to modify them, giving a very potent mix-and-match feel with high amounts of customization. I can't really think of another game that offers the degree of modification to abilities that this one does.

-The only "downside", if you consider it such, is it's not a super long game. It has great replay value, due to the customization of difficulty and your skills, you can approach it differently every time. But you're gonna get through the story relatively quickly. Imo, they REALLY just went for quality over quantity with this game, and it doesn't get nearly enough love.

I'm writing this just after I got the ending.
Buy this game. Now. It is worth the full price.
The gameplay is unique and fun. The combinations of different modules all feel fun and fresh. For even the last boss, I still had want to mix and match different moves. The game also rewards you for using modules in different slots with lore, which is a plus.
The story is pretty simple, but it there are several cool moments, and the ending is fantastic. There is also a lot of lore to discover in the modules and in terminals, But to be real, the Narration is what carries the whole thing with two giant buff arms.
Like in Bastion and Hades, narration in this story is really charming, and kept my attention. In this game though unlike the other two, the narrator is constantly talking to you, and they are really sweet and supportive. The narration also gives lot of depth to the world, as they casually commentate about different aspects of the world. It manages to dumb a lot of lore on you without feeling like a exposition. Also, the man is great and sweet and wonderful and light in what otherwise can be rather bleak circumstances.
I still feel a little bit of the high from finishing the game, but right now it is one of the best video game experiences I know of. I played the game through in 9 hours, and although I would have been really glad if there had been more, I also was very satisfied with what I got.
It was an unique experience, that I shall savor for a good while.

Immaculate art direction, good music, stellar voice acting, and a pleasantly short runtime. I kept flipping back and forth from really liking the combat to not liking it so much. I think I've landed on liking it, but something about it feels like it's missing that "special sauce." The challenge rooms eventually became significantly more difficult than the regular encounters and I just skipped them. I enjoyed the buildcrafting aspects, but I ended up just sticking with the basic Crash() + Breach() backstab combo throughout the entire game because it was just too good to not use. (And that's probably why I was unprepared for the harder challenge rooms in which you're forced to use different functions.)
6/10

When I first tried playing Transistor I didn't really vibe with it, but I returned to it this year and loved it. As usual the Supergiant team has an extremely high level of polish. The art and music are unforgettable. The combat system is unique, and is the game is built around it - those who play through the game multiple times will be rewarded. Transistor is a short, but brilliantly made game that has aged extremely well because of how well written and stylish it is.
Recommended
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Can't believe that this game is almost 10 years old. It's just ok though. The combat is not fun. It gives you lost of different combos and customization you can do but in the end it's just not fun. I can't imagine this game in new game plus.. The music is great, the atmosphere and voice acting is awesome. Gameplay is not that great and maybe that's why it took me almost 10 years to finish this.