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I felt like the gameplay was a half baked idea, not fully realized. It could have been a cool take on the turn systems of classic jrpgs, but instead it just felt like a mandatory "hack" mode that failed to make the gameplay exciting.
In short, between the skills feeling boring and not powerful, and the turn system feeling like it should have been an "ultimate flourish" instead of the staple of the game, the entire gameplay system felt soooo boring to me.
For me Transistor is a better game than Bastion, which for the most part is due to a puzzle-like tactical combat. All these Bastion-style "time your clicks" tasks are not what I like the most after a hard working day. It's just a personal prefference. Both games are truly great.
I'm happy you enjoyed it, to the point that you even thought it was better than Bastion, but I believe you're giving the turn mode way too much credit. With the available skill of stealth and how you can buff it to be used during recovery and increase the duration to 10+ seconds, there is no reason to ever be out of turn mode, turning the game into an exercise in the "I win" button.
Conversely, trying to play the game past the first hour in without turn mode and "just having fun" as if it were an arpg as you mention, is pretty much impossible even with the most meticulous skill setup because many enemies will one shot you, much less when you get multiples of them (which you do quite quickly in the game).
So the only option is playing a boring turn mode where nothing moves or reacts and I always win and just wait for my actions to play out again and again and again....and again...
Or an exercise in frustration where the difficulty gets ramped up to 100 needlessly all so I can use skills that force me to be stationary, are not fluid or in many cases even effective, reducing me to those one or two combos (revolving around the short and unsatisfying charm skill) that I spam the entire. friking. game. - great.
Sorry, subjective enjoyment aside, that is very poor game design.
And all that isn't taking into account the many pitfalls of the game like instead of dying losing actual abilities (albeit temporarily) making the gameplay even MORE lackluster, the half baked story, horribly pretentious nonsensical ending, meaningless very tough challenges with no rewards, an upgrade system that forces you to replay the game if you want to unlock all your potential (could be a good thing if it weren't for how lackluster the gameplay is), the incredibe dirth of enemy variety, the incredible short length of the game, or the AMAZINGLY unsatisfying "boss" at the end and the even more unsatisfying "encounter" (no spoilers) you have with the supposed big baddies before getting to their lab.
It's like they took all the good gameplay / mechanics elements from bastion and decided "hey, we don't need these" or at least wanted to change things for the sake of being different to the point that it was no longer actually good, and somewhere along the way forgot all the rest as well, leaving in only their signature art style and high quality singing based music.
(And even that was lackluster in this game as the entire time we're listening to what amounts to emo noire humming)...gets old, fast.
As I mentioned, I'm happy you enjoyed the game, and hope others do too so Supergiant makes more and better games.
However, there are many many objectively bad design choices in this game, and it has me worried for their future games, so that's why I even bothered to post. I don't want to see them become a victim of their own success as many in the industry have to the point where I and others just shrug if they continue down that path and move on to other gaming experiences/companies.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I couldn't since it was the zenith of all the flaws of the game design bundled in a single encounter, where it was just trading blow for blow in turn mode. Just so incredibly boring to me.
And that character? Oh my lord, either make a character and flesh them out or don't make them at all. You can't just throw in some scientist looking type, make him sound apathetic and hipster edgy and call it a day.
I just finished it and the oblique story, game mechanics and setting is a lot less memorable than Bastion was.
Bastion was a bit vague, but I could follow since it was simple enough. Transistor is vague, but also complex to the point where it lost me. Too abstract.
Switching between live action and turn based strategy was a bit rough. Bastion was competent action through and through.
Neither Bastion or Transistor had very complex characters, but Bastion deals with simple motivation, whereas Transistor attempts to appear complex without any proper introduction.
Still, if I were to rate the two, Bastion is a high nine and Transistor somewhere between a 7 and an 8. That's high enough for me to love and recommend.
I've high hopes for Pyre though. Looks like their new game is back to form.
Pyre's game mechanics seem complicated, but when well executed and congruently done, I'd appreciate that.
It can get away with a otherwordly setting if they keep the themes and sights human and easily to intepret and the concepts emotionally consonant and principally understood.
As a plus, all the downtime between the action seems geared towards getting to know the characters on their way to redemption too!
Can't wait for Pyre.
YOU are playing a game, one of millions of other titles, which gives you the ability (intentional or not) to break the game.
If YOU are abusing it, it is YOUR fault not enjoying the game.
"The game gives player the ability to be never out of turn mode" - idiotic statement. It is not like it FORCES you, or is some "auto-win" ability, you have to mod it INTENTIONAL to make it work and even then it's not close to being a viable strat to win fast, it will take you waaay to long on some bosses/enemies with that tactic, i rather burst them down. Not to mention: once you use multiplier that tactic is impossible to pull off.
"The game gives bad players the option to cheese, and even though it's slow and not viable on high level plays I will still cry about it" - just please stick with your android games
People like to compare it to Bastion, which is fine, BUT also like comparing 2 different, unrelated things.
Music/Soundtrack:
- Bastion offers one of the best soundtracks, high quality, fitting the theme and rythm of the game perfectly, creating an awesome atmosphere.
- Transistor does the same, even though the theme is more difficult to intepret, Transistor is able to deliver a high quality soundtrack, which fits the story.
Gameplay:
- Bastion: Easy to pick up, offers some options to make it harder, but still rather easy.
- Transistor: More difficult, which can be tweaked up to a stage, where customizing every single save point (sometimes even backtracking) is necessary.
Additional: The challanges and puzzles are more appealing in Transistor. Bastion "fails" in this regard, with the main story being the only real selling point.
Story:
- Bastion: Easy to pick up, easy to follow, kinda shallow though. The only part "more difficult" to understand is the ending, because it escaletes kinda oddly paced. Paired with the music and level design it is appealing a LOT. A perfect choice for kids to pick up, if they start out with gaming.
- Transistor: Can be difficult to understand, you need to pay attention to not miss any crucial information (but no hidden scenes, which are crucial, or stuff like that). The world itself is one of the most interesting ones I have seen for a long time.
Replayability:
I replayed Bastion multiply times already, Transistor just once since release. BUT Transistor feels like something I will not forget for a long time, BECAUSE of how good the whole atmosphere was, not to mention the unique, but good, gameplay.
Look I'm happy you obviously think the game is great as is, but first of all: I didn't "lose" anything, because this isn't a contest, or even a debate. I simply posted what my feedback on the game was as me, a normal person who loves and plays tons of games and works on games.
And I'm not breaking anything. I didn't cheese by doing something unintended or finding a loophole. I simply used the skills as the developers intended. And I don't think you know what the term "breaking" means when it comes to games, you can't break the game by simply using a core mechanic the devs gave you, and if the game does indeed "break" (as it does with the combo I described) then that is poor design on the devs part, not me doing some amazing glitch or workaround.
And I assure you, it doesn't take forever at all. using those three skills like that that enable infinite turn time, leaves literally 80-90% of the rest of your skills open for use during turn time, resulting in the "I win" button I described.
Like I said, I'm genuinely happy if you enjoy the game, and I'm not saying anyone shouldn't, far from it. But that doesn't change certain simple observations I made about objective pitfalls of the game, regardless of how much you personally enjoyed it.
No not at all, to each their own opinion, I don't mean to shrug off anyone's opinion, it's their own. And sure a lot of things are subjective, but many are not:
- Short game
- Lack of enemy variety
- Little to no story exposition / world building
- Combat turn system requires no challenge and results in "I win" button with very few skills
- Challenges having no reward
- "Dying" means losing skills = less player agency and choice
And that's only the objective things that can be measurably demonstrated (and off the top of my head). Remember that simply because something else is subjective, doesn't mean it's invalid or incorrect.
We don't have data of course, but if we could ask every player for example "did you enjoy the ending to Transistor"? and a majority responded "no", then although judging the ending is a subjective measure, it is still a valid one, because the majority disliked it.
Like I said though, we can't know such things for the subjective parts of my feedback.
Again, I don't mean to diminish anyone enjoying the game or thinking it's good, anyone is totally entitled to that opinion, as whether or not a game is objectively good and whether or not someone enjoyed it are two very different things.
It was a short game, breezing through it. I just came back to it after picking it up around when it came out and loved it.
- I'm not sure if that's objective, the 10 enemies (+ 4 Man types) felt like enough to me.
- The way the story was delivered, through side remarks and trace descriptions, was refreshing and did give me a picture of what Cloudbank was like.
- With the limiters provided, it is very hard to find a definitive 'I win' to every encounter
- I enjoyed the challenges for what they were. They also showcased certain function combinations
- Taking hits and burning out functions forces the player to experiment/try other combinations, it never seemed to take away choice, given how short recovering the functions was. I usually kept the new ones anyway.