Game Reviews

Transistor - An alluring RPG

Star onStar onStar onStar onStar off
|
iOS
| Transistor
Get
Transistor - An alluring RPG
|
iOS
| Transistor

There's something alluring about Transistor. Its neon cyberpunk hues and strange, never-quite-the-whole-picture narrative certainly set it apart as something unique.

And while it follows some of the stringent rules of the RPG, it's not afraid to flout them either. There are a few mis-steps here and there, and some might find its slightly esoteric way of doing things annoying, but this is an impressive port of a solid game that's well worth your time.

Red or dead

The game tells the story of Red, a singer who's thrust into a bizarre world of talking swords and violent robots. To begin with you're not really sure what's going on, but at every step the game unravels a little more of its story.

You control everything with taps, sending Red scurrying around the screen by giving it a poke. There are two combat modes. One sees you unleashing your powers in real time, the other pauses everything and lets you give Red a series of commands before executing them.

Fights are reasonably fast, and the game has an interesting approach to life and death. Every time your health bar hits zero you lose a skill. Permanently. You can add new skills that you've unlocked to your bar of four, and if it's full you can augment attacks with new moves as well.

Exploration is pretty linear, but there are nooks and crannies to discover as you follow the thread of the story. And everything looks stunning. There are moments when Transistor will make your jaw drop.

But it's not all sweetness and light. There are a few niggles here, ranging from the occasional judder to some pretty stiff difficulty spikes.

Sing while you're winning

It might not be as impressive as Bastion, but Transistor still fits brilliantly onto mobile. It's an intriguing story, maturely told, and its mechanics offer enough twists on familiar concepts that it remains fresh.

Transistor doesn't feel like a port, and if you've yet to give it a try then this mobile version is as good a place as any to start.

Transistor - An alluring RPG

Beautiful to look at, intriguing in most of the right ways, and a lot of fun - Transistor is well worth a look
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.