December Assassination #7 (Backlog)

This is a good game. This is a great game. This is a really, really, really great game. TLDR; Transistor is one of the most stylish games I have ever played, and features one of my favorite combat systems ever.

I'm playing all Supergiant games in order, and I'm glad to say they did it again. If Bastion was an appetizer, Transistor is the full course. You can see where the game comes from - the camera perspective, the combat style, the varied builds and loadouts, the difficulty modifiers, the customization, the parallel upgrade tracks for each weapon (function in this case), the beautiful watercolor artstyle, the ambient sountrack (this time with a powerful vocal singer in tow), the observant narrator (although this time he's a bit more subdued), the challenge levels, the replayability - there's a lot here which is a nod back to Bastion.

But then you have a new setting, a new protagonist, a new narrative method (which has similarities with Bastion, but to me mostly stood out as its own thing), and more importantly - a new combat system. The combat is the highlight here - we have an action game that will quickly overwhelm you during combat encounters, but which gives you a powerful tool: Turn(). When you enter Turn(), time stops and you can move/act freely. It's kind of a planning mode, where you can move and attack freely, and once you're happy with the planning, you can execute your plan. The downside of using Turn() is that you enter a Cooldown afterwards (proportional to how much of your Turn() you used), which leaves you exposed. So it's a great dance of entering Turn(), putting yourself into advantage, and surviving until you can use Turn() again. Or simply engaging in combat without Turn() to avoid the downside.

Combine that with your moves (functions) which can be placed as Active Functions (meaning you can map them to one of the four face buttons), Passive Functions (which enhance the Active Function it is attached to), or Passives (which applies to all functions and/or to your character). Customizing your build is a lot of fun, and since you unlock flavor lore by switching your loadout, you'll be doing it at every opportunity. I particularly think I never repeated a loadout all throughout the game - by the time I was almost settling on one, I'd unlock a new function and switch everything to make it fit in my builds.

Progression is also really good, with battles granting levels, which grants new functions, new difficulty modifiers, and new slots for passive functions and passives. Enemies grow with you, so even though you fight the same 10 grunts throughout the whole game, it hardly feels samey.

I said combat was king, but maybe the environment would be queen. Cloudbank is one of the most beautiful, haunting and stylish locations I've ever seen. You meet very few characters in person, but learn a lot about them via flavor lore, and they are all full of life and well realized.

If there are two things I'd fault the game is the length and the optional challenges. It's short. I've done most of the side content and beat it in 8 hours. Beelining through the main story probably would set you at 5 or 6 hours. If I complain about the game being short, it's because it's so good I wish it lasted longer. The way the devs found to make the game longer was with optional challenges, which mostly unlock in-game music and additional exp. While many were fun to tackle (like the ones that force you to finish a battle in one turn, showing you important combat skills you might not discover on your own), by the end all were too difficult. I could not beat all Speed Test ones, and the ones where you have to survive for 90 seconds were just a chore, not really fun or engaging.

At any rate, Transistor is definitely my favorite Supergiant game so far, and one of the best games I played in 2025 and ever. Must play.