PAX Prime 2013: Transistor

As a big fan of Supergiant Games first release, Bastion, I was pretty excited to get my hands on their latest follow up, Transistor. One of the first things I noticed was the art style. The graphics were all beautifully stylized with a look reminiscent of 19th century water color paintings. The way the colors cascaded upon the environments and characters really drew me in. From there, my time with my Game of Show for PAX Prime 2013 had only just begun.

The game stars a female heroine known only as "Red." She was previously a popular pop singer, however, her voice was somehow taken from her. She picks up a talking sword, and starts her adventure to unravel the mystery of who took her voice, and why. The sword narrates the gameplay perfectly, with some of the best voice acting I've ever heard. He not only tells the story, but contextually frames the gameplay into both tutorial, and narrative, making comments or quips about almost anything I did while playing. This sounds like it might be annoying, and with some voices maybe it would be. But the gruff, soothing tone really helped set the mood for the game before me.

The game is set from an isomeric point of view with the player controlling Red as she navigates the beautifully painted environments. The game plays out like an action game, using different buttons causes Red and the sword to perform different moves to vanquish foes. The twist comes in the fact that once a timed bar is full, you can freeze time. When time is frozen, you can move, perform attacks, and dodge. All of these actions deplete the bar, and you only can perform so many actions per bar of frozen time. Don't like something you've done, you can back up and reset your actions until the point when you first initiated the freeze. When you are happy with the actions you've queued up, you can pull the trigger and they will play out in high speed.

At first it took some time to get used to this mechanic. I was spending a lot of my time running for my life while my bar charged up so I could execute an attack without getting slaughtered. Over the course of the demo, however, I found myself becoming used to the strategy element, using the bar to freeze time, move in for a couple of attacks, and then move back to cover. The game involved fast paced planning, and once I had become used to it, it became very fluid and fun to pull off these well choreographed combat maneuvers. Over the course of the demo I would gain new points to improve skills or unlock new abilities, furthering my options during combat.

Finally, I need to point out how impressed I was with the game's soundtrack. The music was somber, melodious, and almost relaxing. And it was all beautifully sung. Narratively, these are the songs that Red had become famous for in her world. As for the game, they pulled me into the world, and drove the narrative by commanding the mood. In our world, I can see Red becoming very famous too, as I could see myself listening to this soundtrack outside of the game frequently.

My time with Transistor was much too short. It was fun, captivating, beautiful, and engrossing. Judging from the demo alone, Transistor is a work of art. I cannot wait for the game to release next year. I couldn't recommend this game highly enough. I played many games at PAX, but Transistor was by a large margin the best.