This review contains spoilers
Transistor was my first introduction to Supergiant games and while it is stunningly beautiful, mechanically innovative, and fun to play - it unfortunately glorifies suicide as 'the answer' which really put me off of supergiant as a whole since they seem to care far more about aesthetic than the harm such messaging can do.
The gameplay is clever and fuses a combination of turn based mechanics with hack and slash where the mechanics and features of your sword are customisable and combine different mechanics to create new effects far before bullet heaven games started doing it. This creates a pretty huge array of play styles and mechanics as you can switch up the way the game plays and feels on the fly and change tactics to better match the variety of enemies. Combat is sleek and fast feeling like an early prototype for Hades which says a lot about how good this game feels to play.
It's rare that I get into spoilers for my reviews, but I feel I have to here because I don't understand how everyone glosses over the implications of this story. Put simply, a singer's boyfriend is murdered using this very powerful sword / key to the city and his soul becomes trapped in the sword. Having lost her boyfriend and her voice she goes on a mission to get vengeance on the powerful individuals conspiring to take control of her world guided by the voice of her bf trapped in the sword. Honestly up to this point it's all well and good, a sort of cyber-noire with excellent character design and strong motivations all around.
However at around the half way point you feel the design team worrying about the budget as the protagonist suddenly decides 'we should go back to the start' as if they ran out of money to build more of the game. You return and fight the city itself as the changes the conspirators wanted to impose on the city grow out of control. The remaining minions kill themselves and after you stop the process, and defeat the big bad you go back to your bf's corpse, Realising she won't get her bf or voice back she decides to kill herself, where she's then reunited with him in a happily ever after.
Even for 2014 I thought this game handled the concept of suicide very poorly. Not only using it as a cheap way to write off two of the antagonists, but also as a lazy conclusion for the main character. The fact she kills herself is one thing, but to have a happy ending reunited with her bf in a beautiful sunny ever after sends a pretty disturbingly clear message that killing yourself is actually the solution to your problems. It gets the bad guys out of being held responsible, and it grants the main character everything she's been struggling for through the game.
The fact anyone could write such a grossly irresponsible glorification of suicide is irresponsible at best and outright harmful at worst. Somehow I seem to be the only person who cares though as this game has sold incredibly well and turned supergiant into an indie darling. Personally I still think this is abhorrent and I don't care how beautiful it looks and sounds, or how great the gameplay is when it exists to advertise how great suicide is. Supergiant should be ashamed of this title's core message.
The gameplay is clever and fuses a combination of turn based mechanics with hack and slash where the mechanics and features of your sword are customisable and combine different mechanics to create new effects far before bullet heaven games started doing it. This creates a pretty huge array of play styles and mechanics as you can switch up the way the game plays and feels on the fly and change tactics to better match the variety of enemies. Combat is sleek and fast feeling like an early prototype for Hades which says a lot about how good this game feels to play.
It's rare that I get into spoilers for my reviews, but I feel I have to here because I don't understand how everyone glosses over the implications of this story. Put simply, a singer's boyfriend is murdered using this very powerful sword / key to the city and his soul becomes trapped in the sword. Having lost her boyfriend and her voice she goes on a mission to get vengeance on the powerful individuals conspiring to take control of her world guided by the voice of her bf trapped in the sword. Honestly up to this point it's all well and good, a sort of cyber-noire with excellent character design and strong motivations all around.
However at around the half way point you feel the design team worrying about the budget as the protagonist suddenly decides 'we should go back to the start' as if they ran out of money to build more of the game. You return and fight the city itself as the changes the conspirators wanted to impose on the city grow out of control. The remaining minions kill themselves and after you stop the process, and defeat the big bad you go back to your bf's corpse, Realising she won't get her bf or voice back she decides to kill herself, where she's then reunited with him in a happily ever after.
Even for 2014 I thought this game handled the concept of suicide very poorly. Not only using it as a cheap way to write off two of the antagonists, but also as a lazy conclusion for the main character. The fact she kills herself is one thing, but to have a happy ending reunited with her bf in a beautiful sunny ever after sends a pretty disturbingly clear message that killing yourself is actually the solution to your problems. It gets the bad guys out of being held responsible, and it grants the main character everything she's been struggling for through the game.
The fact anyone could write such a grossly irresponsible glorification of suicide is irresponsible at best and outright harmful at worst. Somehow I seem to be the only person who cares though as this game has sold incredibly well and turned supergiant into an indie darling. Personally I still think this is abhorrent and I don't care how beautiful it looks and sounds, or how great the gameplay is when it exists to advertise how great suicide is. Supergiant should be ashamed of this title's core message.