Transistor appreciation thread

[NeutralDrow]

Spoiler: Minor and Major Ending Spoilers for those that haven't finished the game

And we get a boss fight that introduces something new to the gameplay but is almost hollow storywise (where are they exactly? are they *in* the Transistor? are they outside? is it a dream sequence?).

And the ending comes and it's beautiful and happy and we all love the ending song as usual on Supergiant Games' games. But it felt empty. Sure, the Camerata is done but what did you achieve? Red had the option to finish the Process and rebuild Cloudbank but she didn't. She doesn't seem like someone that would go out seeking for revenge, and she doesn't. But given the chance to fix things she decides to do nothing.

Spoiler

The fight with Royce takes place in the Process, or wherever the Process resides; according to him, you and he were too close when the transistor made it leave, and got swept up.

Assuming Royce is telling the truth, you did finish the Process. It can't be destroyed, but with the Transistor it's sealed away, back to wherever it was before the Camerata freed it. Royce mentions that the Process is how Cloudbank is so malleable; the Process is how people can control the weather, or paint the sky, or turn parks into bridges and bridges into halls, Matrix-style, though it's never truly explained how it does so and it's left vague exactly "where" that is, or if "where" is even the right word (ironically, a very Japanese way of storytelling).

So in the end, the Camerata is gone, their mistakes have been corrected (it's not that their plans were foiled; that was done before the game started), and the Process is no longer running amok. There's no more conflict. Red could have rebuilt Cloudbank on her own and according to her whim (though it would still have been empty), but chose life in the Transistor with her lover instead.

 

[The Madman]

Spoiler: Minor and Major Ending Spoilers for those that haven't finished the game

And we get a boss fight that introduces something new to the gameplay but is almost hollow storywise (where are they exactly? are they *in* the Transistor? are they outside? is it a dream sequence?).

And the ending comes and it's beautiful and happy and we all love the ending song as usual on Supergiant Games' games. But it felt empty. Sure, the Camerata is done but what did you achieve? Red had the option to finish the Process and rebuild Cloudbank but she didn't. She doesn't seem like someone that would go out seeking for revenge, and she doesn't. But given the chance to fix things she decides to do nothing.

Spoiler

The fight with Royce takes place in the Process, or wherever the Process resides; according to him, you and he were too close when the transistor made it leave, and got swept up.

Assuming Royce is telling the truth, you did finish the Process. It can't be destroyed, but with the Transistor it's sealed away, back to wherever it was before the Camerata freed it. Royce mentions that the Process is how Cloudbank is so malleable; the Process is how people can control the weather, or paint the sky, or turn parks into bridges and bridges into halls, Matrix-style, though it's never truly explained how it does so and it's left vague exactly "where" that is, or if "where" is even the right word (ironically, a very Japanese way of storytelling).

So in the end, the Camerata is gone, their mistakes have been corrected (it's not that their plans were foiled; that was done before the game started), and the Process is no longer running amok. There's no more conflict. Red could have rebuilt Cloudbank on her own and according to her whim (though it would still have been empty), but chose life in the Transistor with her lover instead.

There's another interpretation I quite like:

Spoiler

"When everything changes, nothing changes."

That's a line that's parotted around a lot throughout the game if you take the time to look for it. Similarly in one of the songs lyrics you've got:

"Take a look on and follow everybody
I won't become a number in the system
Zeroes and ones
Not me
Not me"

Combine things like that (Multiple transistors in that in-between world as another example) and the general computer styled setting, and one way it could be interpreted is that the 'Process' is in fact the setting being rebooted, for lack of better words. The world goes back to the old ways, to the country, and has restarts from there building back up to the city it was when the game began. Whether the people involved reboot themselves or stay the same however is questionable, otherwise 'death' wouldn't be much of a threat. But nevertheless that's one way to look at it that also works quite well with Supergiants previous game Bastion and its core story-element of having to move on or things inevitable repeat themselves.

In any case it's fun to speculate, and as I mentioned in my post above I love that Supergiant gave enough texture to their games world that crackpot theories like this can exist.

 

[NeutralDrow]

There's another interpretation I quite like:

Spoiler

"When everything changes, nothing changes."

That's a line that's parotted around a lot throughout the game if you take the time to look for it. Similarly in one of the songs lyrics you've got:

"Take a look on and follow everybody
I won't become a number in the system
Zeroes and ones
Not me
Not me"

Combine things like that (Multiple transistors in that in-between world as another example) and the general computer styled setting, and one way it could be interpreted is that the 'Process' is in fact the setting being rebooted, for lack of better words. The world goes back to the old ways, to the country, and has restarts from there building back up to the city it was when the game began. Whether the people involved reboot themselves or stay the same however is questionable, otherwise 'death' wouldn't be much of a threat. But nevertheless that's one way to look at it that also works quite well with Supergiants previous game Bastion and its core story-element of having to move on or things inevitable repeat themselves.

In any case it's fun to speculate, and as I mentioned in my post above I love that Supergiant gave enough texture to their games world that crackpot theories like this can exist.

I think that makes sense in terms of the Camerata's goals and what they were trying to do, though not so much how the Process itself works.

Spoiler

The way Grant's and Royce's bios read, it sounds like they both found the endless malleability of Cloudbank to be stagnating, sort of the like a variation of the Holodeck problem. Grant became disillusioned when he realized he'd argued for and against every civic position in his career, and Royce became disillusioned when he realized that people having total control over their environment led them to settling into a predictable pattern and rejecting anything outside the status quo (like, for example, most of the things he did).

Given that motivation and the premise that the Transistor can control the Process, it's not so much that the Process is, itself, the cosmic reboot. The Process is just the CPU. The Camerata simply tried to use the Process to reboot Cloudbank, and the Transistor was just the overriding program...

...or rather, given that the people they put into the Transistor were the civic-minded, the philanthropists, the movers and shakers, people who could command attention and get things done, it's likely the Transistor was supposed to be the OS for the new system. The people would lose total control of their environment, but gain the capacity for genuine change again, and the personalities embedded in the Transistor would ensure both that this change would be to the benefit of all, and have enforced acceptance.

So the funny thing is, Transistor essentially starts from the opposite end of Bastion, but reaches the same conclusion.

 

[The Madman]

I think that makes sense in terms of the Camerata's goals and what they were trying to do, though not so much how the Process itself works.

Spoiler

The way Grant's and Royce's bios read, it sounds like they both found the endless malleability of Cloudbank to be stagnating, sort of the like a variation of the Holodeck problem. Grant became disillusioned when he realized he'd argued for and against every civic position in his career, and Royce became disillusioned when he realized that people having total control over their environment led them to settling into a predictable pattern and rejecting anything outside the status quo (like, for example, most of the things he did).

Given that motivation and the premise that the Transistor can control the Process, it's not so much that the Process is, itself, the cosmic reboot. The Process is just the CPU. The Camerata simply tried to use the Process to reboot Cloudbank, and the Transistor was just the overriding program...

...or rather, given that the people they put into the Transistor were the civic-minded, the philanthropists, the movers and shakers, people who could command attention and get things done, it's likely the Transistor was supposed to be the OS for the new system. The people would lose total control of their environment, but gain the capacity for genuine change again, and the personalities embedded in the Transistor would ensure both that this change would be to the benefit of all, and have enforced acceptance.

So the funny thing is, Transistor essentially starts from the opposite end of Bastion, but reaches the same conclusion.

Yep, that's more or less the conclusion I came to as well. The Camerata were collecting people with which to form the foundation of their own rebooted version of the world, or their own 'OS' as you put it. Unfortunately things escalated too far, perhaps even before Red got involved, and things only spiraled downwards from there.

You could also theorize that having figured out the pattern of how things worked they could very well have been trying to stabilize their world to prevent a catastrophic restart by collecting all the greatest minds of their time to be preserved. Their motto "When everything changes, nothing changes." could be interpreted either way really.

Me, I like to think they might have been partially successful in that people figures like Red and her love were preserved while the world at large was destroyed, but then I'm a sap for a happy(ish) ending.

 

[NeutralDrow]

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Funny thing is, I never got the impression that Cloudbank and Fairview were the entire world...

 

[Ipsen]

... I've already learned a few valuable lessons:

1. More than two attack powers in a loadout is a good idea.
2. Never use Breach up close.
3. Snapshot's photos are distracting, not damaging. Watch for the damaging bits.

I didn't quite die in the middle of learning these lessons, but I became very acquainted with what happens to keep you alive. >_>

Another lesson I'd add to this:

4. Concerning support functions: When you 'die' (life bar runs out, get hit after emergency Turn()), the biggest function MEM wise goes first. Build balanced! (Or go overpowered, but that still can fail spectacularly)

But yea, this game ran Get() on me, and I'm still being pulled in. I got all achievements and max level days ago, and I still have a hunkering to play; I've played good games recently, but I haven't felt this way about a title in a loooong time. Most of the good qualities for the game have been stated here and I'd borrow most of them, but I find that the icing on the cake is that I found it concise. In both story AND gameplay.

I also love how each of the functions are basically 16 varying action-game ability archetypes, all tweaked to form a combination system, in both action and equipment. Not even to mention the nuance of pacing that Turn() can bring.

Take the ending you mentioned, it's a perfectly valid ending (and if you view it as a metaphor for the game's development it's even more rad), but it never gets fleshed out and doesn't make any sense. It's never explained what the Transistor is, it's never stated that the Functions in the Transistor can communicate with each other, and the relationship between Red and the Transistor is never developed on-screen to the point where that's an obvious choice for her.

I think many people who are hard on the game think along these lines. Nearly every review, positive or not, had something to say about things 'not being fleshed out', or 'being left in the dark', or something along that nature. I found that the story made perfect sense, in that it made simple, resonant sense; the game, tone, atmosphere was ALL about people (particularly 3 groups: Red+Transistor, the people of cloudbank, and the Camarata).

Base exposition of what this or that 'is' would be technobabble at worst, and distracting from the established tone at best. Not that exposing explicitly the what or why of things is bad or dull, but in the case for the atmosphere and tone of this game, I think such base exposition would be, best case scenario, a sacrifice. Would require more work/trickery to make affecting, at least.

After finishing Transistor, mulling over the events of the game and all the 'space' between them, and tangentially a few games like Bastion that I felt told stories in a similar manner, my largest feeling is that games might not be so proficient at telling stories, and more proficient at starting them.

 

[NeutralDrow]

snip

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Funny thing is, I never got the impression that Cloudbank and Fairview were the entire world...

Heh, I think it comes down to different interpretation. I assumed Cloudbank to be a kind of "global" city .

Then what is "the country" when it's not a euphemism for death, where did everyone not trapped by the Process evacuate to, and where did the guy in the Transistor come from? He's not a resident of Cloudbank.

4. Concerning support functions: When you 'die' (life bar runs out, get hit after emergency Turn()), the biggest function MEM wise goes first. Build balanced! (Or go overpowered, but that still can fail spectacularly)

I took the opposite lesson at one point, actually. Once I had the memory to afford it, I could build an "overpowered" function deliberately to tank a shot in a fight where I'd expect to take damage (notably, the final boss and the Agency Tests), while my remaining functions could all rely on support from each other and passive effects, rather than upgrades. It worked especially well teaming up Void, Cull, and Mask (with Breach and Void as passives); those were essentially a boss-killer team on their own, while I could take the inevitable damage and just lose Crash upgraded with Jaunt and Help.