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Supergiant's 2011 action-RPG Bastion made a lot of waves with its stunning art direction, procedural narration, and inventive approach to combat difficulty. It was clearly a game that wanted to rethink the isometric dungeon crawler rather than blindly follow in the footsteps of what came before. At a glance, its follow-up, Transistor, looks content to simply do Bastion again with its familiar isometric perspective, colourful world and the gritty vocal chords of rising voice-acting superstar Logan Cunningham dropping cryptic bits of narration over a mysterious plot that slowly comes into focus.Dig deeper, however, and it's clear that Supergiant wants to do something different with Transistor, even if the surface details remain the same. This time out you play as a fiery-haired singer named Red who gets whisked away to a backwater alley of the neon, art nouveau metropolis she inhabits. Shivering in her fancy gold dress, Red is unable to speak when she happens upon a glowing blue sword lying next to her dead friend. I'm told this man is someone very close to her and he died saving her life before he was slain by this otherworldly weapon, the titular Transistor. Upon picking up the peculiar electric blade, it begins talking to her in the voice of her dead companion.
Relative to Bastion, the narrator's role feels different. He's not a wizened old stranger but a long-time friend. This disembodied voice shows a lot of compassion for Red, and it's clear that these two were very close prior to the incident that left one of them a talking sword and the other hunted by strange robots that are after said sword for reasons unknown.
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