I decided at some point (probably after surveying my enormous Steam backlog) that I was going to start keeping track of games when I finish them, so that I remember to talk about them. Anyway, the first game of the year finished in 2025 was Supergiant Games’ Transistor. I actually own Transistor twice; once on the PS3, which I bought, and once on Steam, where my friend Maxine was kind enough to gift it to me for Christmas and thus remind me that I never really got too far into it. On the PS3, I both found the text size on screen infuriatingly small, and also found the combat system just way too hard for some reason, so I abandoned it not far into the game — which is a problem, because there is such a good game under the surface here.
The skill system is one I absolutely love and will probably steal in the future for some project or another. For people who haven’t played it, Transistor presents you with a set number of abilities, or functions, that you learn as you level up — 12 in total, I think? — but only four ability slots. The reason for this is because your ability slots also can unlock up to two upgrade slots each, and you can also unlock four passive slots for protagonist Red; each function can be slotted into an active slot, an upgrade slot, or a passive slot, and have different functions in each one. For example, the basic starting action Crash is a simple melee-range attack that stuns enemies briefly and sets up combos; if you add it as an upgrade to other attacks, however, it grants that combo-and-stun potential to them instead. Meanwhile, if you set it as a passive, you gain damage reduction and stun immunity for yourself. This system is then balanced by a memory limit that you can upgrade as Red levels up, preventing you from just creating 12-memory monstrosities out of nothing but the most powerful functions.
The art deco flavor in all of Cloudbank’s art is superb, constrasting fantastically with the a-little-too-smooth curves of the robotic Process enemies. The music itself is another highlight, but being a Supergiant game, that shouldn’t be surprising; Darren Korb doesn’t miss, period. I don’t know if there’s a standout track for me the way “God of the Dead” from Hades was, but the whole soundtrack is catchy to the point that I’d frequently find myself humming along without even necessarily realizing it at first. I suppose I can give the obvious nod to credits song “Paper Boats,” though.
As for the story, well. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s really interesting to see a short-duration game (I finished two full loops of Transistor and unlocked 100% of its achievements in 14 hours) that clearly has a lot of in-depth worldbuilding and story going on, but has absolutely no interest in explaining every question and nuance, instead leaving you some room to figure out for yourself some of the details of what happened. It’s refreshing, in a way.
Anyway, consider this a ringing endorsement. As for what’s next… well, I’m already a couple of hours into Helen’s Mysterious Castle, so I’ll likely finish that next. (When I’m not working on finishing Completionist++ in Balatro, anyway.)