I like it when he goes harsh on games I like actually, getting different opinions and views on something is nice. Hell we certainly don't watch yahtzee to hear an echo chamber of our own opinions.
W. Hunter .Lynn Certainly not, I loved how he criticised Watch_Dogs and I love that game, although I know how dissapointing it was and how doubtful to get all those 90 Awards. What other games did he butcher that I like? Prototype, The Sims 3, Metro Last Light, SWTOR and SW The Force Unleashed, Red Dead Redemption, and all Assassin's Creed games so far (except the III because I haven't played it yet and I'm not watching it in case he spoils something, I'd rather play the game first and then see the review so that I can relate to what he says :P )
Fernando Langalú wait wut? I remember him liking Metro:LL, saying that it "did everything right in a stealth game and now other developers have no excuse to get it wrong".
Wylade It doesn't mean it's not without its flaws, it's kinda buggy, and the nazi enemies thing was "just not trying really". Awesome game anyways. He liked Prototype too, and said that both it and InFamous are fun in their own way, but criticised them in a few ways. And he also liked Assassin's Creed IV, and made fun of the game too. Do bear in mind that he spent the whole Spec Ops: The Line review doing farting noises. So in short, I wanted to say "make fun" when I said "butcher". Because that's basically what Yahtzee does (alongside mere butchering)
I have to admit, I really liked Transistor, and the style kept me glued to seat basically the entire time, buuut saying it's "allergic to directly stating things" is very accurate. I'm all for unconventional storytelling and subtlety and implying things and nuance and all of that, and maybe it's just me, but I felt things were a bit too fuzzy and vague. Especially given that this is a story about the larger scale too, it would have been nice to get more idea of the larger scale. Somebody else called the game "isolating", and that's deliberate. Your character never interacts with another human, except to beat them with the blunt end of your glowing sword. I really liked the interaction between you and said sword, though. No, really, it was done really well. The voice actor was mournful without being whiny, the voice was cool, the narration helped a lot. Since your character lost her voice his is who you'll hear the most. And both your character, and the sword, are, like, characters and not just bits of cardboard. Possibly my favorite bit was a tiny, tiny little thing that's easy to miss. You get to read news articles and leave comments, and eventually, the Transistor is getting freaked out, so when you hit the button to leave a comment, your character actually starts typing a message directly to the Transistor. Because she can't speak. I really wasn't expecting that and it stuck with me and any game that can give me a stuck-with-me-forever-moment deserves an honorable mention. I feel like getting immersed (and I mean completely submersed) in the style and music and cyber-noire themes and stuff is the way to really enjoy this, and this might show people who are easy audiences/easily absorbed into things along for the ride (like me) versus people who don't get swept up as easily. Neither is bad, it's just a difference in how our brains work when we read or play stuff.
+HuntrBlackLuna yeah definitely. i beat the game twice and then sat down with all the information and thought "alright let's figure out what the fuck is going on"
0:55 Didn't this game come out awhile ago Yahtzee? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!!!! Single most memorable moment in ZP history, second only to the time he posted a review specifically designed to lecture nintendoh. God I love this man (not gay)
Yathzee's most memorable quotes is the time he accidentally coined the two terms "PC master race" and "console peasant" within the span of one video It was his original review of the witcher...
@@hanro50 So that's where it all started. I remember watching a ZP of him regretting coinning the term pc master race. Now let me watch its birthplace.
I actually liked the fact that you lost an ability, yes I know it's incredibly crippling but it got me to try harder and be more cautious than any "You are dead, click here to restart from the same point" screen as it not only let me continue after losing a function so I wasn't throwing in the towel at any point but it added some actual fucking weight to losing an ability. It might have backfired for the majority but I quite loved it really, granted I did play the game with all disablers activated so maybe I just have brain damage.
I had no issue with it till sybill. She wrecked me in 3 out of 3 attempts to finish the game in a way that I only had one function left after her. Dark Souls has the descency to tell you that it fucked you up the arse and let's you respawn fully replenished at the last check point, sybille made me coffe instead and told me that everything is fine ... No Sybille. Nothing is fine. I only got bombs left. Bombs are the worst. Please let me die.
What i liked about losing functions was the fact that it made me diversify my playstyle. I had to use functions that i mainly held as modifiers which was a cool way of making me interact with the rest of the combat.
I concur, I enjoyed this mechanic. Importantly it never leaves you without an attack, it always gets rid of your other functions first. This means you can fight right up until the end and you can rely less / more on the turn mechanic. If you used your "turn" mechanic sparingly you could survive a great last stand just with that one attack, and I had a few harrowing fights where I got down to nothing but the wall and still pulled it out. The only thing that actually got annoying were enemies inexplicably invincible to attacks, and while there was typically a reason, I played through the whole game wondering why 2-3 times certain enemies were just "resistant" or "immune" to everything for odd periods of time. The burnout was a great cooldown mechanic forcing you to adapt - finding out you can instead use crowd control instead of your limited dash was a big revelation, and allowed you to consider removing your dash for something more offensive... But the issue wasn't the burnout, it was the level design, creature design, and oddities. You have 50 million weapons, but I found myself integrating the Switch mechanic for the entire game because enemies were inexplicably nightmarishly fast, had multiple defensive mechanics I had no way of understanding or blocking against (the invisible and intangible fetch dogs blinking for instance). It started off great, but by midgame the screen is oozing with ultra fast enemies with invincibility mechanics, so just figuring out how to CC them so you have time to think for even a second becomes a chore. I think the enemy design and level design were the issues with this game, because while you have an amazingly versatile system to deal with threats, you can't change them midcombat and you need certain functions in certain area's. If you get caught in a new fight with the wrong tools you can literally do 0 damage, I ended up in a room where I had to use Switch because 2-3 enemies were oddly resistant to all damage (no, it wasn't because of the cheerleaders) and making them kill each other was the only choice. There were other times I wanted to commit suicide because my combat build become entirely moot against certain enemies, which is fine, but with no way to adapt it was either claw my way to an inevitable death or just start over, and I ended up starting over once or twice not because I was outwitted, but because I could do the math and there wasn't an alternative strategy, so I just had to brick. A "flee" mechanic would've solved all of this. Up until The Spine the game felt great, then they decide to put you against a gigantic boss in the tiniest room in the game, and this is when the game starts sending you weird enemies who have inexplicable patterns and defenses that aren't interesting, just.... annoying. Meanwhile the world goes full white, while narratively "ok" it also becomes a joyless travel through endless rooms of grey.... There are issues with this game, but they're more complicated than just a few mechanics, it has an issue as a whole. I'd love to see a sequel, it wouldn't be hard to add a couple mechanics to save it all. Being able to Flee, less mini-boss style enemies (fetch dogs and "man" enemies are the main culprits here), maybe leaving a blank slot allows you to fill it outside of combat (so you can bring empty slots and adapt). I found charming Worm style enemies gave you a precious way to heal, mechanics like this are super welcome and should've been mainstays - not in and of themselves, but in design. Cells having no function whatsoever to collect other than to stop an enemy attack could've been changed to a skill-alter ability mid-combat, or give you a mechanic like super_user to help you when you just are utterly messed up by situational stuff coming out of the blue, like killing an enemy offscreen and he turns into 4 blue "man" enemies.
The idea of motivating the player to try new tactics is good, but forcing them to switch to an unfamiliar new style when already in a tough spot would only be good if there was one style to be found for each battle that "solves" it, making it easier in spite of the switch.
Well you do get the lost ability back reasonably quickly and you can just swap it for something else in the meantime. Not like you have enough memory to equip everything anyways
Honestly I agree with basically everything The story goes so far out of it's way too not outright state anything ever. Something even as simple as "Sybil was gay AF for Red" and "Asher and Grant were fucking eachothers brains out." Once completing the game you're left with this big feeling of "Why?" The game was meant to play off this contrasting feeling from Bastion. Where in that game the big final choice was yours, and yours to make. Whereas in Transistor the message is one of "You don't get to make all the choices in life." and "You don't get to dictate others actions." As was the slogan of the Camerata. Red's final choice is not up to you. It's hers, and hers alone. I think a lot of people felt like the game didn't give you a lot of choice in what happened, where you went etc. But gave you this idea that you are making your own choices in other areas, with the ballots and polls etc. The game puts it across like it will be your choice in the end. When in fact it never was going to be. You as the Player simply function in getting Red from point A to point B. I never felt as if you would actually get to dictate what she did in the end. As throughout the entire game you never did. There was always a clear goal presented to you in which you could not deviate from. You didn't have a choice as to whether Red went to the bathroom, she just did. As it was her choice.
"Losing functions forces you to rethink your strategy in the middle of combat" Yeah...that's the point. It punishes you for relying on a single playstyle and makes you have to develop a new one. And turn() forces you into run mode because it's supposed to be an easy mode, and if you fail, then you have to suffer for it. Game's perfectly playable in real time, just much harder.
Yeah the combat system was confusing as anything at the start but the whole losing an ability when you die made ramping up the difficulty really fun. I don't usually like putting games on v. hard modes, especially if you have to repeat a level or reload every time you die, but loved it in this game. Every time an enemy buff/player nerf came up I added it, doesn't throw you to the lions from the get go and still gets really hard towards endgame. + a great story :)
Its basically the same thing you said about using different abilities to get the documents. Transistor takes away powers with each death to encourage experimentation. That being said, id understand if having your favorite powers taken away for awhile might be annoying.
+Half Aluminum Chemist i think its actually the oposit, because when you lose a power you are forced to make do with what you have, if you go around experimenting, you are raising the chance of having to restart, because it didnt work, and you were left with 2-3 uselless skills/ not fun to use. what most people ended up doing was, make something that work, and keep using it, untill it doesnt work anymore. not only that but it also undermine the whole action mode, making some fights almost impossible, on a pure action run, unless you are absurdly good at the game. EXPECIALLY at higher dificulty modifiers. finally, the game is very short, making the fact that you can only face each enemy once a down in that regard, if it was something closer to a jrpg, with at least the ability to go back and re do the chapters, maybe the whole experimentation would work much better.
Except there's no punishment for retrying and save points are everywhere. So if you lose a function, just retry and go again. Sometimes it's just because the battle didn't go the way as planned, Like when Yahtzee said the enemies moves from the forecasted kill move. And when push comes to shove and things don't work, then you can respec until it does. The only times you can't respec is at a boss battle
Marcos Danilo When you die, it forces you to change around all of your abilities to suit a new play style that only has 3 slots. If that's not experimentation, I don't know what is.
Wheatly, to me, thats less experimentation, and more adaptation, you will go from something that doesnt work, to something that works, and keep it untill you need to change again. you have no reason to change things up and the fact that you have a limited number of fights make sure you will get more "experience" with one way than the others. and you wont have time to "train".
Spark(Switch, Jaunt) turns 95% of the fights into a joke. It's not a particularly powerful combination, but it does give you an attack you can use very quickly, at any time, that makes enemies try to kill each other instead of you. Turn() recovery is pretty much a non-issue with this. You will never be vulnerable ever again...except during most of the boss fights. It can leech quite a bit of the fun from the game if you overuse it, though.
The customization was definitely fun, but I felt the whole "have to use skill in all slots to learn lore" meant that at some point while playing one of my skills would be essentially useless and only there to finish lore completion.
Returned to review years later since Transistor is on sale and cause I like Bastion only to see it's randomly age restricted. This puzzled me because I remember having watched it before and can't imagine it being... Oh... I see now, lol
I loved this game, definitely one of my top games of 2014 and I think it really shows how good a game is when I watch Yahtzee review something and he finds actual complaints about the game rather than nitpicking with the tedious ones that don't really bother me. I know people come here specifically to watch Yahtzee piss in a game's cornflakes but its nice to see him pour some milk in every now and then.
"What is a transistor? A semiconductor device commonly used as an amplifier? A song by Kraftwerk from their 1975 album Radio-Activity? The seventh album by Norwegian hard rock band TNT? What you're supposed to call your brother when he's halfway through a sex-change operation?" As a trans guy this made me fucking WHEEZE.
I played transistor and bastion but only finished transistor, i feel that transistor had way more dept in combat and a certain ambiguity that allowed me to insert my conclusions after it all ended which I really like in story telling in general.
I get super excited if it a game i've played so then i can relate....and not laugh and clap my hands like a stupid seal at the funny images and flashy buttons.
He's not kidding about the game immediately throwing you in. I'm not sure but I think this is the only videogame I've played that doesn't have a start screen of any kind, which was to say the least really jarring. The only other one I can think of that comes close is X-Men 2: Clone Wars for the Genesis but even that game has a start screen once you beat the first level (which is a really bizarre design choice). I'm guessing the original Pong didn't have a start screen but I've never played that. Anyway Transistor is a great experience, albeit a heartbreaking one. As a musician and dystopian sci-fi fan I'm more biased towards this one over all the other SuperGiant games and a part of me can't help but think the game isn't some kind of Darren and Ashley fanfiction. haha
Wow I did the exact same as Yahtzee, i played this game for like 10 minutes and was like "meh that was ok" never played it again... Not sure if I should go back now
The general idea behind losing functions is so that you rely on multiple rather than one buffed function earlier on. That's at least my take on it. It promotes a bit more creativity in the sense that you can lose your primary skill if you're not careful, hence investing a little time into your other functions is necessary.
i bought this game on the PS4 and it was the only one i had for awhile so i managed to beat it several times, acquiring so many duplicates of the functions and crafting such an impressive build that even when i did die it hardly mattered. having all the limiters active also added a much-needed spice to the gameplay.
I really liked Transistor. Didn't finish it yet but I'm close and so far, it could be my GOTY. The combat to my suprise was actually really good even though it tried to mix turn-based strategy with real-time action. I thought it'd be as gimmicky and useless as Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but it works nicley and makes you think. However, like Yahtzee said, once you run out of energy, all you can do is just run about and you can't do anything while so unless you have downed enemies. About the "losing the chips after you lose your health" mechanic, I really like it because it forces you to use abilities in ways that you may not be comfortable with creating interesting combat situations. This is good because it forces you to use all the chips instead of sticking to one strategy. As for the pacing, the game sure loves to shove everything to you all at once which relates to the fact that it's so short. I even artificially extend its time by playing challenges inbetween the story and add limiters (which are modifiers that make the game harder but give you more EXP). I'd like to play more of it. I really don't understand much about what's going on with the story, but I try to absorve as much as I can. However, it keeps you interested and provokes you to search for more, specially with the chips (which I think they're an awesome synergy between story and gameplay.), using them will unlock the history behind the person that it came from. I hope it won't be like a Stephen King novel where he builds up the momentum but ends up giving a depressing payout. All in all: fantastic game so far, I hope it ends in a memorable way.
Cannily enough, I just finished Transistor yesterday, and I can agree with a lot of Yahtzee's points. The structure of the story made it more of an experience than a narrative. When I had to explain what the story was about, I actually drew a blank. I know what happens in the story, but what do you classify it as? A romance? A revenge? Science Fiction? Overall, despite the emotional resonance, there wasn't a lot of "story" to hang it off. Just two dudes flailing around, trying to figure out how they fit into the middle of a sudden apocalypse that pretty much concludes itself in a day. Like Yahtzee said, there wasn't too clear a goal or premise set in mind. I can accept a narrative where you begin with confusion, and then have the details slowly unfold, or a story that results from multiple motivations slamming into each other and causing nothing but collateral damage, but that only works when your character is equally as confused as you are. Here, the dudes seemed to have an understanding that I wasn't in on, which was why they decided to gun for the villains in their secret base, but I didn't get it myself. Are we going there to kill the guys or see if we can get answers on how to fix things? Gameplay wise, though, I was alright with it. My only real complaint, which matches with Yahtzee's second half is the lack of defensive options after you use up your turn. The only other option is Jaunt, but that'd pretty much require you leaving a slot for it mandatorily. It'd be better if you had some sort of dodge option between turns, so I wouldn't feel as naked, eating half a health bar from the five different enemies that can either run faster than me, shoot bullets faster than me, have gravity beams that pull me in, or AOEs that I can barely escape, running in one direction (while eating the all that other stuff I just mention).
one of the cool things about transistor is that the story is much like dark souls where you find bits and pieces scattered throughtout the world and the remaining 50% of it is up to interpretation
***** the comparison i made is that like dark souls you dont get told the story you have to find it on the world, throu the abilities descriptions and pieces of text logs on terminals, like dark souls where items tell most of the story about characters and the places, if you dont like the game fine but dont be a fanboy
Pretty cool game, I loved the combat system. Designing your approach around the specifics of each new fight (for instance, high level disposable functions for the final boss fight to act as a shield for low level essential functions, or choosing breach() for a couple of big targets vs spark() for plenty of small ones) was a lot of fun - it sure beat Frozen Synapse IMO. Unlike Yahtzee I wish that there had been more content - perhaps not a longer story, but I felt like a lot of the strategic possibilities went unexplored. I wish it had more out-of-the-game fighting zones like the smoking pipe or bedroll in Bastion.
I'm about halfway through Transistor right now, and I can back up everything that Yahtzee just said. It's a really interesting game, TONS of customization, unique gameplay, but it just didn't suck me in the moment I turned it on like Bastion. Still gonna play it through another 2 times though.
Actually, Switch() is extremely useful whenever weeds are around. It can make the fight against Cybil a lot easier. (They heal you once they're converted, if you stand nearby)
You know what, those were some really valid points. I absolutely loved Transistor, but I think I overlooked a lot of its' flaws because I fucking love cyberpunk.
I agree that the game was a bit too vague, as oftentimes I find discussions of the game are more about 'WHAT happened' than 'what does it mean?' But I guess that's half the challenge of the game, understanding it. If you're looking for a story that will really make you think and speculate, look no further than Transistor. But more importantly, Yahtzee's line in this video: "Agree with my opinions and thus justify my existence!" THAT is the reason everyone needs to stop taking reviews so seriously. If you like a game that got bad reviews, that's fine. If you hate a game that got good reviews, that's fine. Reviews are really just supposed to be tools to help people find what they're looking for, not some objective ranking system to tell us which games are good and which ones are bad (as if that's even possible). It's nice that Yahtzee sees it that way.
Both of these (Bastion and Transistor I mean) seemed like heavy cases of style over substance, but with Transistor being actually better of the two. Maybe cuz cyberpunk or cyberpunk-like stuff gets me going
Switch isn't useless! You can use it on the land tentacles to heal yourself in a fight! I don't even remember right now if there is another way to heal yourself.
Tap() is the main healing function - it lets you drain life from enemies. Using Flood() as a passive also gives you automatic health regeneration. You get those functions a lot later than Switch(), though.
Switch is very annoying because it stops you from targeting the same enemy twice. I however liked using it with help() because i could make luna target the enemies i wanted off my back and focus my own attacks on dealing damage
0:56 Omg I loved that bit ^^ Also anyone reading this I suggest checking out the next episode on the escapist website, Yahtzee's new idea needs support :)
Wish you talked more about the story/story telling instead of just focusing on the gameplay, but I totally understand. I hated Transistor's combat with a passion but loved its story to bits.
Yahtzee: WHAT THE () ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE VEIWER! Me: shhhhh, just waiting for you to fall asleep, I know that's creepy! But under certain circumstances I would love to do that!(not that I would(seriously, I am Not that kind of weirdo))
Maybe he will once Hyrule Warriors comes out? I'm sure it will cause enough of a stir that people will bother Yahtzee about it... Maybe. I guess it isn't technically Dynasty Warriors, but I'm assuming that they'd be similar enough.
PhyreSpore It still is they have done a number of spin offs some historical(like Samurai Warriors) and some off franchises(like Dynasty Warriors Gundam) it's the same developers and fighting style. Honestly I kind of like the spin offs more then the main games most of the time you can only play Dynasty Warriors 36.5 for so many iterations before you can quote the romance of the three kingdoms from memory in Mandarin.
***** I liked the older versions honestly, they just had some sort of charm that the newer iterations lack. Having said that the combat system of the older versions was pretty average.
You don't have to use the freeze time aspect of the game- the tool causes you to have to run around in full defense mode. So eventually I found out that I did much better not using it unless I was in a pinch.
I upgraded Bounce() with Switch() and used it in case of trouble - it helped me get the achievements. I liked that the game made me try different combinations, I'd've used the same shit all the time but thanks to this I discovered better strategies. Same with one of the challenges where you got some random Functions to use and had to make the best out of them.
I think this game could have been great had it been built around either exclusively the Turn() mechanic or around experimenting with the functions. Juggling both at the same time just makes things kind of unwieldy. Also fuck whoever decided that you should randomly lose one of your abilities for every 25% of your health you lose. I'm clearly already doing poorly in this fight, don't take away my weapons on top of everything!
Ben Kielar It's actually not random afaik, it's the function at the top of your memory. Also I kinda liked the idea of losing the functions until you reach 2 new checkpoints. It made you rethink and experiment/try out other stuff. just my opinion of course
+OkazakiEternal I ended up restarting more often than not after losing a function, but designing my loadout with the "greatest memory gets lost" rule in mind made the last bossfight a lot easier. I started with breach(), spark(), purge(), and Jaunt(), and lost them in that order, finishing the fight on my second try with the second two functions remaining. (First try I terminated early.)
path of exile is an awesome game and fits the type of games he usually reviews. So if he hasn't done it already, I would love to see a review of this game, wielder of a colossal skill tree.
now I remember why I originally first started watching this show when he first started...because he tells you when something is complete shit with honesty and shows me not to waist my fucking time. ~ yes that was my inner escapist talking lol.
me watching z.p. after the beginning of transistor: eh, it might be Yahtzee being Yahtzee *3 months later* me near the end now re-watching it: Huh, he's right. also, I KNEW IT, IT FREAKING LIES TO ME
It's a bit of a shame the game wasn't quite as captivating as Bastion. Transistor showed that Supergiant is very much capable of making fantastic games relatively consistently, even if only in one fairly specific style, but also that Bastion was still a bit of lighting in a bottle, a game that could not so easily be recreated. However, Transistor is still very good, and it's probably unfair to hold it in such competition with its predecessor.
I enjoyed going through again with all the powers with limiters and way tougher enemies and bigger hordes. It's kind of a pisser that Yahtzee didn't explain that Jaunt can let you still use an ability after using Turn( ), but none of us are perfect. Jaunt seemed more useful to avoid damage anyway. I do wish Transistor's story was a little longer. It ended before I even knew it was coming. The Beach Tests I guess were to pad out the game length, which it did for me trying to get muh Steam achievements.
I found Switch() quite usefull, since it staggers enemies, I used it extensively in the end game combined with the homing shot and hardy ever had to use the turn() power.
Xario Withoutalastname Oops, nevermind, I was talking about Crash(). Switch() is that hearty thing that turncoats processes for a while. I never used that either.
+Xario Withoutalastname Switch as a passive to Jaunt makes for very useful crowd control outside of Turn(), but makes planning during Turn() a little more complex. Attaching Purge as a second passive to Jaunt is powerful but takes away some of the satisfaction of planning your damage.
Yahtzee summed up my thoughts perfectly. It doesn't grab you at all and just kinda drops you into shit. You kinda need to force yourself to want to play it which is it's biggest weakness.
It's disappointing that, while I'm out scouting reviews to see if 'Transistor' would be worth a buy, only YOUR review is the one that tells me that if I die I lose one of my super moves, which is a pretty significant gameplay feature since if I die it is presumably because the enemy was rather difficult for me (we are, of course, excluding the knob-heads too stupid to beat the Cuphead tutorial level in this generalization), so hobbling me further isn't something that's going to encourage me to keep playing, quite the opposite in fact. Thank you.
The reason Bastion's obscure plot works while Transistor's doesn't is because The Kid's story (both his backstory and his present goals) is far less obscure and meshes with the world's story. So delivering most of the actual plot near the end still feels like natural continuation. Transistor doesn't come together at the end in a similar way because Red's story is basically irrelevant to the world's story (yes they're linked but they're not *about* similar/congruent things; they just happen to intersect). The fact that the ending completely abandons the world narrative is an admission that Supergiant couldn't make them fit together. (Or if you're being _really_ generous you could see the ending as a deliberate rejection of all big picture thinking but that's a pretty fucking dumb message so I'm sticking with theory A.)
