Transistor, Supergiant Games' New Game

They are 30 years apart from one another.

Much more likely is that they are both married.

Two reasons that's not likely:

A) the Unfortunate Implications when 3/4 of your villain team is gay

B) when I'm pretty sure red types "Why are you speaking for your brother? —R" at one of the early messages.

edited 22nd May '14 5:59:02 AM by Ninjaxenomorph

Yes, Royce has a Trace, can't remember which though. Sybil = Help(), Asher = Void(), Grant = Tap(), Royce = Flood(), maybe?

No, she just types "why are you speaking for Grant?"

I must have missed more than I thought in the plot since I had no idea anybody was supposed to be gay, much less who.

@Bisected: Flood() is a damage-over-time effect. Crash the first Cheerleader (shield unit), set a Load() packet near the rest of the stuff, set a Flood() field over everything. The packet will take out the next Cheerleader, then the d-o-t will kill the now-vulnerable Clucker as it runs away.

I seem to have failed reading comprehension. That's a Planning test, not Speed, and with a different enemy set than you listed. Just a minute...

If this had an easy-to-reach hub and the tests were repeatable like Bastion it'd be much easier. Sorry, don't think I can help.

edited 22nd May '14 7:29:00 AM by montagohalcyon

asher's bio entry doesnt point towards them being brothers at all.

the way it talks about grant as "the administrator" and talks about how asher was "struck by his wisdom and experience" and the 2nd entry states "he was much more than just a source at this point" ...

it doesnt come across as big-brother worship, at the very least.

theres also "and the two shared a passion for seeking the truth of things, and much more as it turned out"

edited 22nd May '14 7:25:50 AM by Tarsen

Ah. Well, Unfortunate Implications away, then.

ah, so i was right, it was sybil who teleported red across town.

i couldnt understand enough of what was being said during the fight to find that out last time.

Except that the villains are incredibly sympathetic.

They saw how the city was stagnated and wanted to make it better.

Hell, one of them dies of grief over the chaos that erupted during the events of the game.

But they still started 'disappearing' people all over the city.

Because they need to know why they were all so influential.

Awful lots of math were involved.

Regardless of their intentions, they were portrayed in the game as villains. Tragic villains and well-intentioned extremists, but villains nonetheless. With an apparent dangerous Lack of Empathy.

edited 22nd May '14 8:23:38 AM by Ninjaxenomorph

i believe the actual intent behind the disappearances is to use their influential voice- the camerata are well aware that 4 voices dont amount to much.

however, they never really explain how they intended to go about this, and theres still at least one victim who was killed because she was a nuisance because she wanted to find out what happened to her friend.

their goal is kind of unsympathetic really. it completely disregards that the way the city is now is a direct result of what the people want. the reason they were messing around with the process was because the didnt like the way the city was- namely that it kept changing at the whims of the people, and their end goal seems to have been to control the city the way they wanted.

i can sympathize with asher and grant, because the actual result is clearly not what they intended, and grant couldnt accept it, and ashers suicide to join grant is rather sad when asher has actually been rather...likable. sybil a bit less but i can at least understand her reasons for her actions.

royce is totally unsympathetic though.

edited 22nd May '14 8:33:33 AM by Tarsen

Beat the game last night. Loved it to little bits, just like Bastion, and I'd easily contend it as just as good or better. My favorite combination was Jaunt() with Purge() + Tap(). Dashing around the field, slowly healing, and unleashing DOT homing projectiles? Heck yeah.

@Ninjaxenomorph: I'm queer and I was positively delighted to see LGBTQ representation in this game. The fact of their villainy is not at all related to their sexuality; it certainly wasn't a case of queer-coding, as in Disney, where villains are given stereotypical queer traits in order to make them more hated.

Here, they're just villains who happen to be queer, and the game is very matter of fact about that and makes it clear without crossing the line into "oh, they're queer, let's make that the totality of their identity and a reason to hate them." Quite the opposite, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that two of the characters had the same last name. That sort of representation is a big deal.

I personally think that Supergiant Games did a very good job with representation, and I do not want to live in a world where people like me are denied so much agency and nuance that we can only ever be portrayed as perfect and flawless. With all that said, I know that's just my opinion and that not everyone has to agree with me. I definitely understand where you're coming from, Ninjaxenomorph, but my own perspective is different.

EDIT: And maybe this is also just me, but I can definitely appreciate the subtext of such characters wanting to transform the world around them...

edited 22nd May '14 3:02:46 PM by ShadowWarden

Does anyone know if the Functions you don't choose on levelling up are Lost Forever? I'm rather regretting my choices so far....

they're not lost forever. they show up in subsequent level ups.

not necessarily the next level up though.

edited 22nd May '14 3:34:08 PM by Tarsen

And you can catch 'em all, so to speak? Also, Christ, Process Sibyl was creepy.

well, its either unlikely or impossible on a first playthrough, but the 2nd should give you plenty a level ups enough to unlock everything.

Eee! I just discovered there's an option to make the voice come from the controller (on the PS 4 version, obviously). It makes far more of a difference than you'd think. O_o

edited 22nd May '14 4:01:06 PM by Bisected8

How appropriate.

I unlocked 16 functions the first go-around, which I assume is all of them since it fills up the available space.

Started recursing a bit; apparently the new reward for leveling up is...copies of the same functions again. So you can upgrade Jaunt with Jaunt, etc. Although I haven't actually looked at any recursive combinations, so I can't say what they do.

That's actually really good. I remember how conflicted I was to have Jaunt() as an active and an upgrade.

Speaking of which, how do I unlock more profile information on functions? Do I need to use them more?

It says how, you need to use them in all three different uses: Active, Upgrade, and Passive.

Oh. I take it I can't just do that in the "practise" area?

Nope. Has to be used in a real battle.

Looked at the main Transistor page here again myself. Well, now things make more sense and I see why people are talking about LGBT representation. Apparently despite unlocking the full text of 15 profiles, I didn't read carefully at all.

Speaking of which, I initially thought "going to the Country" was a Deadly Euphemism, then changed my mind after one of the profiles listed that as the publicly announced excuse for a disappearance. A murder wouldn't be non-suspicious, would it? But now I've changed back again, since if that's how all death is referred to it could also refer to a suicide and be accepted.