Hello, this is The Gemsbok, and today's topic is Transistor, a game developed by
Supergiant Games and originally released in 2014.
It would be boring for me to spend this video saying that Supergiant
Games' Transistor is a gorgeous-looking, wonderfully designed, mechanically fun,
and brilliantly soundtracked title—even though all of that is perfectly true. It
would be slightly less boring for me to use this video to defend Transistor's
much-maligned brevity, in the same spirit as I have defended other cheap, brief
indie campaigns—even though I would be willing to defend it on that point. But
the least boring thing for me to do here, I feel, is to discuss the one area of the
game that I am inclined to criticize: Transistor's presentation of its plot.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" Supergiant Games has an attraction to
endings, and not just to the endings of games (as you might expect from the
shortness of their titles), but to the ending of worlds. Each of their wildly
successful indie RPGs, Bastion and Transistor, has presented a vividly
imagined world right around the moment of its ultimate demise. And I've loved
this aesthetic decision in both cases. But in both cases, the series of events
leading up to the end of the world (and so leading up to the start of the game)
is not easily discerned—which, in the often-lore-heavy RPG genre, is really
saying something. The nature of this video is such that it requires spoiling
major plot details of Transistor, so you should only continue watching after this
point if you do not mind spoilers or have already played the game. Yes, the one
complaint that I have about Transistor pertains to the game's story. It is a
complaint that I also had about Bastion, though to a much lesser extent. And it is
a complaint that I feel bad making, because this game does with its
narrative so much more and so much better than many other titles. But here
it is: the plot details of Transistor either do not fit together or are not
sufficiently communicated to the player. At moments when there are potential gaps
and complications, Transistor opts for mystery over clarity.
"THE TRANSISTOR—I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S INSIDE IT, REALLY."
Mysteries are welcome, but not if they're both abundant and never
resolved. Even ambiguities are welcome, provided they do not become a crutch to
replace storytelling or seem like careless omissions. And this isn't a
matter of being unacquainted with the game's worldbuilding; I've read every
word in the terminals, function biographies, and limiter logs three times
over, having played the game all the way through twice in new game and once in
new game plus. "THEY WANT YOU BACK, I BET."
Here is a brief account of the story of Transistor, as I understand it:
Independently, several citizens of Cloudbank
grew tired of living in the constant flux of the simulated city. Following the
initiative of Grant Kendrell, they teamed up, took on the name Camerata, and
drafted the mission statement, "When everything changes, nothing changes."
One of their members, Royce Bracket, while toying with the math of the world in the
northwestern part of Cloudbank, stumbled upon the underlying process that creates
Cloudbank, as well as the tool—the eponymous transistor—that grants control
of that process. The Camerata plotted to use the transistor and process to change
the city to better reflect their vision. They began kidnapping influential and
useful members of the Cloudbank community to broaden their control. In
attempting to kidnap protagonist Red, a famous singer in Cloudbank,
they were foiled by the intervention of her significant other. At that point, the
Camerata lose the transistor to Red, and thus they lose control over the process
in the ensuing hours. The process begins running amok, and the game begins. Red
elects to seek answers and vengeance by tracking down the four key members of
the Camerata. Throughout her journey, she is constantly besieged by monstrous
process entities, and to defeat them, she must use the transistor's dual abilities
of allowing combat maneuvers to be planned out in advance and wielding
traces of people absorbed by the transistor as attacks. She finds and
kills one of the four—socialite and Red's former friend Sybil Reisz—at a concert
venue. She finds two more of them—the leader Grant Kendrell and the
propagandist Asher Kendrell—already dead together at the top of an administration
building, having killed themselves less than an hour prior. By this point, nearly
the entire city has been reduced to a white cubic wasteland by the process, and
nearly all inhabitants still within Cloudbank are dead. Red locates the
fourth and final target—the technological and mathematical mastermind
behind the Camerata's use of the transistor, Royce Bracket—in an
unrecognizably blank version of one of the city's popular vacation spots. Royce
entreats her to use the transistor with a gigantic device called the cradle in
order to halt the process' destruction of the world. It succeeds, but also pulls
Red and Royce into the transistor, where they fight each other to be the only one
to escape, and Red emerges victorious. She toys with the idea of rebuilding the
city using the transistor for a moment, then decides instead to kill herself
with the transistor in order to rejoin her significant other. The end. Now, you
might think, in a video of this nature, that I'm going to spend a long time
criticizing the controversial ending of the game, which sees Red committing
suicide to join her beloved inside the transistor. But in actuality, I'm not
settled on my opinion of it. On the one hand, it's true that it callously makes
light of suicide by depicting it as a happy ending for Red. But on the other
hand, in the universe of the game, it's not clear that Red's actions at the end
even count as suicide in the conventional sense. After all, not only
has her experience with the transistor throughout the game taught her that
there is practically a 100% chance that, instead of dying, her consciousness will
be transferred into the device, but she has also just spent a short span of time
inside of the transistor already while fighting Royce. So, she knows what will
happen if she goes through with it, and what it will be like. Those kinds of
guarantees exist for her in Cloudbank, although they do not exist for humans in
reality. Still, none of that changes the fact that it seems distasteful to make
suicide such a pleasant ending, as those of us who are playing the game tend to
be human beings living in reality. Particularly when Red's death makes it so
that a full 50% of the game's six key characters choose to commit suicide, and
then go through with that choice. At any rate, even setting that detail aside, I
think you'll find that I have plenty to criticize. Alright, so in broad strokes,
the story seems okay. But if you ask any questions about any part of it, it just
starts falling apart. So, the Camerata were kidnapping people to broaden their
control . . . "THEY WERE HUNTING PEOPLE.
DON'T KNOW FOR WHAT." Are the kidnapped people brainwashed? Are
they replaced with process puppets? Are they subsumed into the transistor, and thus
captured like Pokémon to be wielded later? Were they just hoping to win hearts
and minds legitimately, after some underhanded beginnings?
"ALL WE NEEDED WAS YOUR POINT OF VIEW." We get a hint at
answering one of these questions in some visuals near the game's end, but
nothing substantial. Moreover, a lot is said about the apocalypse not being the
Camerata's goal, "THIS ISN'T WHAT WE HAD IN MIND."
but it's never clear what the Camerata actually wanted for
Cloudbank in the first place. "GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY DIDN'T KNOW THEY
WANTED, THAT'S ALL WE EVER WANTED." More stability? Less superficiality? Would
stopping the seasons changing really alter everyone's minds in a noticeable
and important way? What do the Camerata want to accomplish?
"WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES, NOTHING CHANGES. THAT'S THE CAMERATA'S CREED, OUR MISSION.
WE LOVE OUR CITY THE WAY IT IS. WE DIDN'T WANT TO SEE IT FADE BECAUSE SOMEONE OUT
THERE DIDN'T LIKE THE COLOR OF THE SKY." Royce Bracket talks about it as though
he originally joined the Camerata out of boredom, really undercutting the intrigue
of the enterprise. "EVEN THE SEASONS, THEY'RE JUST WHIM. I—
I GUESS I GREW WEARY OF IT." And as if that wasn't
enough to wonder about, why on earth would the Camerata even need to control
influential people to accomplish their goal—whatever that goal is—when they
already had the transistor? "THOUGHT THEY COULD CHANGE THE WORLD
WITH THIS THING." According to the game,
that's all they need to bring about their vision.
"IT'S GOOD FOR MORE THAN JUST BRIDGES, OF COURSE. WHY, IT CAN MAKE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING HAPPEN."
But instead of using their magic wand to immediately seize
control of the city and reshape it, they slink around converting or
murdering journalists, athletes, and entertainers. In the function biographies,
there are a lot of vague references to government cover-ups and forcibly
quieted dissenters. But there is basically no information about Cloudbank's
government or administration available anywhere in the game.
"CENTRAL ADMIN SURE KEEPS IT TIDY." The player never learns whether the
administration really was overly controlling. The player never learns if
the administration or the city's artists knew about the process. The player never
even learns the most basic description of Cloudbank's origin, governance, purpose,
or people. Also, why is the process attacking the city? Why is the process
attacking Red? The person who wields the transistor controls the process.
"THE PROCESS IS JUST DOING A JOB, DOING ITS JOB, THOUGH I MUCH PREFERRED
IT WHEN THE PROCESS DID MINE." But there are only three minor instances in
the entire campaign where that becomes arguably relevant: when the player uses
the help function to summon a dog, when Red surfs on a cloud of process drones,
and when Red rebuilds a section of whited out bridge at the end of the game.
Other than that, the process constantly attacks its purported master with
increasing aggression, and just mindlessly tears down the facades making
up the city. There's an undercurrent in the limiter logs of the process
creatures documenting and eventually mimicking human beings, but if that means
the process has some overriding will of its own, that fact is not mentioned at
any point. Even details that should be obvious are sometimes obfuscated. For
instance, why does the game begin with the narrator still having the transistor
sticking out of his stabbed body—when Red, the narrator, the transistor, and her
gown are so far from the Empty Set "WE'RE ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, 100 BLOCKS AWAY."
that they have to drive a motorcycle on a highway to return there? According to the
narrative, the attack that killed the narrator happened at the Empty Set. So,
we're left with two equally bizarre possibilities: either the narrator was
not instantly killed by the transistor (betraying the logic of the transistor
everywhere else in the story) and he traveled with a giant sword-like weapon
protruding from his torso halfway across the city,
or else Red dragged his dead body (still with a giant weapon sticking out of it,
which she struggles to carry on its own without dragging it around) that entire
distance before pulling the weapon out. "COULD USE YOUR HELP."
And this isn't some strange nitpick. Don't forget: the apocalyptic events that
take place in the story, "ALL OF CLOUDBANK'S GONNA WIND UP LIKE THIS."
most of the plot elements of the entire game, happen
specifically because the Camerata lose the transistor.
"ONCE THEY LOST THE TRANSISTOR, THEY LOST CONTROL OF THE PROCESS."
So how exactly did they lose it? Upon killing the wrong person,
did they all immediately flee in the opposite direction at top speed, leaving
the incredibly powerful linchpin of their entire operation behind?
"OUR OLD FRIEND GRANT—I MEAN, I LET HIM— I LET HIM BORROW IT. AND HE—WELL, ANYWAY,
HERE WE ARE." Apparently so.
And here's a minor issue: what is the relationship between Grant Kendrell and
Asher Kendrell? Asher's biography alludes to him helping to found the Camerata
after meeting an influential administrator—presumably Grant—and it is
implied in the biographies and Asher's narration that Asher and Grant are
romantic partners. "GRANT, HE COULDN'T WAIT ANY LONGER.
WHY HE WOULD LEAVE ME— ?" They even have the
same last name. But grant is 55 years old, and
Asher is 28. Yes, Grant is nearly twice as old as Asher. So,
because the game opts to be so ambiguous and unclear about their partnership, the
huge 27-year age difference suddenly makes it seem like there may be some
other explanation: that the name is some kind of weird symbolic Camerata thing,
or that they're actually estranged cousins, or that Grant has adopted Asher,
or even that they somehow coincidentally just happen to have the same surname.
Who knows? Maybe 'Kendrell' is like the 'Smith' of Cloudbank. And here's yet
another baffling element: the narrator twice refers to the Camerata as having
somehow stolen Red's voice. "THEY TOOK YOUR VOICE. I COULDN'T STOP THEM."
In what sense could this possibly be true?
Stealing a quality of a person, such as their voice (rather than stealing their
life entirely) is not an ability attributed to the
transistor anywhere else in the game. And the Camerata's attack was a failure
anyway, with the narrator stopping the weapon from ever making any contact with
Red. Not to mention the fact that Red clearly still has her voice—as she
spends a huge proportion of the game audibly humming, and can be induced to
hum at any time by pressing the tab key. In theory, one could hope that these
mentions of Red's voice being taken from her are intended as metaphorical. But
there's at least one point in the game where Red converses with the narrator by
typing into the comment field of a terminal, as though she literally can not speak.
"WE'LL FIGURE IT OUT WHEN WE GET THERE." And her function biography says
she was partially transferred into the transistor somehow. So instead of a
metaphor, this is left feeling like a holdover from an early draft of the
story that was never entirely removed. Whenever one of these questions seems
close to having an answer, a character dismisses the possibility with something
vague and seemingly deep. I say 'seemingly' because it's the sort of depth that one aims
to create when writing a forum roleplay as a preteen. If the sentiment is
sad and the phrasing is pretty, it sounds deep, even if the content is shallow or
confusing. The biggest culprits here are Royce Bracket, always,
"NO WALLS IN THERE, MIND YOU, IT'S JUST— THEY'RE ON THEIR OWN."
and the narrator, during his periods of blurred
consciousness near the spine. "YOU'RE STILL THERE, AND I'M STILL HERE.
YOU'RE STILL THERE, AND I'M STILL HERE." So, unfortunately, all of the inscrutable
details make an interpretation of what is otherwise a very interesting set of
ideas, narrative elements, and world details needlessly difficult.
"I START TALKING FUNNY, JUST IGNORE ME, OKAY?"
There is something here regarding metafiction,
concerning characters whose entire existence is in a program—Cloudbank, the
process, transistor, functions, and the endless string of other computing terms
and labels—but the ambiguities make a full interpretation of these details
into an exercise in guesswork and speculation. And there is something here
regarding relationships, concerning either loss or arduous long-distance
separation, "WHAT I SAID BACK THERE,
ABOUT WANTING TO SEE YOU AGAIN, FACE TO FACE,
I WANT YOU TO KNOW: I MEANT IT."
but one could interpret that part of the tale while completely setting aside
almost the entire plot of the game. Instead, one is left with a reading as vague as
the details of Transistor's plot: it's about some kind of tension between
creativity and incompatibilist determinism, between diversity and
conformity, between color and sterility, between texture and smoothness, and/or
between distraction and stability. Perhaps the theme is that one must
balance these dichotomies. Perhaps the theme is that the former always trumps
the latter. I'm inclined to think—because of a few happenings toward the end of
the game, and because of the separated planning and execution in the battle
mechanic—that the game's thematic stress is on creativity and actualization. But
it's just tough to say. Don't get me wrong here; this is not just a long
diatribe against ambiguity and symbolism. I am a great admirer of the symbol-
reliant art of filmmakers like Federico Fellini, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, and
Andrei Tarkovsky. And I am confident that games are capable of reaching a similar
level of artistic excellence and expression. But Transistor, while it is
certainly art and is much closer to artistic excellence than the vast
majority of other games, still pales in comparison to the works of those
filmmakers. The details of Transistor make a sustained and specific effort to
establish the world and the plot. They allude to aspects of the world and story
which are contradicted by other elements (such as the idea that Red's voice has
been stolen) or seemingly forgotten by the creators (such as establishing how
the events of the night before the game's beginning could have possibly resulted
in the Camerata losing the transistor). They make a great effort to say what the
Camerata's goal is not, then stop well short of providing enough
information to confidently infer what the Camerata's goal is. The game's
attempt at communication is not subjugated to a greater artistic project;
it is a good-faith effort at communication, full of straightforward
non-symbolic details, that is merely incomplete and inconsistent and
therefore at least partially unsuccessful. To put it another way, I do
not necessarily need Transistor to be more comprehensible. I try to judge each
work of art on its own terms. It is the game itself which has
pretensions of comprehensibility. I am only asking that it be more
cohesive. So, how could this state of affairs have been averted?
Supergiant Games could have allowed the third tier of biography unlocks to
contain more substantive plot details and answers; much of the meandering
dialogue of Royce could have been replaced with—still meandering—clear
exposition of the Camerata's true motivations, obstacles, and end goals; and
the early-game terminals could have been populated with full articles that give a
clear picture of the city's existing administration and atmosphere, so that we
get some concrete sense of why the Camerata would want to do whatever
unchanging thing it is that they want to do. "GUESS I WAS WRONG ABOUT THEM.
THE CAMERATA WANTED THINGS TO CHANGE, FOR GOOD. BUT NOT LIKE THIS."
But ultimately, there's one very big overriding gameplay problem that results
from having the game's narrative as it is now. The problem is this: the narrative
issues devalue the final boss fight. It does not feel as though the whole game
has built up to it. As far as the player knows, the only reason for them to
dislike Royce Bracket—besides his apparent incompetence in lending the
transistor to Grant, who promptly loses it—is that Royce selfishly attacks Red
so that he can escape at the end. "UNFORTUNATELY, THE ONLY WAY BACK THAT
I'M AWARE OF IS, WELL, UNPLEASANT." Like a miniboss in a
classic side-scroller, one's only reason for fighting the enemy is that it
physically attacked you a few seconds ago. It is ultimately unclear if the
Camerata's goal was noble or terrible, and not because of moral
ambiguity— "WHAT WE WERE DOING WAS WRONG,
IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE." just because we have
no idea what that goal might be. A final boss fight in an RPG should be the
emotional climax of the playthrough as well as the final test of the player's
abilities. Transistor's final fight may deliver on the latter, but does not
deliver on the former. So, that final fight is a poignant synecdoche for the
whole Transistor experience: a fun, tight, beautiful session with great music—yet
lacking in needed details on closer inspection. For this reason, and some of
my own feature and atmosphere preferences, I find Bastion to be the
studio's stronger contender overall. Still, as I said earlier, I've played
Transistor three times now, and I have enjoyed it every time. So, with all of my
legitimate criticism and all of my pedantic whining out of the way,
"I AM CALLING FOR A TRUCE." with a track record this strong, you can bet
I'll still be aiming to play Supergiant Games' other titles in the future.