Transistor Preview and Interview

DualShockers has dedicated two new articles to the upcoming cyberpunk-ish action-RPG Transistor, from Supergiant Games: one is a hands-on preview of the title, the other a video interview with creative director Greg Kasavin.

A quote from the preview:

From a first-glance, Transistor most certainly has the look and style of Bastion, and it’s definitely not an unwarranted idea to think: visually, the style and isometric view calls to mind much of Supergiants’s first game, and hearing the soothing, velvety tones of the game’s narrator puts players into a familiar, exciting place. However, after a few minutes into the game it’s clear that while Transistor honors much of what made Bastion such an engagingly-deep but easily accessible title, it breaks significant new ground for Supergiant and brings us into a world that is at once familiarly-humbling, but fresh and brimming with new ideas around every corner.

Beautifully illustrated artwork and stylized cutscenes bring an immediate allure to Transistor played on the show floor of PAX East 2014 on the PS4 version of the game, it was hard not to turn my eyes away from the vibrant glow of Transistor’˜s world, and even harder to have to leave once the demo level was finished. But, while the visuals gave me the reason to walk through the doors of what Transistor had to offer, the gameplay and mechanics explored throughout the 20 minutes or so of Transistor’˜s demo kept me staying and thinking about the game long after I was prompted to return to the main menu.

As a hybrid action-RPG title, Red is equipped with the titular (Transistor) sword. Red can call in a host of abilities and attacks using the sword regularly through swipes, blocks, and an assortment of other basic attacks. The core mechanics of Transistor though revolve around the introduction of a unique mix of RPG and strategy elements, as Red can instantly slow down time to a crawl and select a deck of actions to be then played out with lightning-speed in real-time once the player exits out of the slowed-down time.