I ran Jaunt() Mask() Load(Ping(Void))) Crash(Spark(Breach))) for most of the late game just because it was hilariously fun
I basically played explosive golf. Turn(), then drop a packet or two and then crash it once or twice depending on the distance I needed. Usually do this from melee range right behind a Process, to bump them into the path of the packet and get the Crash debuff. Two packets took out most things in a big enough radius. Mask and Jaunt got me through Turn recovery and let me reposition easily.
it may not have been the most efficient combo, but when you're changed Turn() to essentially be a minigame of Kirby's Dream Course it's entertaining as all hell
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
Kupi on
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
I don't think absorbing Bro is what sent the process into disarray.
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
I don't think absorbing Bro is what sent the process into disarray.
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
Honestly I don't think you even need to go that far:
To justify why the process got out of control. They got out of control because Red didn't have a clue what she was doing with the thing or how she could use it. She doesn't need the cradle to make her the proper owner as demonstrated by the fact she can control the process swam in Grant's lab.
Alot of this story basically happens because Red goes on a crusade for revenge (understandably) rather than try to get the full picture.
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
I don't think absorbing Bro is what sent the process into disarray.
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
Honestly I don't think you even need to go that far:
To justify why the process got out of control. They got out of control because Red didn't have a clue what she was doing with the thing or how she could use it. She doesn't need the cradle to make her the proper owner as demonstrated by the fact she can control the process swam in Grant's lab.
Alot of this story basically happens because Red goes on a crusade for revenge (understandably) rather than try to get the full picture.
I think if it was that simple then the Camarata would have tried to tell Red how to control the process. Especially with how they were in contact with her pretty much the whole time, and they didn't want the entire city erased any more than she did.
Is there something I might have missed or do the songs The Spine, In Circles and Signals not appear in the game with lyrics outside of the music player?
Is there something I might have missed or do the songs The Spine, In Circles and Signals not appear in the game with lyrics outside of the music player?
I think in Circles plays when you fight the first boss, no?
Is there something I might have missed or do the songs The Spine, In Circles and Signals not appear in the game with lyrics outside of the music player?
I think in Circles plays when you fight the first boss, no?
If it does, I either didn't notice or forgot about it. I do know that a version without the lyrics play when you get back to the stage.
Is there something I might have missed or do the songs The Spine, In Circles and Signals not appear in the game with lyrics outside of the music player?
if they did I missed them
which is why I recommended to my friend, somewhat cryptically, "do the challenges and then use the thing" when he asked if I had any advice before starting the game
those songs are so worth it
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I beat this earlier today. Didn't really do much of the side stuff since I was interested in seeing the story to completion. I quite liked it, but I wish they had given us a little bit more. I think I will play again to try finish some of the challenge rooms.
This game's combat is great. Final boss stuff:
I thought giving an NPC enemy Turn() was ginormous bullshit.
Until I 1 shot him. Well, ok, 3 shot him, but only because he has three health bars. Void() x3 + Mask() with Load() + Cull() = a lot of damage.
So, apparently void+crash+get kinda breaks the game wide open. I ran nothing but that and flood for a full recursion playthrough. Everything just sat there and died, I felt kinda bad about it.
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YggiDeeThe World Ends With You ShillRegistered Userregular
edited June 2014
Jaunt( Get(), Purge() ) is a pretty good time, you just bonk all over the place while everything you go near turns to mush.
tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
You should be able to survive to the access point, even in Recursion, without Jaunt. However, if you are truly stuck or messed up (and this is the only point in the game where this can happen, because if you have a bad last fight in the previous run you might be missing abilities), I suppose there could be a way for you to fix your situation. You would need to edit the scripts for the location you are at to set up (one time only) an appropriate loadout that would get you to the access point.
Is there something I might have missed or do the songs The Spine, In Circles and Signals not appear in the game with lyrics outside of the music player?
I think in Circles plays when you fight the first boss, no?
If it does, I either didn't notice or forgot about it. I do know that a version without the lyrics play when you get back to the stage.
In Circles at least plays with lyrics when you fight the first boss. In fact activating your Turn() causes the track to distort and warp in a most haunting and beautiful fashion. I only noticed because I watched a friend play through it and so I didn't have to focus so much on keeping her from putting my head on a spike.
Nintendo Network ID: Oniros
3DS Friend Code: 1461-7489-3097
Not finished the story yet, so don't spoiler me, but! I think I just got a function out of order; Void.
Got it after finding Grant and Asher dead at the top of the tower. But the guy associated with it is Royce - the last living Camerata? Each function is the 'soul' of someone in the Transistor, right? So I shouldn't have Void yet?
Also I love the way the game takes stuff away from you if you die. Because obviously, it wasn't working, try something else. :P
Not finished the story yet, so don't spoiler me, but! I think I just got a function out of order; Void.
Got it after finding Grant and Asher dead at the top of the tower. But the guy associated with it is Royce - the last living Camerata? Each function is the 'soul' of someone in the Transistor, right? So I shouldn't have Void yet?
Also I love the way the game takes stuff away from you if you die. Because obviously, it wasn't working, try something else. :P
Read the 'trace status' of Void() and compare it to the others.
Like I KNEW the game was heading for a tragic fucking ending but I wasn't expecting that weird sudden hope spot there at the end before they go HAHA NOPE IT CAN DO EVERYTHING BUT RAISE THE DEAD
and then like okay so she essentially uploads herself into the transistor leaving a lotta corpses in a single island in a dead city
but then recursion is VERY CLEARLY in continuity, why does Royce talk to you at the beginning? The HELL was up with the tutorial? Do we just keep repeating this scenario again and again inside Transistors all the way down? Somehow? I get the impression that the whole thing was a computer program in the first place but uhhhhhh god I have no idea what's happening
also, who was inside Royce's Transistor? Did he have someone in there guiding him, too?
Is this secretly some sort of eternally recurring game between Red and Royce? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Okay now other stuff
This combat system is genuinely one of the most enjoyable I've ever had the pleasure to play. It has a LOT of depth, and while it's very challenging to master it rewards the hell out of you when you do
I was dumb and didn't understand the point of Void until I had to do the speed test with it and that was a fucking revelation. Void(Tap(Ping)) > Crash(Purge) > Cull(Get(flood))
haha hi Royce your Turn() CANNOT SAVE YOU NOW
But seriously seriously what the fuck just happened
There's lots of speculation on the game/ending hidden in the spoilers in this thread. One thing to note though:
The transistor probably can raise the dead, but it doesn't have a proper copy of Bro's data to do so with.
Yeah, that's what bugged me.
Like, you could at least try to restore the city and its people with the godlike powers you just received before offing yourself. I'm sure Royce would love to get your boyfriend out of his magic sword.
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
I don't think absorbing Bro is what sent the process into disarray.
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
Ok, this all makes a lot of sense.
I also think, however...
That the original plan was Royce's, and that he seems to, on some level, have wanted the city in a "pure" state, and partnered with Grant & the others for his own purposes. Grant had some differing ideas of his own.
The game implies that it's actually Sybil who makes everything go to hell; it's Sybil's idea to go after Red, because she has an enormous crush on Red, and is jealous of Bro. She wants Red for herself, even if that means shoving Red into the Transistor. Her killing Bro and corrupting his data and then failing to completely integrate Red is what sets the whole debacle off.
All in all this is super fucking depressing to me, because it means that unlike in Bastion, there is never a way out. The city will always rise, Royce & the Camerata will always become dissatisfied with the endless eternal change, Red will always survive the attack, and the Process will always go out of control. Everything changes, nothing changes. It makes me wonder what Supergiant's ultimate message here is... the underlying message of Bastion I felt was one of tolerance and a willingness to let go of the past and recognize that sometimes you can't fix things so it's best to move on. What are they saying here?
Re: The Country, that seems to be another program, if we take the fact that Cloudbank is probably a computer program, and that accessing the Cradle seemed to lead to the Country. So, it is BOTH a "real place" AND an "afterlife," perhaps an archive of sorts.
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
The final boss withstood as many of them as he had second chances.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
Transistor takes place in a digital reality. Cloudbank is a city in a computer, running however many simulated consciousnesses there are. Cloudbank is run by as close to a true democracy as you can get; people offer their vote on any given issue and the majority rules. Being a digital world, everything is mutable, from the color of the sky to the placement of physical structures.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
I don't think absorbing Bro is what sent the process into disarray.
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
Ok, this all makes a lot of sense.
I also think, however...
That the original plan was Royce's, and that he seems to, on some level, have wanted the city in a "pure" state, and partnered with Grant & the others for his own purposes. Grant had some differing ideas of his own.
The game implies that it's actually Sybil who makes everything go to hell; it's Sybil's idea to go after Red, because she has an enormous crush on Red, and is jealous of Bro. She wants Red for herself, even if that means shoving Red into the Transistor. Her killing Bro and corrupting his data and then failing to completely integrate Red is what sets the whole debacle off.
All in all this is super fucking depressing to me, because it means that unlike in Bastion, there is never a way out. The city will always rise, Royce & the Camerata will always become dissatisfied with the endless eternal change, Red will always survive the attack, and the Process will always go out of control. Everything changes, nothing changes. It makes me wonder what Supergiant's ultimate message here is... the underlying message of Bastion I felt was one of tolerance and a willingness to let go of the past and recognize that sometimes you can't fix things so it's best to move on. What are they saying here?
Re: The Country, that seems to be another program, if we take the fact that Cloudbank is probably a computer program, and that accessing the Cradle seemed to lead to the Country. So, it is BOTH a "real place" AND an "afterlife," perhaps an archive of sorts.
The song We all Become references the country, and my interpretation of the song is that it's about death and the afterlife, which supports that conclusion. As far as it being a program itself, I can't think of anything that points in that direction definitively, outside of the whole game being a computer simulation. I think it's worth noting that the Country is very organic relative to the rest of Cloudbank. I'm not sure if they're trying to say that it isn't part of the simulation, or if it's just supposed to juxtapose Cloudbank.
As far as the message behind the game, I don't know exactly what they're trying to say either. Maybe the everything changes/nothing changes motif is just a driving force for the narrative, but it could be their overall message too (I think that would be at odds with their message behind bastion, although they do have similar themes when you consider the endings of bastion where you chose not to evacuate.) I think red choosing to integrate herself in order to be with Bro is the key though. Maybe the message is "do whatever you have to, to be with the ones you love", as it's what red does throughout the entire game. (As does Sybil, and Asher.)
Well, might as well throw in my two cents about this whole deal...
What's the chance that the Narrator was actually one those people who were truly off the grid? Somehow, he avoided taking polls, never had his name entered into the Process, whatever. So, no data collected on his habits, his likes or dislikes, no picture even. A total mystery man, take that as you will. Now throw Mr. Nobody's data into the Transistor in the probably the same way that everyone else's data was collect, namely direct contact in a rather forceful manner. Sure you kinda got a bit of what he looks like and who he is, except that for everything important to the Transistor's stated goal (rewriting Cloudblank), all the data collected is zeroes all the way down. If you're a computer, did you multiply those zeroes? Oh wait did you DIVIDE those zeroes? FUCK. I think you just gave reality a runtime error, and the Process' reaction is to revert to a prior save to avoid corruption. Did I say save? Looks like all we got is a blank slate on whatever still exists.
Now the Camerata is not dumb. I'm pretty sure they realized really quick that they unleashed Armageddon, which is why Grant and Abner are barricaded behind their own personal firewall drinking kool-aid, while Royce spends the entire game probably furiously trying to "fix the issue at hand". By the time you reach Royce, he is practically twiddling his thumbs cause he needs the Transistor itself for the final part.
Long story short it's Sybil's fault, cause that was probably the worst way of getting rid of Mr. Nobody, oh ho ho.
My unordered and unasked for thoughts after beating Transistor
I did like the set piece for the ending. As you go up to the high rise, or whatever it was called, you have to pass the statues on the bridge you make. They start off together and as you head up the bridge, they pull farther away from each other. Just enforcing that Red won't be able to bring him back to her. After beating the last boss, you head back down the bridge to 'rebuild'. This has the statues starting apart, but coming together before the transition scene of trying to rebuild 'Boyfriend's' body. She can't, so she does the one thing that can bring them 'together'. Which the whole game was building up to this point, nothing was going to keep them apart.
All in all I really enjoyed the crap outta this game. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what is going on in this world, but hopefully the second play through will illuminate more of the back story.
The other mystery I have yet to figure out. Why did I like Transistor so much, but I really didn't warm to Bastion? I'm going to go back and play Bastion again after I beat the first recursion.
My unordered and unasked for thoughts after beating Transistor
I did like the set piece for the ending. As you go up to the high rise, or whatever it was called, you have to pass the statues on the bridge you make. They start off together and as you head up the bridge, they pull farther away from each other. Just enforcing that Red won't be able to bring him back to her. After beating the last boss, you head back down the bridge to 'rebuild'. This has the statues starting apart, but coming together before the transition scene of trying to rebuild 'Boyfriend's' body. She can't, so she does the one thing that can bring them 'together'. Which the whole game was building up to this point, nothing was going to keep them apart.
All in all I really enjoyed the crap outta this game. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what is going on in this world, but hopefully the second play through will illuminate more of the back story.
The other mystery I have yet to figure out. Why did I like Transistor so much, but I really didn't warm to Bastion? I'm going to go back and play Bastion again after I beat the first recursion.
I thought the statue bit was a really nice (and incredibly symbolic) touch in each of my playthroughs.
Question: How do you install a function into the same function? I'm recursing now and when it levels up it looks like I can pick copies of functions I already own, and once while in one of the Backdoor challenges I was able to install Crash into Crash, but I can't seem to figure out how to do that in the normal game???
Question: How do you install a function into the same function? I'm recursing now and when it levels up it looks like I can pick copies of functions I already own, and once while in one of the Backdoor challenges I was able to install Crash into Crash, but I can't seem to figure out how to do that in the normal game???
Keep leveling up, you'll unlock copies of those functions in Recursion. Also it really helps to run at least 5-6 Limiters to keep the XP flowing, because you have few opportunities to grind in this game. Just stay away from the Mem limiter unless you're looking to do the 10-limiter challenge.
Duplicate Functions show up below the normal Functions list in the Access Point menu, you just have to scroll down to them once you've unlocked them. You should have no problem placing duplicates as upgrades or passives, though you can't have duplicates as both passives or both upgrades on the same function.
Duplicate Functions show up below the normal Functions list in the Access Point menu, you just have to scroll down to them once you've unlocked them. You should have no problem placing duplicates as upgrades or passives, though you can't have duplicates as both passives or both upgrades on the same function.
Ohhh, thank you I had no idea you could scroll down. Now it's time to play memory juggling tetris!
So, apparently void+crash+get kinda breaks the game wide open. I ran nothing but that and flood for a full recursion playthrough. Everything just sat there and died, I felt kinda bad about it.
I realized that combo was possible the moment I got void and the game was a cakewalk thereafter. I'm pretty sure Spark ( Switch ()) alone can also beat any encounter outside of bosses.
I am two achievements away from having hit every achievement in this game. I've never done that before in any game, ever.
I'm not sure if that's because Transistor's achievements are easy to get with a little patience, or if I'm actually good at this game.
*e* The two remaining are User() and Goodbye() which are just going to take me some time.
God I cannot get over how much nicer the combat is than in Bastion. I mean, I loved Bastion, but Transistor has a real precision and customization to it that I don't often get to see. It's really a joy to play.
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I basically played explosive golf. Turn(), then drop a packet or two and then crash it once or twice depending on the distance I needed. Usually do this from melee range right behind a Process, to bump them into the path of the packet and get the Crash debuff. Two packets took out most things in a big enough radius. Mask and Jaunt got me through Turn recovery and let me reposition easily.
it may not have been the most efficient combo, but when you're changed Turn() to essentially be a minigame of Kirby's Dream Course it's entertaining as all hell
Cull( Load() , Purge() )
Void( Breach() , Spark() )
Ping( Jaunt() )
Go into Turn(), double-tap with Void(), run behind and backstab with Cull(). Nothing survives upward of 2,000 damage in a single attack.
Ping() was just there to pop the barriers on the Cells between Turn()s.
***
Just because it's suddenly stuck in my head and feels like an epiphany, I hereby present what is, at least in my head, a summary of the game's story. Major spoilers, obviously.
The Camerata are a small group (four people!) who are dissatisfied with the resulting aesthetic. Cloudbank changes as regularly as you can get someone to voice an opinion and get everyone else to back it up. Nothing about it is fixed or immutable; it doesn't have a "culture" or "history" the way we think of them. Or, rather, what it has changes so fast and so often that documenting it would be pointless. The Camerata wanted consistency.
They wanted to accomplish this by employing the Process. The Process is essentially the operating system, the collection of functions that operate beneath the surface of the simulated reality. When the people of Cloudbank demand a change, the new parameters are fed into the Process and the Process reshapes the world.
The Process is controlled by a I/O device called the Transistor. The Transistor is what gives the Process new information, which explains why it can take near-perfect copies of individuals from Cloudbank. You're just copying data from one location to another. The Camerata's plan was to use the Transistor to absorb the Traces of individuals whose opinions they considered to be of high value, and then give control of Cloudbank to the resulting gestalt, creating a beautiful world impervious to the chaotic impulses of Cloudbank's population at large.
Their plan failed, by and large because of the failed attempt to assassinate Red. Taking the Trace of the narrator somehow threw the Process into disarray, and rather than remake Cloudbank into a city, simply overran (... breached?) its normal buffers and began to apply its data analysis functions to the memory that composed Cloudbank. Cloudbank is therefore converted from a virtual city into endless blocks of statistics over the course of the game.
At the end of the game, Red commits herself to the Transistor, with the effect of adding her own Trace to what's been stored by the Process. At first this looks like suicide, but...
If Cloudbank is just data in a computer...
And all of that data, including Red, was overwritten with a description of that data...
Then... has anything really changed?
Cloudbank was never anything but the description of a city to begin with.
So it wasn't destroyed. It was just rearranged. At the end of the game, Cloudbank has been completely reborn. Hence the Recursion.
That's pretty much my take on it too. The only thing I see differently is:
It seems like, in order to actually control the process with the transistor, ownership (or access rights) needs to be transferred officially using the cradle. This is why it isn't until after the final battle that Red can use the transistor to remake parts of the city (via control of the process).
The plan to recreate the city was Grant's, and ownership of the transistor was given to him. I think Grant was already using the process to 'blank' the slate in certain areas of the city. This is why there are references to areas of the city already being closed off before the game began. When Grant lost the transistor, he lost the ability to control the process, and it just went around following his last command until Red made it to the Cradle and took control.
I THINK I ACTUALLY READ SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN THE SPOILERS THIS TIME
Honestly I don't think you even need to go that far:
Alot of this story basically happens because Red goes on a crusade for revenge (understandably) rather than try to get the full picture.
I think in Circles plays when you fight the first boss, no?
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If it does, I either didn't notice or forgot about it. I do know that a version without the lyrics play when you get back to the stage.
if they did I missed them
which is why I recommended to my friend, somewhat cryptically, "do the challenges and then use the thing" when he asked if I had any advice before starting the game
those songs are so worth it
This game's combat is great. Final boss stuff:
Until I 1 shot him. Well, ok, 3 shot him, but only because he has three health bars. Void() x3 + Mask() with Load() + Cull() = a lot of damage.
I was doing 1000+ damage to a given target in a Turn().
Then I recursed, and now I can't get out of the opening area because I don't have Jaunt() equipped.
You mean that bit with the two switches? You can just activate both of them in Turn.
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In Circles at least plays with lyrics when you fight the first boss. In fact activating your Turn() causes the track to distort and warp in a most haunting and beautiful fashion. I only noticed because I watched a friend play through it and so I didn't have to focus so much on keeping her from putting my head on a spike.
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Also I love the way the game takes stuff away from you if you die. Because obviously, it wasn't working, try something else. :P
I
what the fuck just happened
I am genuinely confused
and then like okay so she essentially uploads herself into the transistor leaving a lotta corpses in a single island in a dead city
but then recursion is VERY CLEARLY in continuity, why does Royce talk to you at the beginning? The HELL was up with the tutorial? Do we just keep repeating this scenario again and again inside Transistors all the way down? Somehow? I get the impression that the whole thing was a computer program in the first place but uhhhhhh god I have no idea what's happening
also, who was inside Royce's Transistor? Did he have someone in there guiding him, too?
Is this secretly some sort of eternally recurring game between Red and Royce? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Okay now other stuff
This combat system is genuinely one of the most enjoyable I've ever had the pleasure to play. It has a LOT of depth, and while it's very challenging to master it rewards the hell out of you when you do
I was dumb and didn't understand the point of Void until I had to do the speed test with it and that was a fucking revelation. Void(Tap(Ping)) > Crash(Purge) > Cull(Get(flood))
But seriously seriously what the fuck just happened
my head is full of fuck
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Yeah, that's what bugged me.
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Ok, this all makes a lot of sense.
I also think, however...
The game implies that it's actually Sybil who makes everything go to hell; it's Sybil's idea to go after Red, because she has an enormous crush on Red, and is jealous of Bro. She wants Red for herself, even if that means shoving Red into the Transistor. Her killing Bro and corrupting his data and then failing to completely integrate Red is what sets the whole debacle off.
All in all this is super fucking depressing to me, because it means that unlike in Bastion, there is never a way out. The city will always rise, Royce & the Camerata will always become dissatisfied with the endless eternal change, Red will always survive the attack, and the Process will always go out of control. Everything changes, nothing changes. It makes me wonder what Supergiant's ultimate message here is... the underlying message of Bastion I felt was one of tolerance and a willingness to let go of the past and recognize that sometimes you can't fix things so it's best to move on. What are they saying here?
Re: The Country, that seems to be another program, if we take the fact that Cloudbank is probably a computer program, and that accessing the Cradle seemed to lead to the Country. So, it is BOTH a "real place" AND an "afterlife," perhaps an archive of sorts.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
As far as the message behind the game, I don't know exactly what they're trying to say either. Maybe the everything changes/nothing changes motif is just a driving force for the narrative, but it could be their overall message too (I think that would be at odds with their message behind bastion, although they do have similar themes when you consider the endings of bastion where you chose not to evacuate.) I think red choosing to integrate herself in order to be with Bro is the key though. Maybe the message is "do whatever you have to, to be with the ones you love", as it's what red does throughout the entire game. (As does Sybil, and Asher.)
Now the Camerata is not dumb. I'm pretty sure they realized really quick that they unleashed Armageddon, which is why Grant and Abner are barricaded behind their own personal firewall drinking kool-aid, while Royce spends the entire game probably furiously trying to "fix the issue at hand". By the time you reach Royce, he is practically twiddling his thumbs cause he needs the Transistor itself for the final part.
Long story short it's Sybil's fault, cause that was probably the worst way of getting rid of Mr. Nobody, oh ho ho.
All in all I really enjoyed the crap outta this game. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what is going on in this world, but hopefully the second play through will illuminate more of the back story.
The other mystery I have yet to figure out. Why did I like Transistor so much, but I really didn't warm to Bastion? I'm going to go back and play Bastion again after I beat the first recursion.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Keep leveling up, you'll unlock copies of those functions in Recursion. Also it really helps to run at least 5-6 Limiters to keep the XP flowing, because you have few opportunities to grind in this game. Just stay away from the Mem limiter unless you're looking to do the 10-limiter challenge.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Duplicate Functions show up below the normal Functions list in the Access Point menu, you just have to scroll down to them once you've unlocked them. You should have no problem placing duplicates as upgrades or passives, though you can't have duplicates as both passives or both upgrades on the same function.
Ohhh, thank you
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I realized that combo was possible the moment I got void and the game was a cakewalk thereafter. I'm pretty sure Spark ( Switch ()) alone can also beat any encounter outside of bosses.
I'm not sure if that's because Transistor's achievements are easy to get with a little patience, or if I'm actually good at this game.
*e* The two remaining are User() and Goodbye() which are just going to take me some time.
God I cannot get over how much nicer the combat is than in Bastion. I mean, I loved Bastion, but Transistor has a real precision and customization to it that I don't often get to see. It's really a joy to play.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/