Transistor is a story about loss and resistance.

That's always a great topic to work with when you're aiming to build emotions, and Supergiant Games is also the proud winner of the second-most emotional gaming moment award for Bastion's ending, which differs from Transistor's in giving the player a choice of what to do (Zulf Restoration was my first and favorite, if anyone's curious).

Also, there will be spoilers, because the most emotional moment is the game's ending.

Paper Boats, from the Transistor Soundtrack, uploaded to YouTube by Supergiant Games

The Backstory

Transistor is equal parts love story, tragedy, and mystery. A former utopia has become corrupted from within, and is falling apart on itself.

The game puts players in the shoes of Red, a singer who has lost her voice to the Process, a shadowy group of robotic invaders/overlords. The Transistor, which the game is named after, is a sword that seems to copy elements from its victims; not only does it grow as the game carries onward, but it has adopted the personality of a nameless man (who we later learn is likely Red's lover), and also stolen Red's voice before she came to control it.

As the story builds, it is clear that the Transistor is a control system for the world around it, and it has become a coveted treasure by both the Process and the Camerata, the shadowy group that had formerly controlled the Process before losing the Transistor.

Now that everything was no longer going as planned, things were bound to end badly.

The Cleverness

One of the things that Supergiant Games is really good at doing is having a mixture between the unfolding elements of the story and the character's backgrounds and motivations. Transistor in particular relies a lot on finding documents and information about the former world; while the Transistor serves as something of a narrator, it doesn't rely on that strategy as much as Bastion did.

Throughout the story, one gets the feeling that Red has her own motivations. Supergiant Games is also really good at getting players to agree with this; we don't have the same perspective as Red or the Transistor, who know more about the universe than we do, but we do generally agree with Red's chosen courses of action. As the Transistor gathers more knowledge, unlocking more information about the universe for the player, we've already started going with the flow, so we don't question Red's actions but we also get an emerging feel that she's a character with her own motivations and history rather than just a nameless avatar protagonist.

It's also worth noting that Transistor and Bastion have a visual accompaniment that's worthy of Pixar. The hypersaturated colors and use of light and dark build a lot of mood and tone, and it's really not possible to describe the significance and power of the events without showing them.

However, another key element here is that the villains in Transistor become much more tragic once you get to know them–at first they're just the jerks that ruined everything, then as more and more becomes clear the player, Red, and the Transistor get to know them more as tragic figures.

This builds to a climax in the final boss-fight, where Royce, one of the most influential members of the Camerata (and its last surviving member), competes with Red to be the one who gets to make things right.

It's interesting because going into the finale, you already have a lot of conflicting emotions. The raw rebellion of Red's earlier days, the anguish of loss as the world falls apart around her, and the burning desire for revenge gives way to a sense of dread: the Process has become something horrible, and you can't blame any one person for that.

It's strongly hinted at that the society shown in Transistor put their heads in the sand; while Red was more rebellious than the others, she was no more aware of the true dangers that lurked behind closed doors and the costs of their luxury and their mastery over their environment. The Transistor offered great power to control the daily lives of the people of Cloudbank, which worked really well when it was working, but quickly created a nightmare when things fell apart.

The Moment

The part of Transistor that got me was its ending. Red, now in possession of the Transistor and with full knowledge of what it does, begins to rebuild the world around her, undoing the work of the Process.

When she arrives at her lover's body, however, she restores it, and then impales herself with the Transistor, joining her lover in the world within the Transistor.

It's a powerful moment, and says something about what Red is fighting for: not power, nor influence, but love. She rebels against even the very nature of the reality that she is confronted with, one in which she has lost the love of her life, and finds an alternative.

Now, it's a hopelessly romantic gesture, but it's also one that leads to an important question about reality. Throughout Transistor there's some question about the nature of the reality that the characters reside in, with at least some implication that they may be in a sort of virtual world. However, in the end the philosophical underpinnings are less important than the nature of the gesture, which is a final act of rejecting the world's fallen state.

That's a great story if I've ever seen one.

YouTube video by RangrisGaming, showing the ending of Transistor

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I wrote this article for the Archdruid Gaming Emotional Game Moments contest.

Post-script: I've started writing this three times, first with Cave Story, then Bastion, then again with Transistor. In the end, it was Paper Boats with its lyrical accompaniment that really made the difference for me. I remember being half-stunned when I finished Transistor, walking around aimlessly for a half-hour or so with thoughts racing through my mind. I still get a little choked up when listening to it. I don't think I can say that for Bastion or Cave Story, even though they both have great moments.

I'm also probably going to write about my experiences playing Paranoia, though it's more of a "great in-joke" than "great emotional moment", so it can wait for a later date.