If you own a PS4 and are a PS+ subscriber, when February rolls around GO DOWNLOAD TRANSISTOR. Great action or turn-based (or both!) RPG! Seriously, this game was probably my second favorite game from last year. And you have no excuse not to download it, because it's FREE!

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I didn't really like the last game this studio made.

I mean, I'll download and play it regardless. I just want to know how you think they compare so I can set my expectations accordingly.

If you didn't like Bastion you have such weird taste in games I can't even guess whether or not you'll enjoy Transistor.

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While we're on the subject, grab The Swapper before it's too late (while it's still Jan, basically). I still haven't got round to playing much of it, but it's reviewed pretty well, and apparently deals with Quantum Suicide in an interesting way.

My poor MacBook is too slow to run it but from what little I could play I liked the visuals and sorta cyberpunk world and the hybrid real time / turn based stuff was pretty neat. I think it's worth a look even if you didn't like Bastion.

I enjoyed Bastion but I feel that Transistor is the superior game for a number of reasons:

* The turn based option in combat (which you can activate or not at any point in a battle) makes the game very different and can help you solve battles as a puzzle if needed instead of relying mostly on your dodging and timing skills (which you can still use if you don't want to use the turn based option)
* The story is more serious and less whimsical - more of a personal preference, but I enjoy how weighty the story feels in Transistor compared to Bastion
* The sheer number of options for skills in the game. There are 15 set skills, and you can use a skill as an actual skill, a modifier for another skill (which there can be 2 modifiers on each skill), or as a global modifier. This means there are 22,283,705,698,113 combinations possible!

I might just be being stupid, but I got that as 15x14x13x12=32760

Still a respectable number, but not nearly as large.

I might just be being stupid, but I got that as 15x14x13x12=32760

Still a respectable number, but not nearly as large.

You don't multiply, you have to do to the power of. One guy even wrote a python script to figure it out for himself:

https://gist.github.com/yanatan16/3a732315245d6a0d4379

Also, there are 4 slots you can have abilities in which comes in (and yes they removed duplicates if they were in different slots but the same set of skills)

So there's 4 skills, each with 2 modifiers (8 mods) plus a global modifier = 13. 15x14x13x12x11x10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3=653,837,200,000

Am I just being extra stupid? Im a little intoxicated, but I definitely used to be able to do this kind of math. Anyone able to enlighten me?

Haha, you're not being stupid, I haven't done the math myself, I just know multiple people have done the math and all gotten the same number. It's been a good 6 years since I've had to do any kind of higher math than basic algebra, so it'd take me awhile to figure it out. All that script did was just count all the combinations.

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For free tomorrow.

It's a lovely game. I've played it through several times.

For free tomorrow.

It's a lovely game. I've played it through several times.

I got it back when it was free on PS+, but couldn't stand it. I kept it around and tried to slave through it, but it was just so tedious that I finally deleted it...

Sort of similar issue with The Swapper, though. It's just so draining to play (it's a very quiet game, and I've been extremely tired during my free time the past few weeks), that I can't play it in longer than 30-minute stretches or I fall asleep... Fun game, though, and finding the secret nodes is extremely satisfying. Reminds me of the search for Halo 2's skulls (you gotta go way out of the game's areas, and there are no clues as to their locations).

Transistor though, that's a great one. Pro-tip: weaponize Jaunt. Helps a lot to be able to cause damage even when you're on the run.