#at this point I can't even remember whether I've alluded to my thoughts on transistor's linearity publicly or not other than this post

[toushindai]

here’s some Bastion thoughts

(my status is: just finished yesterday, got through the Kid’s and Zia’s backstories, slightly over halfway through Zulf’s; have played Transistor multiple times. yes that last bit will be relevant because I compare the two endings a bit.)

mmmmfirst of all I think the entire city of Caelondia needs a good, long time-out. During which they consider the potential benefits of maybe not being resource-hungry imperialists. I was pretty uncomfortable with, uh, wow, every bit of backstory that was presented well before we got to “genocide will create a lasting peace probably” and I think the player is meant to be a good deal less comfortable with it than Rucks is. (yaaay unreliable narrators) I don’t even think the Kid is far enough removed to see just how awful and selfish Caelondia’s history is, though obviously he’s exposed to some of its blatantly unjustifiable actions at an earlier age than Rucks is. Annnd I don’t get the feeling that the Bastion’s restore function goes back far enough to prevent all that shittiness. So that’s... unfortunate.

That said, I think I’ve maybe logic-locked myself into always choosing to restore rather than evacuate even if I play multiple times--initially I’d thought that as a character decision, “I’d” be optimistic at first and then eventually lose hope and choose to evacuate (once I’d gotten tired of NG+), but like... I’m not sure I can justify murdering Ura soldiers just for the sake of evacuating. I’m not even sure I can justify killing monsters for it. Y’know? There’s that one area where Rucks is talking about how the monsters have formed this coalition to protect the shard they found, and they’re just trying to survive, but “He’s done what’s best for them, don’t you worry. Don’t you worry.” Hey when you say it like that I start worrying! Especially when you say it twice dude! But from the endgame perspective of “we’ll restore the Bastion and set things back to before the Calamity,” that comment makes perfect sense. ...nnnnot so much if you’re just gonna skip town. Even if the NG+ mechanic pretty much implies that nah, the Caelondians are just gonna keep being genocidal imperialists no matter how many times you go through this cycle... There’s really no choice that doesn’t involve a lot of senseless murder, I guess.

(So I mean maybe the murder in the cause of evacuation is all justifiable in the sense that at least Caelondia is down for good and the Ura can rebuild without them being around? Assuming the Motherland, if it’s still around, doesn’t care to rebuild what would be at that point a failed colony that achieved independence or something like it. I don’t know! Maybe I’m not locked into one or the other, I don’t know. I’m gonna NG+ at least until I get through Rucks’ backstory, I know that much.)

But you do get a choice! You do. Two choices, even, whether you want to carry Zulf to safety (? or did he die and you were just carrying his corpse? I wasn’t clear on that) and whether you want to use the Bastion to restore or evacuate. That’s two whole weighty endgame choices more than you get to make in Transistor, isn’t it! And I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to play Bastion and then Transistor, and get to the end of Transistor and find that you don’t get to make that choice. Or rather, that Red makes it for you. Bastion begins broadcasting, about a half-hour(?? idk) before the end, that you’re about to make a choice: restore or evacuate. Then you get to make a choice: restore or evacuate. It’s up to you, the player. On the other hand, in Transistor--well, Royce is telling you all about how to “restore,” isn’t he? I suppose there isn’t as much broadcasting of a choice going on, but it does seem to fulfill a similar role in terms of story structure. Except that no, that’s not what Red has in mind. And you don’t get a say in what she chooses. I’m actually very much in favor of Transistor’s ending, and I have a lot of thoughts about how it serves the story that I think I’d prefer to save for a Transistor-specific post, but I do wonder if--for those who don’t like Transistor’s ending--the contrast with being specifically in control of a choice that honestly you can boil down to the same two words in each game exacerbates any frustration or indignation they feel about it. “Well then I wonder if it would have made more sense if Transistor came out first and then Bastion” I muse to myself, but I don’t think--no. That doesn’t... no. That would imply that Transistor’s lack of choice at the end is an oversight that (in this time-flipped world) they fixed in Bastion, instead of two different stories that are told in different ways. And maybe that frustration, that sense of shock and thwarted expectation, is actually a fully intentional part of the emotional experience that Transistor is aiming to evoke. Not gonna work for everyone, of course, but no storytelling decision does.

idk I have a lot of thoughts on the function of Transistor’s linearity that I really, really need to stop alluding to and start actually articulating at some point, but: this post is not for insulting/complaining about Transistor’s ending on, please and thank you! Even in tags. I read those. This is a post about Bastion. Even if I got a little distracted at the end there. It’s about Bastion.