I just finished up playing Transistor (I'm always a little bit behind the times). The game is a beautiful work of art and design and while the mechanics took a little while to ramp up, by the end it was one of the deepest action mechanics I've experienced.

The game got largely positive reviews and so I figured I would take a small opportunity to discuss one of the points I felt in which in didn't succeed:

Narrative.

More specifically, while the bulk of the narrative was well rendered Red's narrative and character progression left me a bit empty. (Warning: mild spoilers)

In their previous game Bastion they put the player in the shoes of the Kid, a maleable, blank-slate character. The Kid is silent and doesn't do much outside the control of the player, and this works. While he does't have much character development, the game never sets the expectation that there will be. The narrative of Bastion is one of the world around him.