PollySMPS

I run a server myself for some friends and we ran with 2x EXP rate and our drop rates are roughly 25% higher than the original game. We also did a bit of redundancy cleaning up in regards to what drops for what Section IDs as well (and added items to the drop table that could only be obtained from events we didn't have.) That's probably a bit too ambitious and it took quite a while, but I definitely think a slightly accelerated EXP gain would keep things a little more arcadey and refreshing.

Wooooow. Seeing Castelak is a blast from the past.

Maybe I'm just remembering my Hard/Extreme mode playthrough, but I remember the Harrier fight being a goddamn nightmare sticking point for me for a bit. The damage some of those attacks do and how hard it was to avoid some of them was nuts for me.

It's a pain we never get over, but we do learn to live with. Best of luck to you in getting there. Take all the time you need.

Much love to you, Jeff and your family.

Like a lot of others I'm happy that this is something that can exist in this medium. It's interesting and important to try and explore ideas like this in this way.

I'm the kinda person that when I'm down, I want to listen to music that's sad. When I'm angry, I want to listen to music that's angry. This is a game that would match the kind of emotions I've felt over the last few years, and if handled right, may help others understand their various losses through the eyes of someone else's experience with loss and expression.

I love Dave Lang. This dude "gets it." A really inspiring figure and story in the industry that a lot of aspiring game devs can learn from, I think.

took the words right out of my mouth.

I'm nearing the end of Chapter 2 and so far it's a pretty harmless/uninspired hack and slasher that's got a sense of style, but not quite the budget to back it up. Sorta like Deadly Premonition where I don't really mind the game's flaws too much, but I've definitely had my fair share of the game's incredibly terrible technical performance botching missions for me with dropped frames and inputs or the camera spazzing out.

Can't really say at this point if I'll finish it or not. The side missions are so agonizingly bad, I don't really want to bother with them at all anymore already. Given how Japanese game design loves to hide good stuff behind tedious junky busywork tasks though, I'm sure there's items or weapons in there that'll be required to see everything the game has to offer.

I didn't really much care for Transistor at all, but I felt that the ending was fine. The story didn't really hint so much at player agency as it did revenge. It was Red's story, not mine, so I feel another choice at the end would have just been tacked on. I understood her motivations as why live in a big futuristic city where most, if not all, of the population had been processed, when she could start a different journey?

@efesell: Yeah, I feel I've got a pretty good grasp of everything that went on, but The Spine feels like an idea that got cut short due to either budget or time restraints. I mean, yeah, it could have just been a boss (and from the looks of it, a nixed boss fight too), but the effect it had on The Transistor isn't very clear. My only guess is that The Process was trying to process the Transistor itself, but even that's kinda pushing it, maybe.