Platform: PC (Steam), Xbox 360 (XBLA)
Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB Rating: E10+“Proper story’s supposed to start at the beginning. Ain’t so simple with this one.”
Bastion takes place in a world destroyed by "The Calamity", a catastrophic event that left the world in pieces and killed nearly everyone. You play the game as a kid known as.. well, "The Kid". The story starts out as the Kid wakes up after The Calamity and makes his way to The Bastion, the place everyone was supposed to go in bad times, which serves as the hub world for this game. There, the Kid meets the narrator of the story, who tells that they could fix everything if they could restore The Bastion. The Kid sets off on his quest to find all the "cores" that would fix The Bastion.
Bastion plays a lot like Spiral Knights, for those of you who played that. You have two weapons (usually one close range and one long range) and a shield to use against enemies. You move using WASD controls, left click for Weapon 1, right click for Weapon 2, and press space for your shield. You can use a special move by pressing Q. You also have (at least) three health tonics every time you start a level that you can use by pressing F. As you progress through the games, you will find more unique weapons that you can choose from to suit your style of gameplay.
The areas of this game are broken in fragments that build themselves around you. As I was playing, I would always walk to seemingly dead ends to see if another path would build itself when I got there.
Bastion's world looks absolutely beautiful. The colors are vibrant, the scenery is detailed, and the world forming itself around you is nice.
One of the best things about
Bastion is the "dynamic narration". The narrator of the game will narrate through the whole game, and he will say things depending on your actions and play style. For example, if you use a certain weapon a lot, the narrator might bring that up. The narrator will basically tell the story as you play through it. While the story starts off confusing, the narrator puts the pieces of the story together as you go through, much like the world itself. Don't worry though, the narration never feels intrusive or repetitive. It always seems to fit in as well as the background music. Which brings me to my next topic. The music in the game is pretty amazing too. Most of it has a sort of western feel to it, and it couldn't have been done better.
As you rebuild The Bastion, you will add different buildings to it, which allow you to do different things. There's a Distillery, which lets you use tonics that do things such as making you stronger, or add to your health. There's a Forge that lets you customize your weapons for more damage, attack range, etc. Also, if you ever feel like the game is too easy, you can add challenges at the Memorial, which does things such as making enemies stronger in return for more experience.
There's a bit of replay value to
Bastion too. There are two endings to the game, and a New Game Plus that let's you go through the game again with all your weapons and upgrades.
Bastion isn't perfect, however. There are a couple of problems I had with it. First of all, the isometric camera angle makes it tough to go in the direction I want to using keyboard controls, which often sends me off the edge. Second, it is sometimes hard to tell what I can and can't walk on, which also often sends me off the edge. And third, while you can use a controller for the game, you can only use an Xbox 360 controller, which I don't own. Because of this, I didn't even get to try gamepad controls.
Those problems aren't all that big, though. The game is fun and intuitive, and is possibly the best downloadable game of the year. But don't take my word for it. There's a demo of
Bastion on Steam, try it out for yourself!
To Sum it Up:
Pros:
- Unique
- The dynamic narration is done perfectly
- The scenery is beautiful
- The game play is a lot of fun
- The music is great
- Game play is customizable
- The characters are likable
- There's some replay value
Cons:
- The isometric view can be a pain with a keyboard
- Hard to tell what you can and can't walk on
- Only Xbox 360 controllers are compatible
Final Score9.5/10
