Bastion

When I first came across Supergiant Games’ Bastion, I kind of blew it off as just another action role-playing game. I’m not a huge fan of that genre, so the game wasn’t even really on my radar. However, as I came across more information about the game it began to intrigue me. When I finally got my hands on the game, I realized quickly that I had found a rather unique experience.

Bastion’s story is pretty easy to get a grasp of. The player takes control of the game’s main character “the Kid.” The game starts with him waking up and seeing that something called “the Calamity” has happened, killing the majority of his race. From there, the kid heads to the Bastion, his race’s last hope of survival. Following the advice of Rucks (the game’s narrator), The Kid sets off across different areas of the world in order to collect Cores which are then used in the Bastion to construct buildings. There are some twists along the way, and overall the story was fairly interesting and very enjoyable.

What really makes the story is Bastion’s reactive narrator feature. This feature has the game’s narrator describing the story as the player reacts to the world. He describes every unique move the player makes and has tons of dialog which will be unique to each player’s experience.

One of the more unique features in Bastion is the game’s beautifully hand-painted world. The art style in the game is fantastic and the game is absolutely gorgeous. Players will want to explore every corner of this incredibly beautiful world. The art style is also complimented by an amazing sound track. The music is very fitting, and adds another factor of immersion to the beautiful world that Supergiant Games has created.

The gameplay in Bastion is somewhat expected of the genre with a few differences that make the game much more fun and addicting. For starters, the game plays smoothly and responds very well. On top of that, there is a level of customization in the game that is pretty impressive and allows the player to change the experience in ways that fit their playstyle. There are 3 main ways to for the player to customize their Bastion experience.

First, there are several weapons you can pick from. Each weapon can be upgraded multiple times at the Forge in the Bastion, and each upgrade level has two different options to pick from. Each weapon has its own pros and cons and each weapon has some unique features. For example, very early in the game you obtain the Breaker’s Bow and the Repeater. The Breaker’s Bow is very powerful, but is really slow, while on the other hand the Repeater is a quick firing gun but the damage is lighter. Weapon load outs can be changed at any time using the Arsenal, a building that is eventually built in the game using a Core.

The next customizable factor is the unique way that Bastion allows players to change the difficulty of the game. Using Idols at the Shrine (another building in the Bastion), players can pick and choose options to make the game more challenging in a certain way. For example, there are idols that give enemies increased defense or health regeneration. Additionally, you’re able to pick any number of the available idols to be active at the same time. The more that are active, the more bonus experience and currency gained from defeating enemies.

Lastly, we have the Distillery building in the Bastion. The Distillery lets the player pick a number of discovered or purchased liquors that have various positive effects on the player. The number of liquors the player is allowed to use is the player’s level and there are quite a few options to pick from. The player will eventually have quite a few options in the Distillery. These options will have many different effects with various offensive, defensive, and even more unique options. For example, Leechade will heal the player a small amount every time they deal damage.

Other than that, the Bastion will eventually house several other buildings that serve various purposes in the overall experience of the game. The Lost-and-Found building is a shop of sorts where the player can purchase certain skills and idols, as well as some of the items needed to upgrade weapons. Additionally, the Bastion also houses the Monument which is a building that will reward the player for accomplishing certain tasks. For example, the player is rewarded a certain amount of currency for reaching level 5.

It is also worth noting that there are a couple of things to do in the game aside from the main storyline. There are training areas for each weapon. These training areas each have a unique challenge depending on the weapon being used and the reward for the challenge depends on how well you did. Additionally, there are 3 “dream” levels. These levels are a challenge mode where the player fights off waves of enemies while at the same time listening to some background story about a certain character from the narrator. There are also online leaderboards for the dream levels which allows players to compare how well they did in the level against their buddies and other Xbox Live players.

Bastion was an amazing experience. The game’s visuals and sounds were fantastic and supplemented a very smooth and awesome gameplay experience. The game has tons of replay value and leaderboards add an extra bit of online competition. For me personally, this is one of the best games I’ve ever downloaded for the Xbox. There are few games that I’ll play over and over again and Bastion was one of those games. With the reactive narrator, no single playthrough will be the same and the phenomenal gameplay is some of the best I’ve ever experienced in the action role-playing-game genre. For the low price of 1200 MSP, it is pretty much a steal.