Bastion, a review of one of my top 5 favorite games.

Eugene

When I first saw Bastion on Steam, I had some interest but overall I wrote it off as a Final-fantasy tactics look-a-like. Months later I got it as part of a bundle, and a month later I finally got around to playing it. I was blown away with how awesome the game was.

Without giving too much away, the game is a top-down click-and-hit Game set in a post-apocalyptic world where the main protagonist slept through the event and now are trying to not only piece together what happened but also save as many as they can along the way.

What sets Bastion apart is how everything just flows together. The music, the narration, the options you have, the way the path is made before you; everything in the game flows together to deliver a visual and emotional experience that will stay with you forever.

Now the gameplay is nothing to write home about, if you played diablo or any diablo clone its basically that with less loot. However, the gameplay is still solid and has some awesome skill factors put in. One example is when using the bow, there is a 1-2 second gap where the arrow can do optimal damage, so timing comes into play. Start throwing in little challenges and suddenly the game becomes more interesting.

The narration for the game is unique, nearly every action is told to you by Rucks the old man. From the emotions to what is going on, but its done so well and with almost perfect delivery that you cannot help but be dragged into the game and actually have feeling for the characters. By the end of the game I had a genuine opinion and feeling about every single character, which other games severely lack.

The music is by far the best part of the game. Don't let me tell you that though, let your ears decide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm6yfyPI9cg&feature=related

Overall, I highly recommend this game to ANYONE who has a remote interest in video games. If they even thought about playing a video game once, this should be the game they play. The best part is that it is by an indie developer and in my humble opinion, better than any other RPG to come out in the past few years.

Hanna Banana · Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 2:18 pm Post subject:

I bought this game in December, and I must say, I agree with everything Sleeples said. It's an amazing game that is definitely worth playing. Everything from gameplay, to music, to the art style, and much more, is nearly perfect.

Stealth · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:21 am Post subject:

Sometimes when the main character falls from the sky and the narrator says his line, I just let the character lay there for a minute.
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Berry Punch · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:13 pm Post subject:

Mostly loved this game for the unique narrator thing... I mean everything worked fine but the variety in enemies kinda bugged me throughout the game.

Erwin Rommel · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:45 pm Post subject:

I just got this on the Humble Bundle. I'll have to try it out ove the summer.
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Eugene · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:03 pm Post subject:

Kirov wrote:

Mostly loved this game for the unique narrator thing... I mean everything worked fine but the variety in enemies kinda bugged me throughout the game.

Care to elaborate? Were you bugged there was not enough variation or too much?

Berry Punch · Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 1:21 am Post subject:

sleeples wrote:

Kirov wrote:

Mostly loved this game for the unique narrator thing... I mean everything worked fine but the variety in enemies kinda bugged me throughout the game.

Care to elaborate? Were you bugged there was not enough variation or too much?

Not enough for me personally... When I play a hack 'n slash I like my enemy variety to be about as much as oh say Torchlight, but that's just me.. Even though alot of the types just look different and are the same in some places.

Eugene · Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:16 pm Post subject:

Kirov wrote:

Not enough for me personally... When I play a hack 'n slash I like my enemy variety to be about as much as oh say Torchlight, but that's just me.. Even though alot of the types just look different and are the same in some places.

That really wouldn't work as well in Bastion as it isn't a Hack and Slash and not a true dungeon crawler. See those all have abilities that you can play with or different weapons you can bring out, etc, etc.
Bastion has none of those things. While true there is a variety of weapon combos, you can only have:
1 melle
1 ranged
1 magic (on limited use)

Devil May Cry for example gives:
2 Melle
2 Ranged
Devil Triger
1 Style to choose
However all of those melle and ranged attacks have variations when used. XX-X XX-XX X-UP X-Down, etc.

Dungeon Crawlers give you:
4 abilities
Customize all of your gear

So as you can see Bastion is a hack and slash or a traditional dungeon crawler, which gives the game a very unique feel that I personally enjoy. All though more enemies would have been nice to see(or even the same enemys with different attributes)