There once was a review. A review that played out like a video game’s story. It narrated to you the introduction. And sure, it may have lost track of the monologue a while ago, but that still doesn’t mean it won’t stop doing exactly the same thing. And then it fell off a cliff. Nah, I’m just kidding.
Interesting enough, I really expected to get tired of listening to a narrator continually repeating everything I was already seeing on the screen, but I didn’t. Bastion created an ever evolving story, but sort of put the “cut scenes” during the game. What I mean by that is, most cut scenes hold all of the story’s narrative. The plot, the climax, the resolution. You play the game to a cut scene to learn more about the game. Bastion doesn’t do that. When advancing and venturing though the game, you are told what is what, who is who, where you are and why you should care.
Bastion takes place in Caeldonia shortly after an apocalyptic “Calamity.” Not much is known about what the The Calamity was or what caused it. But, our hero, The Kid, seems to be one of the few survivors. And as luck would have it, the only path to continue upon is a path to our narrator, Rucks.
Rucks will be the ever present voice in your head, telling you all about the story. And while that does seem daunting, the voice acting and speech monologue are executed well because of the “dynamic narrative” aspect. Rucks won’t sit there and repeatedly tell you where to go, how to hit something or progress a puzzle, he will merely identify structures, enemies, checkpoints and landmarks. The remarkable thing is, I don’t think I ran into a repeated response during my play through. I purposely fell off a few times, just so I could hear if he would repeat a line or two. Nope. Proved wrong, in a good way.
While the games story in very linear, you thankfully do get an option of repeating stages, and you always return to The Bastion. The Bastion acts as The Kid’s Super Mario Galaxy-esque Hub World. You reconstruct The Bastion with upgrades, both for The Kid and his weapons. You build shrines to up the difficulty of the game. You build a Lost and Found that acts like a store to purchase upgrade parts. And finally, you build the “Grinding Board.” Sorry about that. But, this is your “Off-Quest Board” of sorts. You use it to complete “Vigils” which are the off-quests of the game.
Bastion’s simplicity of gameplay is amazingly dwarfed by the numerous weapons and combat styles. My personal favorite is an upgraded Bellows and Breaker Bow. I’m a sucker for DoTs. MOAR DOTS! But, the whole cluster of options are: a Hammer, a Machete, a Bow, a Repeater, a Musket Rifle, Dual Pistols, Bellows, Morter Cannon, Rocket Launcher and a Shield. Each weapon, except the shield, can be upgrades at The Armory on The Bastion. They will each have their own set of upgrades specific to the weapon, which is disappointing but understandable. Hammer DoTs would be awesome! Moving on. You aren’t limited to one melee and one ranged, either. You can run around with two melee or two ranged. Which again, ups your options.
While on the topic of upgrades, The Kid can visit the Distillery on The Bastion for his own personal upgrades. These upgrades are called tonics. I like calling them the Booze Buffs. When you level up, you get an additional slot to contain your booze. These buffs may increase your crit rate, the amount of potions you can carry or decrease damage. Needless to say, I always kept the 100% Crit Strike Rating booze. Too bad that it is only active at 35% health or lower. Now, like I said before, there is The Shrine to make the game harder. In The Shrine you can activate Idols. They function like the Halo Skulls in point mode, this makes the game harder, but you get a special prize. The special prize is a cake. Nah, just kidding. You get an experience boost. Each idol seems to add 5% bonus experience.
While the game is good, I unfortunately have some conundrums about it. First off, without the added difficulty of the idols, Bastion can be beat very quickly. It is only about a 5-6 hour game. Another issue is also one of the prettiest frustrations. As I noted before, the world is build around you as you progress through it, an unfortunate side effect of these pretty worlds is the falling off of them. It is hard to tell the edge of a platform from the background. So, one wrong step and WEEEEE. Off you go… again. Finally, the biggest issue I have with the game is the constant “tutorial mode” feelings. Nearly every other level you are forced to grab a new weapon, which resets your current configuration of weapons. You always have to use a brand new weapon, still have to figure it out and relearn it. Just a really, really annoying feeling. You never leave that tutorial level feeling. Very frustrating.
When it comes to scoring this game I have mixed feeling because of the price point. I feel at 1200 MSP Bastion is valued just above its sweet spot. The reason the price is the key difference is the rising $15 price point is due to the increasing quality of games. Unfortunately, this really feels like a $10 Arcade game, a good game, which at a cheaper price point, would have scored in the high 8s.
Score: 7/10
Bastion was developed by Supergiant Games and published by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment for Xbox 360 on July 20th and on PC TBA. A copy of the game was provided to us by Warner Bros. for reviewing purposes.
