Best Of

Bastion

This game was a long time coming and I should have played it way sooner than I did. I'm glad I finally got around to it, because it is fantastic.

If you know me at all, you know that I love narrative-driven games, and character development is super important to me. If your game nails those elements and then adds excellent voice acting and a stellar soundtrack on top of it, I'm sold. I'm putty in your hands.

Let's start with the obvious: Bastion is a beautiful game. The colors—watercolor-ey soft-blur, dreamy, and fluid, the art style, and consistent design elements all set up the stage for what is a relatively simple game in terms of mechanics: You control "The Kid", a serious, gruff character with a large hammer and a "city crest" on his back, who wakes up and begins to try to make sense of the calamity that has befallen his world.

The most unique aspect of the game becomes immediately apparent: Everything the kid (thus, you) do in the game is narrated by a buttery-smooth character named Rucks (who, though he sounds like a 65 year old cowboy from Texas, is actually a young dude named Logan Cunningham) who describes both the story as you play the game and the kid's actions. While that sounds like it could be annoying, it's done well enough that it immediately becomes a part of the experience that you just expect and look forward to. Everything you do in the game triggers some narration, which probably goes into the hundreds of hours of recorded speech.

Voice acting is great; but the music is where this game really shines. Not only is the OST good, but the original songs sung by "The Singer" in-game are haunting and beautiful (Here's one of the songs. Here is @Myrmidon covering it). Imagine making your way through this haunting and atmospheric world while hearing this tune far away in the background. As you get closer to Zia, the Singer, her voice becomes clearer and louder until you stumble across her playing this song by herself in a field. It's one of the more beautiful moments I've ever experienced in gaming, period.

The game does have something for players looking for a challenge; it has a very interesting mechanic in which you can choose to invoke "gods" to make your enemies stronger, faster, smarter, tougher, etc. If you choose to invoke no gods, the fights are pretty simple. If you want to make the rewards higher, earn more achievements, etc, you can invoke the gods any time to fine-tune the difficulty level.

There is also a lot of depth in terms of customization of your play style, through the choice of weapons and power-ups. The Bastion itself is the hub town where you start your adventures and return to upgrade or change your weapon loadout, invoke gods, buy power-ups, and more. There is a wide variety of weapons to choose from and there's not really a 'best' combo, so you can choose a loadout that suits your playstyle. Like Melee? There's a huge hammer, a spear, a fast machete, a flamethrower. Like ranged? There are a variety of gun types and even a massive cannon. While some weapons lend themselves a bit better to clearing certain areas, for the most part you can choose what you like rather than what's "optimal" for the zone.

My first playthrough took about 8 hours. The plot presents a major fork at the end of the game which determines what kind of ending you'll see and there is a "new game +" mode so you can keep your skills, level, items, powers, and go through again to see both endings.

Don't take my word for it. Read @Cherplunka's review and also for bonus insight, her interview with Greg Kasavin (one of the devs) from back in the day when we did that sort of thing

Onward!