Review: Bastion

Bastion is an action-adventure game for Xbox Live Arcade, PC, and Mac. It was developed by Supergiant Games.

The Kid fighting a small group of Squirts.

A young man known only as the Kid wakes up to find his home, the city of Caelondia, completely destroyed by something known as The Calamity, and everyone turned to ash. The Kid makes his way to the city’s emergency area, the Bastion, where he meets the only other survivor, The Stranger. Guided by The Stranger, the Kid has to venture into the ruins of Caelondia and retrieve the Cores, giant power crystals that can power and repair the Bastion, and figure out what caused the Calamity.

Bastion is a traditional isometric action game. You equip two weapons and one special ability and fight through hordes of enemies to locate a core in a level. Roughly half of the Kid’s weapons are melee and the other half are ranged, and vary in effectiveness. Special abilities are somewhat stronger attacks that are activated by using special tonics, which the Kid can carry up to three of. That is to say the tonics activate the ability, but there is not one type of topic per ability, the tonics activate all the abilities. Special abilities are somewhat useful, but there are several that are not better than regular attacks. Health is restored with health potions, which the Kid can also carry up to three of.

Combat mostly boils down to button mashing until all the monsters are killed and using a ranged weapon to pick off monsters on floating platforms that you cannot reach. However, there is enough variety of weapons that you can customize your layout to the level of button mashing you feel comfortable with. You can button mash with the slow but powerful hammer, or the quick machete, or the spear with great range, or something else.

You can defend with a shield, but it only blocks from one direction and does not work half the time with enemies that use melee attacks. You can also roll out of the way, which works better than the shield once you get use to it.

Combat never feels difficult, but it is never boring either. Enemies attack the Kid in different ways, and often there are several things attacking the Kid at once.  As long as you keep your eye out for all attacks you will not die often, but you cannot just turn your brain off.

There are boss fights, but they are rare.

You find fragments, materials, and new weapons in levels. Fragments act as a currency, which you can buy new abilities, materials, and stat raising drinks with. Materials are used to upgrade weapon’s stats, things like strength, or speed or causing continuous damage. Upgrading weapons also costs fragments.

Restoring the Bastion opens up buildings, like the smith where you improve your weapons, or the arsenal,  where you switch up your weapons.

There are proving grounds for each weapon you can participate in. Doing okay nets you materials and doing really well gets you a new special ability. These are difficult until you upgrade your weapons, then they are challenging but reasonable.

The story is the most interesting aspect of Bastion; it is told via a nonstop narration as the Kid goes through a level. The Stranger narrates everything that is going on in the level, and the back story to what is going on at the same time, unveiling the history of Caelondia the more you explore. It is not a boring narration either; the Stranger has a dry, snarky personality that is kind of cool.

It is impressive how much dialogue Supergiant Games wrote for the Stranger. Not only does he narrate the history of Caelondia, the weapons you find, the levels, and the monsters, but also inconsequential things, like what combination of weapons you are using, or what enemies you are attacking, or little miscellaneous comments. It only gets annoying when the Stranger points out the obvious, stuff you would know already because you did it.

The main story is sort of average. You collect the shards, meet some more characters, and there are a bunch of plot twists at the end. The game has a bad habit of saying important plot points in the middle of a level instead of during cutscenes when you can pay attention. The characters are likable and have interesting personal histories that make you want to make sure they are okay in the end.

The back story is interesting, but the way it is told is frustrating. The Stranger keep mentioning facts and history about Caelondia, lots of really interesting stuff that makes it sound like a real fleshed-out world. But he only hints at things, he never goes into detail about anything, like we should know half of what he is saying.

Things like the gods Caelondia worship are mentioned offhand, but they are mentioned.

The design is okay. It is fantasy, but it does nothing that distinguishes it from other fantasy, visually. I could never tell if everything floating was caused by the Calamity, how Caelondia is supposed to look, or merely a design choice on the developer’s part.

Bastion is a solid game. The combat is reasonable, and the story and characters grow on you as you learn more about the world. There is no real reason not to play it.