Bastion

Immediately upon playing the game for the first time, Bastion’s visual style pops off the screen. A wide colour palette is used to create a beautiful post-apocalyptic world. Almost every colour imaginable is used to convey the many locales visited; dark and dreary swamps to far away ice kingdoms, the graphics are used effectively to make each stage seem unique and drastically different from the last.

In addition to the graphical success of the world is the fact that Bastion runs at 60 frames per second. This may seem like overkill when contrasted with games that boast similar frame rates like Call of Duty, but the action is often frantic in Bastion and 60fps works very well within this world.

The best aspect of Bastion is the way that the story is told. You awaken in a crumbling world with no concept of what has happened or who you are. The story is told through a constant narration that both reacts to your actions and pushes the story beats along. Often times the narration is quite humorous, particularly when you fall off a cliff or perform a repetitive task. The narration serves to tell the story without stopping the action for pre-rendered cut scenes. Instead the narrator will fill you in on back-story while you’re in the middle of fighting off hordes of enemies. This may sound distracting but it works quite well for you to understand why it is that you’re currently killing dozens of enemies on screen.

There are several enemy types in Bastion that require unique strategies to defeat. Enemies start off small and get progressively bigger as the game goes on. Eventually dozens of different enemy types are thrown at you all at once which can become insanely chaotic. Luckily as the enemies get more dangerous so do the weapons at your disposal.

You will quickly accumulate a vast arsenal of melee or ranged weapons. There is no one weapon to rule them all but each is very different from one another and it is up to the player to decide which fits their play style or which weapons would work best in a particular area. In Bastion you have two inventory slots for weapons and one for a special ability. The special abilities can be weapon specific or completely unrelated to weapons such as summoning an enemy to fight by your side. In addition to weapons there are passive ability slots that unlock as you level up. These prove to be extremely valuable, especially once you purchase or find some of the more useful tonics.

Every weapon in Bastion can be levelled up to increase its usefulness to the player. Upgraded weapons become essential when dealing with large boss battles or the challenge areas. Each weapon has its own level where the player’s ability to perform on weapon specific tests determine their mastery of the weapon. There are three tiers of prizes for different levels of mastery. Each prize, particularly first prize, is a valuable upgrade that you will want to have.

At first glance Bastion looks like a simple hack and slash experience but it quickly becomes a much deeper game with strong RPG mechanics. The amount of customization of weapons and the challenges presents will have me making another run through in the unlocked new game plus mode. The unique story telling device of narration is used more effectively in Bastion than any other game to date. It is the key selling point that will hook you into the experience. Bastion is a lot of fun to play and you can easily pick it up just to play for a few minutes. Bastion is addictive and those few minutes will turn into a few hours without you realizing it.