VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Bastion

One thing that was immediately apparent during my first experience with Bastion was what devoted attention had been put into all aspects of its development. Beautiful hand-painted visuals contrast the somber attitude of the game's setting, while the music and voice work engross the player into the world just as much as the frenetic, wonderfully balanced combat. Bastion feels like a labor of love, and this attention to detail makes for a refreshing and beautiful single player experience.

What's left to fight for in the wake of Calamity? Bastion asks this and much more with its simple but evocative narrative. Assuming the role of The Kid, a rare survivor of a catastrophic event, it is up to you to build a safe haven and find what you need to survive in the game's shattered world. The Bastion, a floating island presided over by the game's husky-voiced narrator Rucks, is in a sorry state when The Kid first finds it. Scattered about the world are shards of crystal that can restore the Bastion to its full power, and it is up to you to find them. Whenever a shard is returned to the Bastion, you are able to build one out of a selection of structures. These buildings include everything from an armory, which allows you to equip different weapons and abilities, to a memorial, which unlocks a set of criteria-based challenges that may be completed in exchange for currency.

The game's combat is fluid, fair, and most importantly, fun. Enemies you encounter are challenging and varied, each with their own weaknesses and attack patterns. The fighting system is easy to get the hang of, but a variety of factors keep it from growing stale. The Kid discovers quite the arsenal to choose from during his travels, and very few of the weapons feel underpowered or gimmicky. They all have their uses, whether it's striking at foes from behind cover with the Brusher's Pike or clearing out large clusters of enemies with the Scrap Musket. If the combat isn't challenging enough for your tastes, you can visit the Bastion's shrine to invoke the powers of a variety of gods-- each one adds a different difficulty modifier such as increased enemy health or striking power. The game even boasts a New Game + feature for those that can't get enough after their first playthrough is said and done.

That big guy's more mobile than he looks.

While The Kid is busy battling through waves of foes, Rucks provides a persistent stream of narration, describing the environment around The Kid as well as crucial snippets of back story. These lines of dialogue often comment directly upon whatever The Kid is doing, which keeps the narration feeling spontaneous and fresh. Throughout the course of the game you can take three trips to Who Knows Where, an arena-style zone that pits you against waves of enemies. Between each wave, Rucks fills in intriguing bits of background story for three main characters in the game. This narration technique is something that could easily have proved disastrous and gimmicky; here however it works perfectly, adding a startling amount of emotional depth to the world of Bastion.

Bastion's sound design is another of the game's triumphs. Most instrumental tracks suit the environments they highlight perfectly, sprinkling on momentum and suspense at just the right moments.  You'll find yourself humming along to the two vocal tracks in the game for days afterward.  Here's a sample of one of them (though to be fair, context aids the impact of this song immensely):

 A brilliant premiere title for Supergiant Games, Bastion is a must-play game for fans of action-RPG's or creative storytelling alike. Priced at $15, this game is a steal for the amount of variety and play-lengthboasts. Show support for passionate independent developers: buy this game!