Reginald's blog

Alright, first post on a short video-game review I'll be starting off. First up, Bastion, an Indie game well deserved for it's prowess in music, gameplay, and it's quite astonishing for Supergiant's first game!

Gameplay

Bastion's gameplay is quite primitive, hack and slash through numerous lands and the same time surviving, leveling, combo'ing, and experimenting. You see, Bastion offers a multitude of ways you can play the game. You can play as a ranger using shotguns, bows, and pistols with accompanying boosts or a fighter with hammers, pikes, and flamethrower (no, seriously) along with it's boosts. There's also an interesting feature called 'God Provoking' which allows you to provoke certain gods with make some aspects of the game harder whether it be less resistance to damage or less effective weapons (or you can go all hardcore and stuff and provoke all of the gods), which allows players to play how they want. There's also a lot more things that allows the player to play according to their play-style, such as the weapons mentioned, distilleries (which allow different boosts like more health potions, more damage), forges (which allow the player to upgrade their weapons according to further play-styles), and more. If you like to be in control of a game besides playing a sandbox games, this game might be worth a shot.

Story

Bastion takes place after a Calamity wipes out most of the population of the city of Caelondia and possibly most of the world too. Your an unnamed boy (often named 'the Kid') who wakes up in this mess, on a floating island even! The Kid knows that he has to head to the Bastion, the safe haven of Caelondia in case of trouble, and so heads there through the Wharf District. Along the way he sees creatures that use to be in control, such as Gasfellas (blue spirit-like creatures) and Squirts (small black larvae). Before entering the path to the Bastion, he encounters a Core, but upon grabbing it, the path starts to collapse, making the Kid slash and run to the Sky Bridge that connects to the Bastion. Once he reaches the Bastion, he meets only one other survivor, Ruckus (who is also the narrator of the story) and instructs him to place the core into a memorial, which is supposedly the key to finding a solution to the Calamity. (Spoilers, highlight the following text) During his adventures to collect the cores, he encounters Zulf, a Ura tribe member who happened to survive the Calamity and the Kid brings him back to the Bastion for his own safety. Interestingly, the Ura used to have a war against Caelondia, but Zulf comes anyways. The Kid also eventually meets another Ura descendant, Zia. She comes along to the Bastion bringing a suspicious journal who came from her father. Once the Kid reaches the last core, Zulf reads the contents of the Journal and becomes angered, as the Calamity was meant to wipe the Ura from the face of the world. He smashes the Memorial, and the Kid is forced to find the Shards, which can repair the memorial and the Bastion itself. However, Zia, Ruckus, and the Kid find themselves locked in a battle with the Ura, and has to fight their way to the shards. However, once the Kid reaches Ura territory, the Ura blame Zulf and severely injures him, and then you have an option to either bring him to the Bastion or leave his body. Once you bring the last shard, you have a further option, to reset the time to before the Calamity happened, or stay within the Calamiity and live on the Basition until finding a safe haven. It's unknown which is canonical, but bear in mind staying within the Calamity is the 'good' ending. Spoilers ends here. It's a very linear storyline, but at least an interesting concept. Sure, the post world-ending theme has been used very often, but Bastion delivers a different side to it. However, it might take a second-playthrough if you want to fully grasp the concept of Bastion, but you would want to do a second-playthrough anyways.

Personal Thoughts

Bastion was a great game in my experience, and I enjoyed running through multiple playthroughs trying out the different endings and experimenting the numerous ways to play along with provoking the gods to toughen the game up a notch. However, the controls (at least, on the Keyboard) are somewhat iffy, but that might be just me and my bad controlling on isometric view games combining standard WASD (or arrow key) controls. The price is debatable where it stands currently (15 USD) along with the price of it's soundtrack (10 USD) as I remember it being much more cheaper when I got it, but it's on sale for a limited time on Steam at the time I'm editing this for 66% off, so I highly recommend while your wallet agrees with the price.

Overall Rating: 9.6/10

This is my first review guys, post anything that I might be able to fix, contrast on, or just plain feedback, as it'll help me get better at reviewing and help you get better perspectives. Thanks for reading, guys!