|
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Supergiant Games
Genre: Action/RPG
Rating: Everyone 10+
Release Date: July 20, 2011
Francois Truffaut once said, and I paraphrase, “The best way to critique a bad movie is to make a better one.” He said that as a film critic and went on to lead the French New Wave that swept cinema in the late 50s and 60s. Greg Kasavin is a former game critic and Editor-in-Chief at Gamespot, and after announcing his retirement from the site in 2007, toiled at several of EA’s offshoot development companies, before forming his own game development house. That development house is the small 10-person shop, Supergiant Games. And in the corner of a modest house, this team has toiled under Kasavin’s direction dreaming up Bastion, Kasavin’s bid to put Truffaut’s words into action.
Bastion drops players into the shoes of The Kid, a pint-sized hero who comes to, in a world shattered by some unseen apocalypse. Within moments of awakening, an all-seeing narrator begins to describe The Kid’s plight. This narrator comments on his every action as he explores the environment around him, finds his first weapon, and begins mowing down an armada of creatures standing between him and the truth. Eventually, The Kid comes to Bastion, a sanctuary coveted by his people and marked as the place to go should the world crumble. At least, that’s what that persistent narrator would have us believe. From there, we guide The Kid as he meets a mysterious wise man (our narrator) and begins doing his bidding, aiming to bring this world back from the brink.
 As The Kid is dispatched to various areas, the world is constantly rebuilding around him. Each step brings forth additional pieces of the landscape, opening up new paths for exploration. These trails are teeming with villains to kill and treasure to score. Said loot can then be used back at the Bastion to customize the impressive collection of weapons The Kid is called upon to handle through his adventure. As the coveted world-building shards are reclaimed from each unique waypoint, the players offer these up in tribute to a mysterious monument, which in turn, restores helpful functions to the Bastion including an Armory, a Forge, and a Lost & Found housing unique items.
Bastion is the first title in Microsoft’s 2011 Summer of Arcade series. Over the last few years, the company has used this promotion to highlight some truly special independent gems, including last year’s haunting Limbo and the exceptional Shadow Complex from a couple years back. With Bastion, the company has secured yet another contender for my own personal End of the Year awards. There’s just a staggering level of creativity on display in these small team efforts – one that is hard to find in the larger, marquee “games-by-committee” releases that dominate our Fall calendars.
 Sporting a lush, hand-drawn animated look, the title is a beauty to behold. Its influences are varied, with a splash of spaghetti Western dabbed on a rich fantasy-folklore-cyberpunk confection. As the world literally, and almost constantly, rebuilds before your eyes, the player is compelled to keep pushing forth, to play for just five more minutes as the hours melt, just to see what new delightful sights await. That’s a credit to the talented art development for designing such a fertile landscape. One matched by the game developers who constantly keep us chasing the carrot of new loot and experience. And while I spent the majority of the title slightly wandering in the dark, trying to make sense of the story, the folksy charm of the narrator compelled me to push forth and learn a little bit more. Or to sit for a spell and soak it all in.
Every year, as the Summer Doldrums set in, I look to the Summer of Arcade for relief. Bastion is this year’s invigorating breath of fresh air. With its potent combination of finely-tuned dungeon crawling combat, an addictive combat customization scheme which allows players to augment their weapons and play around with various load outs, and the sheer beauty and mystery of this unique world, Bastion springs to life. This is a fully formed masterpiece of action gaming as art, indeed.
Our Score: 
Our Recommendation: 
|
Nice review, and I like hand-drawn cartoony art so this is of interest to me. It’d be cool if you could also talk about the game difficulty – are there adjustable settings, is the difficulty curve friendly to novices, boss fights etc.
Wait a min, the screenshots below the recommendation look like they’re from a different game altogether. Clarify please?
thanks for the review. i’ll pick this up on my nephews Xbox.
Thanks, Ravenus. I think these are the ones you were looking for.
Heh thanks. It looks oh-so-purdy!
@Ravenous – I played on Normal difficulty and found the challenge was appropriate – not too easy, not too hard. Just right. That being said, as you rebuild the world, the player can open a shrine, of sorts, in which artifacts collected in your adventure are displayed. These artifacts work in a similar manner as the Skulls in Halo. They can be ‘turned on’ – adding new attributes to the enemies which make them tougher to kill, allow them to regenerate health, etc. That being said – the more artifacts you have turned on – the more experience you can earn. You can skip using these if you’d like but there is certainly decent reward for the risk.
Most areas culminate in a boss fight of sorts – but it’s really all about wearing down a larger health bar. So, nothing to lose sleep over. The nice thing about the game is it encourages experimentation with different weapon load-outs. Most will do the trick on all enemies but some are better than others. The fun is in figuring that out and blasting those bosses away with your faves.
Finally, there is a New Game+ option that is available at the end of the game. This allows players to go through it again – with whatever enhancements you made to weapons the first time out completely intact. I think using the artifacts in New Game+ coupled with the increased firepower you take in with you, would lead to a great second adventure for all those completionists out there.
Why all the fuss? I mean – this really is just Torchlight by another name, surely?
By that logic – Torchlight is just a pretty Gauntlet.
Green Elf is about to die!
The story narration is well done. For those that have played Japanese visual novels, the plot unfolds pretty much the same for a linear, one true ending sort of adventure. Although there is an interesting intellectual choice to make at the end. Heavy on the background development so that the characters each have a role, an importance, and a history, apart from how they interact with the player.
What makes this game fun and clean is how easy it is to play a few levels and then quit. Mistakes are easily forgiven, and I found it a suitable challenge using 2-4 shrine buffs. The normal mode is rather easy and for the story explorer who doesn’t like dying.
Those who missed out on Homeworld 1 type story or Planescape Torment’s story, they’ll find an entertaining story of the same kind here, in Bastion. It’s a cohesive integration between game mechanics, plot, and world building.
One rarely finds a cohesive setup of this nature. usually games are made by committees or written by committees, thus there is no single creative vision that can meld the plot and the world building together with the game mechanics. It starts feeling schizoid or disconnected after awhile, and thus boring. Even the best graphics and game mechanics, can’t make up for the fact that everyone knows that the writers didn’t set things up for events to work with game mechanics.
Bastion is a great example of integrity, which is also seen in Japanese lower tier software development.
Post a Comment