You know those times when you really want to resist giving into the hype behind a game? That was me and Bastion. I put off beating the game for years. Boy do I wish I hadn’t…
A proper story should start at the beginning, right? Well it isn’t always that simple. In Bastion you take control of the Kid and you need to collect the cores to restore the Bastion to a time before the calamity. Things aren’t always that simple though. Right around the time of retrieving the last core things will go wrong and you’ll now need to collect shards.
The story is fairly good. No, it’s not perfect, but it is pretty darn good. The narration is great, which is good considering you’ll be hearing the narrator pretty constantly. He doesn’t just comment on the story though – he’ll also comment on how you’re playing. If you do certain things in combat, if you fall off the map, whatever.
Bastion is an action-adventure title. You can move with either the keyboard, the mouse, or with a controller. I opted for the controller choice, which definitely seems to work well for most people. Controls are definitely fairly smooth overall, though be ready to go off the edge… a lot. A lot of the time it’s mysterious drops off the edge too! Those really got annoying fast, especially when they happened on a space I had already walked over once…
While there are items to collect in Bastion, most of the are fairly easy to find as long as you’re thorough. On top of items in the levels, there are also items to find in the weapon challenge levels and ones to buy within the “Lost and Found.” You also have your currency which you can use for your weapon upgrades on top of the previously mention Lost and Found store. While it is mostly found within the various levels, you can also obtain it through completely a variety of in-game challenges.
The soundtrack and voice acting? Absolutely fantastic. It perfectly fits the game and always happens at the right moment. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous as well. Bastion is definitely a great masterpiece in this way.
If I hadn’t watched pieces of the speedrun of this game in the past, I wouldn’t have really been aware of the glitches this game holds. Well, okay, outside of the one where you randomly fall off the map for no reason. It’s always fantastic when a game can look so polished on the outside still.
Bastion is an absolutely amazing game that everyone should check out. While it isn’t perfect, it is definitely very high up there on my list of games I’m happy to have completed this year. This game was fairly close to being my second ever 5/5 title, but alas it isn’t quite there. Regardless, everyone should definitely go buy Bastion now. Really, what are you waiting for?
Bastion Review Score
4.5/5
Curse you randomly fall off the map glitches…
Bastion is available on Steam and Amazon.
