Derek “DSmooth” Nolan had a chance to sit down and play through one of his favorite games from E3, Supergiant Games’ Bastion, coming to XBLA tomorrow. Read on for his full review.
Introduction
When I was working on the 2old2play schedule for E3 2011, I booked the team into appointments for just about every AAA title imaginable. When it came to the Warner Brothers booth, I made sure we saw Batman: Arkham City, and a little XBLA title that had been getting lots of buzz after PAX East – Bastion. To say we were impressed would be an understatement, and I jumped at the chance to review this game that I easily would have shelled out the 1200 Microsoft Points for.
What is Bastion?
Bastion is an action RPG with a Zelda-esque feel, but the similarities end there. The thing that made Bastion so interesting to me at E3 was the fact that the entire game was narrated - I mean the entire game. Supergiant Games set out to make you feel like you were part of an epic story, and the voice-work of Logan Cunnigham as the game’s narrator is second-to-none for bringing you into that story. From the very first moment you start the game and you (The Kid) wake up in this world shattered by some epic event called the Calamity, the narration starts, and continues almost non-stop as you play through the game.
The art style in Bastion is also uniquely its own. All of the environments and characters in the game started out as hand painted assets, and it shows. The game is simply breathtaking. The levels fill themselves in as you play in a sort of surreal “world forming right before your eyes” sort of way. Between the look of the game and the narration, Supergiant was already off to a good start, but they sealed the deal with the gameplay itself.
Gameplay
As anyone that has played an action role-playing game knows, these games tend to focus a lot on the leveling of your character. Usually your ability to crush tougher and tougher enemies is directly correlated to your level and to the weapons which you’ve acquired. While this is true in Bastion as well, there is also a very skill-based feel to the combat in Bastion. Supergiant Games says the game rewards “finesse and experimentation”, and they couldn’t be more right.
The levels themselves have natural elevation changes, obstacles, etc that you can put between yourself and tougher enemies as you take them down. Instead of running in with your hammer or machete, maybe hanging back with your bow or gun is a better choice for some enemies. You quickly learn what works best in what situations, and how best to play the game.
That said, there is plenty of leveling and weapons to allow you to customize the game to your own play-style. Bastion’s combat system is basically this – you can have 1 ranged weapon, 1 melee weapon and 1 “special move” equipped at any given time. During gameplay you will come upon various upgrades that you can later apply to your weapons, like new string for your bow or a new magazine for your gun. At the same time, for each level you progress through the game, you are able to equip a new “passive” ability for your character. These customizations can be done within some of the levels when you come across certain types of buildings, or in those same buildings – The Arsenal (where you choose which weapons and special move to equip), The Distillery (the tonic you apply for passive powers after each level), and the Forge (where you apply the upgrades to your weapons). As you complete various levels in the game you build out the “Bastion”, or your sort of game hub, with these same buildings and a few more, so it’s easy to deal with all of your upgrades every time you play through a level.
Although the game is very action (read “skill”) oriented, these customizations and upgrades really let you play the game in your own style and at your own pace. The more you play, the more attached you become to not only your own character, but to the story itself. The narration is really what helps bridge that gap that most action RPGs fail to do - you care about playing the game. You end up caring about the story, and about the characters, instead of just blindly upgrading and button mashing.
Conclusion
In case I wasn’t clear, Bastion is awesome. It’s one of the best XBLA games I played in a long time, and is most certainly worth every Microsoft Point. The game smells of polish and quality that is often not present in downloadable titles like this. Go ahead and buy Bastion - you’ll be happy you did. Hopefully you now have enough information here to make an informed purchase. If you are still uncertain about picking this one up, be sure to listen to Friday’s episode of 2old2type Radio. I'll will talk about the game at great length, and show you how you can annoy your family and friends by narrating your own day-to-day activities in the awesome Bastion narrator voice.
