Review: Bastion (XBLA)

The Big Takeaway: The XBOX Summer of Arcade kicks of in glorious Fashion with Supergiant games’ first release: The action-role playing game Bastion.

The Little Takeaway: A bit short for a game of this ilk. Hard to line up melee attacks against the mid-sized enemies. Weapon pick ups switch out your current weapon with the new one forcing you to use it until you can get to an armory. Falling off the level occurs a tad too often.

Review:

We’ve all been burned by indie developers before with the slick graphics, an engrossing, mind-bending story, only to be left in the cold when you play the game proper. The “indie” moniker quickly falls to “amateurish”, and the “game” suffers for it. Luckily Bastion delivers on it’s promise to you and actually defies it’s roots with something not yet seen on the Arcade platform. Microsoft putting it first on the Summer of Arcade is definitely as good as any recommendation that you must play this game.

Bastion casts you as the silent protagonist known as the Kid, who wakes up to his world being tossed upside down by a great Calamity. You spend your time reforming the Bastion with crystal cores you find in the various levels you literally fall face first in to. Along the way you’ll pick up new weapons, attacks, survivors and crystals that are the currency used in the game.

The game plays from a three-quarter isometric view, and each level floats high above the world, which leads to the ever present falling off the edges that plagues most of these types of games. Since this type of game hasn’t been really been represented in modern times, it’s a odd throwback to the 16-bit era that maybe should’ve stayed there. While the forming world as you walk around is a great visual dynamic, often times you can get too far ahead of it and fall back on to a bad part of the level, and either fall again to maybe get a better spot, or use the evasive roll to try and spam your way back on to firm footing. Aside from that the hand painted graphics are a great visual, with lots of color and dynamic effects, especially with a nice HD monitor. There’s little cluttering the correct path through a level (you can smash most of it up) and neither you nor your enemies will ever get caught in the landscape.

The combat in the game is challenging and fun, but hitting some of the medium to larger enemies is a bit off. I don’t know if the hit boxes for the enemies is askew, or it depends on the weapon. Often times I found myself whiffing more often than not and instead taking damage instead of giving it. Maybe a patch is in the works to fix this aspect? It’s not a big deal, but it’s noticeable during large monster encounter like the “Who Knows Where” level.

You would think that a fully vocal narrated story would be nothing less than a gimmick to put Bastion ahead of the pack. For that you would be wrong. I couldn’t believe how beautifully the narration fit in the game, and gave it that mysterious edge that permeates the entirety of Bastion’s story. The tiny semi-personal touches the narrator provides, for instance, the number of times I fell off a skiff during an intense action section, makes the game that much more endearing and gives you a sense of impact not really felt in an downloadable title.

I have to mention the Proving Grounds levels that are sprinkled about. These levels have a singular weapon specific challenge with certain parameters, for example how much junk you can smash with a hammer. The faster the time, the better the prize. Typically these types of challenges do nothing for me and I tend to avoid them. Somehow Bastion’s challenges made me want to come back and try to ace them all, regardless of how infuriating they became. They’re legitimately challenging, but also fair, and you get so close to just getting first prize that it’s actually…fun! The prizes are well worth the challenge and the little tricks the game teaches you with the various weapons make acing these challenge well worth it.

Also of some sort of special note is the soundtrack to Bastion. Not sense the likes of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Braid has a games soundtrack grabbed my full attention. On top of this the way the characters in the game act and respond to it is also awe inspiring in how well it's woven in to the fabric of the game. I hope Supergiant Games has plans to do something with the soundtrack, as I would gladly pay for it.

There are few downloadable games that are as expertly crafted as Bastion is. There’s a level to the design and craft of the game that shows how much time, effort and though went in to every aspect of the game. The story is well worth one to experience and for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), you can’t do better than this. Microsoft made an excellent decision in getting behind Supergiant Game and Bastion, and you should too. I can honestly say that I really look forward to what Supergiant makes next. If it’s half as good as Bastion is, we’ll all be in for a treat.


Final Verdict: Buy and then tell as many people that you can to buy it as well!