Bastion

Today I'd like to talk about Bastion. Now I can pretty well assume that if you've heard anything about Bastion you've heard that it's good. It is good. It's very good. If you've heard two things about Bastion then you've heard that it's good, and that there is a narrator. If you've heard three things, alright I'm done with this bit.

Bastion is an rpg in which you play a character known only as the kid. That's him there facing off against the large blue fellow. Now without the narration Bastion is a completely passable rpg, even I would say a bit above passable. The controls are fine, looks good, love the music, story is decent, not spectacular, but not difficult to follow or stupid.

The narration does however add quite a bit to the game. It's a calm pleasing voice and what I like most about it is that it responds to what is actually happening. If you get slapped around by a boss he'll comment on it. He has comments about each of the weapons that you can bring with you as well as all of the different liqours than you can activate for various other effects. So comments are static comments based upon entering a certain area or killing a certain enemy, picking up a certain item, ect. It's also woven into the story. There isn't a narrator just cause wouldn't that be cool guys, let's put it in and we can sell more. There's actually a legitimate reason for the narration.

Personally I liked the machete and bow myself, and used the two of them for the vast majority of the game. There are however a reasonably large array of weapons. A hammer, a dart gun, a pike, a bow, a machete, a flamethrower, a mortar, a pair of pistols, a shotgun, a rifle, and a rocket launcher. Each of these weapons can be upgraded with an item that corresponds to it and the upgrades are not singular. Each tier of upgrading gives two options. One option might increase damage while the other gives a chance to stun enemies or something like that. There's also a shield the kid always has that can be used for counter attacks. Each weapon has a fun minigame area where you can see just how skilled you are with it, and most of the proving grounds are quite difficult to fully complete.

Another thing I think is worth pointing out is the idol system. Once you get far enough in the game to unlock it you can active various idols to make the game more difficult in a number of ways. It is cool though that the idols increase money and experience gained so there is a draw to use them other than just making the game harder. They're a good risk reward system that is completely optional.

Overall it's a very good game. My only real complaint about it was best said in a youtube comment when I was listening to one of the tracks on the game's soundtrack. The only problem with this game is I can never play it for the first time again.

Now this isn't because of something at the ending of the game that makes everything look stupid. Mainly this is because of the narration. Playing the game again would meaning hearing a lot of it again. But you said it changes! I said some of it changes, and if you got the shit kicked out of you by a boss the first time do you really think you'll have a flawless run the second time? Playing through the game again would yield some new lines of dialogue form the narration, but certainly not all of them new. If you did everything in the game differently the second time you could get, maybe 60% new lines. If you did EVERYTHING different. Playing through it again removes the element the narration adds, which by no means make it a bad game, as I said at the start without the narration it would still be a decent bordering on good game. The problem is that the second time through being compared to the first time is comparing with narration to without, and everything looks worse when compared to something better.

I also want to point out that the new game plus has no difficulty modifier so it's extremely easy since all of your stats and weapons carrier over. Yes, you can use the idols to modify the game and make it more difficult, but it would have been nice to see something like borderlands new game plus in which the enemies are modified to be tougher the second time.

So all in all it's pretty good game bordering on a great game that has an unfairly poor light shed on it after the first time through.

8.5 expertly delivered dialogue lines out of 10