A while back, Altius wrote a review of Bastion. It was well written and generally echoed the thoughts of most people who have played it: that it is a well made beat-em-up with a unique art style, stunning narration, fantastic music, and an engrossing narrative. However, I mostly disagree. This opinion has caught me a lot of flak, but I simply don't see it, and seeing as I am ever the contrarian in some people's eyes, I feel the need to state why I feel it is simply just an okay game. However, I will concede that the majority of the you will agree with Altius. My opinion is in the gross minority. Anyway, onward we go.
Bastion released:
XBLA: July 20, 2011
Steam: August 16, 2011
Chrome Web Store: December 9, 2011
Mac App Store: April 26, 2012
Purchase Bastion on XBLA, Steam, Chrome, and Mac.
Now, if you skipped Altius's review (which you shouldn't have) I guess I'll bring you up to speed on Bastion. Bastion is the story of the Kid, who wakes up in a fractured world destoryed by the Calamity. After some searching, you meet the Stranger and you two team up to restore the Bastion to its former glory in order to reverse the Calamity. The Stranger serves as the narrator to your journey as you go to various fractured parts of the city in order to find parts to restore the Bastion. As far as plots go, it's pretty straightforward. Apart from some backstory on the world you're in and the characters that inhabit it, nothing every gets that complex.... or interesting. I know, I know. It's petty, but I never really cared about what was going on because it was frankly so... generic. I just never saw the deep storyline everyone yelled about whenever pitching me this game. The absolute vagueness of the story just became too much after a while for me.
Now, on the gameplay side, it's a bit better. It's standard beat-em-up gameplay. You see dudes, you go hit them with hammer. There's a wide variety of weapons to find and go into the field with, ranging from your trusty hammer to spears, guns of various types, machetes, and more. It's actually quite cool how much weapon variety there is. Special moves are also thrown into the mix and can become crucial to your survival. The ability to upgrade your weapons and buy new spirits (passive upgrades) and specials makes what is all together a very River City Ransom like experience, which is in no way a bad thing.
The controls are, at least for the console (and PC if you're using a gamepad), perfection. Every button does exactly what you think it would and it's extremely responsive. As for keyboard and mouse, well, this game simply wasn't meant for it. It definitely is playable on keyboard, but you really owe it to yourself to pull out the gamepad.
As for the background elements, it's a bit of mixed bag. The audio in this game is frankly fan-fucking-tastic. The narrator actually is quite amazing and never grows boring. Apart from some times when he strangely narrated things that the Kid never did, the narration is spot on and eloquent as hell. And as for the music, well, I bought the soundtrack to this before I ever got this game simply because it was so damn good. My opinion on the art style is where you're gonna start hating me. I hate it. While the art itself is beautiful and the character/creature designs are amazing, when thrown together like that, it simply looks like a Jackson Pollack painting. Many of you may be say, "Well yeah, that's the point, the stuff literally fell from the sky," but that argument is moot when I still think the game looks like my room: dirty and in need of tidying and consistency.
I don't, maybe I'm just not being fair to the game, but dammit, you guys (the fans of the game) ruined it for me. Everyone who played it hyped it to hell and back and called it the best game of 2011 and the definitely art game and blah blah freaking blah. As far as I'm concerned, this is just an okay beat-em-up. Nothing more. At the very least, try the demo. Most of you will disagree with me. Also, pick up that soundtrack. It's fucking amazing. Seriously.
