A Dance in a Beautiful Deadly Meadow: Bastion

Bastion is truly a dance in a beautiful, deadly meadow. The game shows true art and gameplay; with little to no problems.

What is Bastion?

Bastion is the first title from Supergiant Games, an original action role-playing game set in a lush imaginative world, in which players must create and fight for civilization’s last refuge as a mysterious narrator marks their every move. Bastion‘s story follows the Kid as he collects special shards of rock to power a structure, the Bastion, in the wake of an apocalyptic Calamity.

The Story:

The game takes place in the aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that fractured the city of Caelondia as well as the surrounding areas of the game’s world into many floating pieces, disrupting its ecology and reducing its people to ash. Players take control of the main character, a silent protagonist who awakens on one of the few remaining pieces of the old world and sets off for the titular Bastion, where everyone was supposed to go in troubled times. He meets there is an elderly man named Rucks, the game’s narrator, who instructs him to collect the Cores that once powered Caelondia. A device in the Bastion can use the power of the crystalline Cores to create landmasses and structures, as well as enable the Kid to travel farther afield via “skyways”.

The Gameplay:

Bastion is an action-role playing game that advances level-by-level. The player character, “the Kid”, moves through floating, fantasy-themed environments that form paths as the player approaches the edge. 

Levels consist of a single plane, and are viewed isometrically (Personally, the moving paths and isometric view is  a large contributor on what makes this game so amazing). These usually consist of enemies who harm “the Kid” and trials to help you master certain weapons that you obtain through advancing through the game.

Weapons come with special attacks which are limited in use, portrayed by bottles called “Black Tonic”. Special attacks can be used a total of 3 times; increasing can be done by using the “distillery” that you will come across in the game numerous times. “The Kid’s” health is represented by a health bar and you are allowed to regain your health using “health tonics” that you will find throughout advancing through the game (Trust me, you desperately need these to pass even the first level). You could replenish everything using the fountain which you come across while advancing through the game.

Difficulty:

This game is amazingly hard. To be honest, without the difficulty being so high, this game would not have been so fun to play. You are constantly needing to refill your health because enemies are stupidly difficult; luckily there is a game mechanic that allows you to heal. Because of the difficulty, this game is not recommended for newbie gamers (I hesitantly recommend it for mediocre gamers).

Ambiance:

This game has a lovely ambiance. The music is amazing and the gameplay is amazing, but one thing that has a large impact on the game’s ambiance is the narrator. The narrator will narrate your gameplay experience which I think is amazing. Unfortunately, this feature is a love-hate deal in that people will love it and people will hate it because of the voice, intrusiveness, etc…

The Bad:

As I said, this game has some problems; actually, it has one for me. This problem is the fact that sometimes I walk around aimlessly not knowing what to do (I may have a bug that the narrator won’t speak at times, and I do end up finding out what to do, but there are times where I am lucky to have found out). It is a small problem that maybe I only have, but it still is a problem.

Let’s Wrap This Up!

This game was truly amazing and I loved playing. I give this game a 9/10 because of the problem (as I said, I may only have this problem but I still see it as one).