INDIE RAVE// Bastion

Review Score // 5 ★
By // Jessica
System // PC (Steam)
A Game By // Supergiant Games

As a sucker for both post-apocalyptic settings and platform games in general, Bastion was quick to grab my attention. Like Polytron’s FEZ, I had to repress the urge run out and buy an Xbox just to experience playing this game (for fear of decimating my student budget for the next month). I not-so-patiently waited for the Steam release and picked up a copy via HumbleBundle. With my philanthropy out of the way, I cleared my schedule and settled in for an uninterrupted Bastion experience.

Bastion is the debut title of indie game developer Supergiant Games. It’s an action-rpg platformer with a lot of charming features, like reactive narration, beautifully hand-painted 2D art and interesting systems of customization to suit your playstyle. The story begins with Bastion’s protagonist, ‘the Kid’, waking up to find himself the only apparent survivor after some kind of cataclysmic event called ‘The Calamity’. The Kid knows in these kind of situations, everyone is supposed to head to the Basion. However, when you get there, instead of finding everyone waiting, you find Rucks - an old man who thinks he can fix everything if you do some legwork and find the parts he needs to get the Bastion up and running. You explore the world, find new weapons, spirits, shards and cores to upgrade and customize your gameplay as you go.



Bastion was designed with simple mechanics in mind, so the game is easy to pick up and enjoy. Some hardass gamers out there might think this is a pansy move on Supergiant’s behalf, but just give me a second to explain why this isn’t such a bad thing after all!

Firstly, the game is heavily immersed in it’s storytelling. As the world literally builds up around you, Rucks keeps you company as you explore the post-apocalyptic world of Caledonia - narrating your every move with smoky-voiced charm and a good dash of dry humor. The combination of reactive narration and the real-time building of the environment really engage your in your part of the universe presented by Bastion. I constantly found myself wondering what would unfold next and never felt like the game dragged on, even when I was retracing my steps to explore new paths or hidden trails.

Secondly, Bastion houses a curious system to customize the difficulty of your gameplay through the use of the Shrine structure, where you can use Idols to buff mobs in various ways, similar to how the Kid can use spirits to imbue himself with different abilities and perks.

On top of the options the Shrine give you, Bastion offers a ‘New Game Plus’ mode, which you can activate after completing Story Mode once. This begins a new game, with all structures, weapons, spirits and idols unlocked and your previous level/experience intact. This allows you to please your inner-completionist and work on unlocking all parts of the game, gather things you missed and most importantly, tick off all the achievements posted on the Memorial.



As the game was released originally on XBLA, I expected the need to plug my in my game controller for the best control. As it turned out, my mouse gave better aim in combat, but I did find movement a little off. Personally I decided to forgo the slight increase in precise aim for more fluid movement control and happily ran through the majority of the game with my controller.

The soundtrack to this game is incredible. The game’s memorable score was created by Supergiant Games audio dude, Darren Korb who names the style ‘acoustic frontier trip-hop’. The Firefly fangirl in me melted for the nostalgic twangs of every track that unlocked as I played and it was just one more element Supergiant managed to use to draw me into their world.

Bastion offered me one more treat that made the experience a delight and that was the art. The hand-painted, whimsical style that blankets the game is all thanks to a remarkable artist, Jen Zee. Her style created a beautiful juxtaposition with the setting, yet somehow manages to pull you in deeper to the world. I spent just as much time admiring the game art as I did actively playing the game, it was like watching a painting come to life.



I found Bastion a beautiful story-telling experience, with enjoyable gameplay, enough options to imply my choices impacted the game and an interesting cast and setting. Supergiant Games did an amazing job bring all the elements together to make this platformer as elegant and immersible experience for the player.

There many deep aspects to the story itself and plenty of dissections floating about the internet speculating the meaning behind the particular game, but as this is a review and not a semiotic dissection, if you are interested in that kind of speculation, I’d urge you to check out Olse’s analysis over at Valid Gaming [includes spoilers, consider yourself warned!].

Ultimately, if you love platformers or story-focused RPGs and have not played this game, do yourself a favor and get this game ASAP! It’s available on a plethora of systems (xbox, pc, ipad, mac, chrome... even linux!) so you have no excuse!