Get ready for a unique adventure, SuperGiantGames brings an Action RPG that from the beginning will leave you open-mouthed, from the spectacular gaphic design to the nice gameplay of the title, an Xbox Live Arcade game that really promises a lot this summer, Bastion will be your fix.
Desolation, who else survived this disaster?
Story
You’re “The Kid” and the world as we know has been devastated, you wake up in the middle of the desolation wondering what happened and if you’re the only survivor of this tragedy. Wherever you step patches of land appears where previously there was nothing left.
Your first objective to reach the Bastion (a kind of nexus) and see if there were other survivors, there you will meet another character, which will accompany your adventures narrating details and stories of the old world and its inhabitants as you go in search of lost cores that will help create a new world for you and the survivors.
Not an easy task since evil forces try to prevent it, can you figure out what triggered the disaster and rebuild the world? with the powers of the Bastion you can!
Gameplay
The game is a fairly linear action RPG that does not leave much room to explore, the goal in each area is to find cores used in the Bastion to make it grow. In addition to the different areas you will find new weapons and more survivors of the tragedy.
But that’s not all, every upgrade you can add things as the bastion increases in size, including a blacksmith to upgrade your weapons, the distillery to use potions to increase your skills, an arsenal to chose from the many weapons, a shrine to activate idols of deities and much more. Will not spoil you everything here but believe me there are many things that can be added to the Bastion as you progress in the game.
In addition to areas in which to practice archery, sword and other skills which will give you prizes and materials to upgrade your weapons.
The art is fabulous, and JenZee (graphic artist) deserves a big applause for the excellent work she did for Bastion. The design is complemented perfectly with the soundtrack that is truly one of the strengths of this title, both music and graphic design gives it a very special atmosphere. The effort and dedication with hand made graphics is worth praising.
Your arsenal is varied, from daggers, hammers and swords, besides having long-range weapons such as pistols, rifles or bows to name a few. In truth the combinations you can achieve make each player to find their own style to fight and takes out monotony from the game.
If you think the game is not challenging enough, when you enable idols greatly increases the difficulty, if you’ve played Halo 3 this is like the skulls. Some levels of the game are somewhat easy, try using different idols activated and the levels will be a challenge and will gain you much more experience plus additional bonuses.
Fantastic hand painted scenarios
Downsides
As usual not everything is perfect, it is difficult to find flaws in a game like Bastion but there is. sometimes you may experience some lag when too much action on screen, not extreme but can be annoying for some players.
Although the character design is great in the first few levels there is not much variety with the exception of recoloured monsters, I tell you the truth I did not care too much but I know there will be who dislike this.
Story wise i think the game had more to offer, story is not bad but could have been a bit more epic.
Avatar awards, sadly no. trully a shame the game do not offer any kind of award to the players, a sword or maybe a monster pet for your avatar would have been pretty neat.
use the training grounds to earn prizes
Overall
Bastion is a game that trully looks great, a good sountrack that compliment to perfection, a great narrative taking you throught the story as you play and a nice combat system. This is an highly recommended title for everyone into the action RPG genre.
Truly enjoyable gaming experience, worth the 1200 Microsoft Points? i have to say yes, it is.
We give the game a 9.5 out of 10
~Mario
