Bastion - One Shot

Setting Sail, Coming Home

Bastion was easily one of my favourite games of 2011, and going back to play it for this challenge, all the amazing memories came flooding back. It will always hold a special place in my heart, because it remains to this day the only game I got all the Xbox achievements on, and got them all within like three days of the game's release. And ya know what...Bastion is still fucking amazing.

A proper story starts the beginning...

The game starts with a simple premise: guide the Kid to the Bastion and survive the Calamity. However, the story quickly shows it's true tones, with no one making it to the Bastion and trying to solve the mystery of what caused the Calamity. Rucks, the ever-present narrator voiced by the amazing Logan Cunningham, guides the Kid on his quest, but even he holds some of his own secrets, as do Zulf and Zia, two people you rescue and guide back to the Bastion.

The actual gameplay of Bastion is nothing new, and can kinda be compared to the likes of Diablo or Torchlight, just without the loot grind. The combat is simple, but it can be difficult to master. However, once you find the perfect combination of weapons (hammer and rifle, personally), the combat just seems to click and the game becomes a decent challenge of trying to just not get hit, rather than not dying.

...ain't so simple with this one

Bastion does a perfect job of never taking you out of the action: there's a linear path, but actually makes sense in the world, as the pathway appears as you walk and crumbles again as you get further away, meaning the critical path is always apparent. And the story never stops the action, because Rucks is constantly narrating, which is easy to pay attention to, but doesn't halt the action at any point. Rucks will even narrate the silliest things, such as if you spend a while just destroying scenery, he will say something along the lines of "Kid just rages for a while", in that honey-soaked voice of his.

What do you say to a Kid who's seen too much?

I'll be the first to say that Bastion is by no means a ground-breaking game, it simply manages to be the perfect sum of it's parts. The stunning art style, the amazing music (which is probably my favourite soundtrack in any video game) and the simple, but still satisfying gameplay create an experience that completely blew me away, not once, but twice. People often claim that the older games are the best, but there's still a case to be made for games like Bastion to stake their claim in history.

The last stop on this little journey

Next up...The Binding Of Issac!