It can be argued that the games are still in their informational years, in their late teens or early twenties, if you will. If that’s the case, I think it’s fair to say that games have found their auteur equivalent in the downloadable games market. Of course, the main difference here is that you won’t get many arguments from anyone that these ‘art’ games are really fun. You need look no further than Supergiant Games’ indie title Bastion to know exactly what I’m talking about. It is a beautiful, intriguing and very fun to play game that strikes the perfect balance between entertainment and art.
Home is where I lay my head
Bastion tells an interesting story, but the bottom line for most people will be the way it’s told, but more on that in a second. You play as The Kid who wakes up after somehow surviving a nearby doomsday event, known as Calamity, and heads to shelter in a place known as Bastion. Bastion was supposed to be a safe haven for The Kid’s people if things went wrong, but when you arrive you find it incomplete and deserted. Bastion is all about you putting it back together and discovering the truth behind what happened.
As you fix up the Bastion, the gameplay manifests itself as a fairly pure action adventure with really light RPG elements. Kid slashes, slashes, and shoots his way through hordes of enemies, level by level, in an effort to find enough shards to return the Bastion to full power. Supergiant Games cleverly unravels the game for you to unlock new weapons and items and meet new enemies until the last level. Along the way, you’ll discover much more, but as I mentioned earlier, many people will be more concerned with how they discover these things than what they are.
One of the most prominent characters in Bastions is The Storyteller, a man who narrates your every move, more or less. From the moment your character first stands up, The Storyteller, in a low, reassuring tone, provides voiceover for your actions and tells you the story. It’s also a good reflection of the choices you make, but it also creates an interesting story device for the story. It works in many ways because it doesn’t repeat itself, which is crucially vital for the game to be successful. That said, I come from a school of thought where voiceovers aren’t usually the best option for telling a story, but they’re worth the risk if done right. Bastion works well having The Storyteller as a companion to the player, but it still doesn’t translate very well as a storytelling device. Since there is no dialogue, or anything to read that tells the story, all the relevant details are told to you, not shown. Some people won’t care because The Storyteller sounds amazing, but it would have been nice to have other ways to discover information.
Variety is the seasoning and ammunition of life
What makes Bastion so great is that it doesn’t rely on that device to hold its attention. The action has a respectable amount of depth that stems from the enemy types and loadout options available to you. You pick up weapons and upgrades so often that there’s almost always something new to try on each level. You start with things like an ax or a bow and eventually you’re using mortars and shotguns. Some weapons can fire while moving, some can’t, and some have an area of effect or spread while the rest fire straight. These things can be very standard on their own, but put them together and you have a lot of great possibilities. One annoyance with the system is that when you pick up a weapon you can’t choose which of yours you want to drop. You risk leaving yourself with two similar weapons which can be frustrating if the going gets tough. Players who don’t like to switch will be happy to know that there are optional trial levels for each weapon so you can try them out and see if they’re to your liking. As you level up, you can also equip more and more elixirs. These give you buffs to things like health or retries, but some of them also have side effects like lower healing rates or less damage. It is up to you how much risk to take and how much reward you expect.
Another way to greatly alter the gameplay is to bring certain idols into play. You will collect or buy idols and when the time comes, you will have the option to activate or deactivate them. Idols all do different things, but they can all be summed up the same way: they make the game more difficult. Players looking for something difficult to tackle can power up the idols and head to one of Bastion’s three challenge rooms. Here, The Storyteller introduces much of The Kid’s backstory as you fight wave after wave of enemies. It’s a great distraction that’s totally optional but worth it, and if you like leaderboards, here’s how you can put your name on them. But since you can get out of here at any time and since the levels are only ten or fifteen minutes long, you can keep customizing your experience until you feel right. Bastion’s most compelling factor may be that its gameplay is incredibly adaptable.
Bastion’s skin adds as much to the game’s personality as anything else, if not more. As he walks by, the world will literally come together in front of you, block by block and piece by piece. When you’re at a crossroads with more than one option, you’re never told on hand which way to go, making it impossible not to be drawn to your surroundings. What impressed me the most was the visual design of the entire game, which resembles a kind of organically fluid, fantasy-tinged anime cartoon. In a nutshell, it’s beautiful. At many points in the game I was struck by how calm and collected the presentation was, as if it was intended to be the visual representation of the tone set by The Storyteller. The only downside is that there isn’t the kind of level diversity you’d expect from an adventure game like this.
The Storyteller, voiced by Logan Cunningham, isn’t the only standout in the audio department, even if he is the only voice. The soundtrack is absolutely outstanding, mixing various Western tones with world music. Supergiant Games incorporates and removes certain themes as the game progresses, so there are a few constants that will have you humming in no time. The consistency is shocking considering the hodgepodge of sounds on offer, but it’s exciting. Surely, this will be the favorite soundtrack of many people at the time of the year-end voting.
Summer of Arcade has given us plenty of great games in the past, and this year’s first entry is right up there with the best. Bastion is a beautiful game, with loads of dynamic gameplay that makes it worth coming back to again and again. The story isn’t shocking, but it fills the world with enough intrigue to take you through the three to five hour campaign. It may be told in a way that doesn’t work so well for everyone, but it’s done with such quiet vigor that it’s hard not to appreciate it. Bastion’s greatest achievement is its cohesiveness, its ability to take certain unremarkable aspects that, when put together, are quite extraordinary. It sets a tone that makes you want to take note and immerse yourself in it, something very few games can do. Although a cynic might argue that he tries too hard to be special, everyone else will be content with the feeling that he is.
Final Score: 95%
95-99% – “Exceptional” A fantastic effort with top marks in all categories. Small hiccups prevent this game from earning the title of “Masterpiece”, but it still pushes the limits of what we expect from games. Everyone should be playing this.