Bastion Review

 The Kid had a lot of pretty things to smash...

I've been meaning to play Bastion for quite some time since friends have been recommending it to me for years. While many people gush SuperGiant's first game, I came away with mixed feelings.

Pros:

• The dynamic narration is easily the most interesting and distinct feature of this game. I can imagine context-sensitive narration was especially impressive back in 2011 when this game was originally released.
• The watercolor art style looks really nice and gives the environments a fairytale-like quality.
• Being able to upgrade weapons and change load-outs gives the player a lot of tactical options. I was able to experiment with a lot of different play styles by changing my character's melee weapons, ranged attacks, and special moves.

Cons:

• The gameplay is fun at first but feels repetitive long before the game is over. While this game is often referred to as an "action RPG", it really feels more like a hack-and-slash action game to me.
• I found that since the environments fade in and out of existence, I wasn't really motivated to explore.
• As cool as the narrator was, I didn't find myself particularly engaged in the story he was telling. I think the fact that the story is almost entirely conveyed to the player via the narrator made me feel somewhat detached from the characters and world.

Overall, I found playing Bastion to be an interesting experience but I was ready for it to be over by the time I got to the end of the game. The artistic presentation and weapon variety were just enough to keep me bashing my way through until the credits.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐
Completion Time: 5 hours, 24 minutes