Now I’ve got a cluster of weapons that I can change about in the armory to match any favoured playstyle I wish. Each level drips with a gorgeous watercolour aesthetic The basic premise is to find survivors beyond the The Kid and The Narrator, get ‘cores’ (which seem to make the land float in the sky) to rebuild the Bastion and…that’s kinda it. It’s good, it’s responsive, but at this point in time it’s just functional. SuperGiant Games can’t possibly have recorded that much dialogue for a small bedroom (okay, living room) indie game…?If it seems that I’m focusing on the sound design over the game itself it’s because the mechanics aren’t all that exciting. We’ve had descriptions of weapons, the modifications of said weapons, alcohol (which you equip for passive boosts and gains), the areas I’m ransacking and the myriad of enemies I’m fighting. But I AM sold on the narrator just saying, well, anything. The story definitely has that drip-fed vibe to tease me into playing more of the game, but…I’m not that sold on it. So I’ve reached the ‘Bastion’ which I’m told by the narrator, who I have now met in person, is a safehouse against the worst happening. “Sorry, can’t stop to chat! Gotta smash stuff!” It’s not complex, but I already know that this is a calm before the storm. It’s a essentially a hit, dodge or block, dash mechanic. I already have my giant hammer and rapid fire crossbow, and I’m tearing up all manner of baddies. The game wastes no time in getting its core mechanics taught, either. Everything you do comes with a smokey southern drawl, and it’s utterly enthralling. We even get fully meta in a matter of seconds: “Floor just springs up in front of him, doesn’t stop to think about why” - and I appreciate that. In a wonderful expectation subversion, the introductory narration about a vague apocalyptic event called The Calamity continues as you take hold of your character, simply known as ‘The Kid’. Naturally, Bastion is slicker as is the benefit of next generation technology, but straight away it’s an absolute love letter to the genre art style.īut that’s not what draws you in. Bastion is a straight up call back to classic PlayStation 1 era JRPG isometric art styles that, for me at any rate, were just so much better than the desperate scrabbles to show off blocky polygons (looking firmly at you FFVIII). After a quick Google search to correct me that it was, in fact, NOT Ron Perlman but Logan Cunningham, I cranked the TV up and immersed myself into Bastion.Īs games go, I’m not impressed by ‘realism’ in graphics as much as I am about artistic style. It wasn’t until listening to the soundtrack again (which went down an absolute treat during our D&D session) that I decided that Bastion was well worth downloading and playing through on a rare evening to myself. I imagine I didn’t want to fact-check this at the time because I just adored the idea of Hellboy narrating a video game. But the sound design stuck with me all these years mainly because I was absolutely convinced for the longest time that Bastion had Ron Perlman narrating it. Bastion was one of those games I watched a friend play, knowing I should go home and download it immediately and then…didn’t. It was during a trawl through suggestions for Dungeons & Dragons session soundtracks that I stumbled across music I had not heard in the house for nearly seven years. Only the very best titles will stand up to scrutiny today.Reviewed on Xbox OneAlso available on PS4, PC and Mobile Brutal Backlog is a semi-regular feature where JDR team plough through some of the unplayed games on their shelves (both digital and physical), disregarding their age or the technical limitations of their era.
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