Bastion

Released on September 13, 2018 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on the Nintendo Switch, and developed by Supergiant Games, Bastion is an isometric action RPG, set in a strange, hand-painted world.

One late night drive, I let Youtube pick my soundtrack at random (based of course, on recommendations of music similar to what I had already listened to). All of a sudden, a powerful song with female vocals blasted out of my speakers, followed by another, then another. I checked my phone, and saw that I was listening to the music for a game called Transistor. I immediately researched Transistor when I arrived home, saw that the soundtrack was done by one, Darren Korb, and that the same developers had worked on a previous game together called Bastion, also soundtracked by Korb. Not long after, lo and behold, both Bastion and Transistor were on sale in the Nintendo eShop for ridiculously low prices (like "pack of gum" prices), so I added them to my collection. In true me fashion, even though my entire impetus for getting the games was liking Transistor's soundtrack, I decided that since Bastion was an older game, I should play it first. Would I come to regret this withholding of pleasure...or would Bastion...please? That...uh, let's just get out of this paragraph.

Run, Kid! Run away from this paragraph!

Bastion is an isometric action RPG, set in a world of floating islands. You play as "The Kid," a little white-haired dude that carries the weapons of your finding and choosing. You fight enemies and collect pieces of something called "the core." This is going to be a short review.
Bastion is Bastion's hub island, in the game's story a place that was supposed to be a sanctuary in times of trouble. Seems there's been some kind of apocalyptic event called the "Calamity," and just about everybody's died, except you and this old guy you find named, Rucks, who lives at Bastion. Rucks tells you to collect core pieces, which restore lost parts of Bastion. These lost parts include, among others, an armory that lets you cycle through weapons, or another building that lets you upgrade them...them being weapons. It's really late.

Play me a lullaby...

There's another building for potion upgrades, and you get the picture. The gist is you, the Kid, travel to other floating islands, fight the enemies you find there with your primary weapon, something short-distance like a sword or hammer, and your secondary weapon, something long-range, like a bow or gun. Kill enemies, and you get money and experience points. Defeat a boss, and generally you'll collect another core piece to bring back to Bastion. Like most RPG's, collecting enough experience points leads to leveling up, making you harder, better, faster, and stronger. Well, maybe just better and stronger. You can also spend the money you've collected from fighting once you get back to Bastion, on upgrades, new potions, or supermoves, which I'm just gonna go ahead and make one word, spellcheck be damned. Potions give you special abilities, like getting a one time chance to live through an attack that would usually kill you. Enemies drop health and tonics, tonics being the fuel for your supermoves. Some supermoves are weapon-specific, like one that lets you launch a salvo of shots up in the air with your musket, so the myriad musket balls come back down to annihilate all of the enemies around you. Of course they don't hit you. They must be smartballs.

The Kid's got a gun. His dog day's just begun. Now everybody is on the run.

All of this works pretty well. Bastion is pretty good. I wish you could get the Kid to run a little faster, but you're never getting hit just because he's too slow...you're generally only getting hit because you're bad at Bastion. Thankfully, there's a shield button, and if you time it right, you can even parry enemy shots. The game's combat feels pretty good, and the loads of weapon options and combinations, along with potions and supermove options are...pretty good. It's all pretty good.
The graphics are one of Bastion's big selling points, as each island is beautifully hand-painted. The style is singular and unique, though by the end, all the islands start to kind of run together. The character design is also pretty cool, both in-game, and when the little buggers are featured in 2D, hand-drawn cinematics. Pretty good graphics, overall.

Look, an angry plant full of dog-sized teeth. Let's head in that direction!

Bastion's music is pretty good. There's a bit of a Western guitar twang, with a little bit of trip-hop and electronic stuff, and there's some singing in there, as well. I mean this as no insult, but it reminds me a little of my aural memories of 2004. I enjoyed the soundtrack overall, but not as much as the stuff from Transistor that led me to Bastion in the first place. The voice-acting, particularly that of Logan Cunningham as Rucks, is particularly good. The sound effects are pretty good.

And then this schmuck says our game is "pretty good." I'll show him "pretty good!"

I didn't mention the game's story much, but it's pretty good. The tale's got a bunch of twists and turns, but it also seems to take place away from you, and it didn't draw me in as much as it seems it did others...then again, it doesn't really matter. Bastion is a pretty good action RPG. It's fun, it doesn't overstay it's welcome (about 10-12 hours to beat, with an additional "New Game +"  mode that let's you start over with all your stuff after beating it), it's got good feels, and it doesn't over-complicate things. Like I may have mentioned: Bastion is pretty good.

SCORE: 8.1/10