Review: Bastion

Summer is notoriously rubbish for game releases, but luckily Microsoft have the Summer of Arcade promotion on Xbox Live Arcade so we get a few good games each year that are released in a window that doesn’t swamp them with competition from retail releases.

The first of these this year was Bastion, which is an isometric style RPG game. You collect weapons, upgrade them by collecting items dropped by monsters and scenery you destroy and level up your character with a solid, if simplistic system, but we’re not here for the mechanics with this game. We are here for the gameplay and style.

The big, attention grabbing feature for this game is that it has a dynamic voice over that describes what you do. Amazingly this works, from the basics of standing up and starting to explore at the start to details such as destroying lots of scenery when you don’t have to, getting killed and the like. I was expecting to get annoyed by it, but even at the end of the game it was still providing a large chunk of the atmosphere, and since that is the biggest pull for Bastion I suspect that turning it off would diminish the game greatly.

You play The Kid, a silent character who has survived something called The Calamity that has caused the world to be fractured. Everybody had agreed to meet up in The Bastion, so you set off to find this area. When you get there you meet the narrator and he sets you off to rebuild the world by collecting items to rejuvenate the bastion. As you move along the world rises up in front of you in a very pleasing way and the game has that artistically interesting feel that quite a few good smaller games have strived for over the last few years.

The key question is will you like this game? You will know within a few minutes if the narration annoys you so download the trial and give it a go. I suspect that only a few people will get annoyed by it and the rest will love it.

The game itself is short, as you would expect for an arcade game, but there is plenty of extra content beyond the plot with a new game+ mode after you complete it and a large number of challenges that you can complete.

Microsoft have chosen a very high quality game to start the Summer of Arcade this year, but it’s not one that takes many risks. This isn’t a bad thing, just them choosing a reliably solid opener and it’s certainly worth a look for 1200 Microsoft points. I believe a PC version will show up later in the year as well. Grab the trial and take a look, which you can set to download to your Xbox from this handy link.