Bastion (video game)
Encyclopedia
Bastion is an action role-playing
video game produced by independent developer
Supergiant Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game's visual style is inspired by anime
and its narrative style takes the form of a dynamic voice-over. Bastion was released on July 20, 2011 for Xbox Live Arcade
and on August 16, 2011 for digital download on Windows
.
On his way, The Kid meets two survivors: Zulf, a man hailing from Ura, a tribe who used to be in war with Caelondia; and Zia, an Uran girl who was raised in Caelondia. On his trips, The Kid finds a diary written in Uran language, which he leaves for Zulf to translate. While The Kid is away, Zulf reads the journal, then destroys vital parts of The Bastion and leaves - Rucks tells The Kid and Zia that The Calamity was something engineered by Caelondians, specifically the author of the diary: Zia's father Venn. The Calamity was the result of a defence mechanism to avoid another war against the Urans. It was never intended to be used, but the prospect of doing such destruction aggravated Venn, who rigged the mechanism to backfire when used. Unfortunately, he was the one forced to fire it. Thus, The Calamity has left most of the Urans intact and destroyed most of Caelondia.
To repair The Bastion, The Kid starts collecting shards, but eventually learns that Zulf has taken the last one. He travels to the Uran stronghold to retrieve it, and after he fights his way through the guards, finds Zulf being attacked by his own people, who have decided that Zulf has only brought more suffering upon them. The Kid must make a choice: either drop his only weapon and take Zulf back through the remaining lines of the Ura, or leave him behind and fight his way out.
After he arrives back, Rucks tells The Kid that Bastion is theoretically capable of rewinding time to before The Calamity in the hopes of preventing it, or it can detonate the Cores and evacuate the remaining people from Caelondia, hopefully to somewhere safer. The Kid can then choose to restore the world to before the Calamity or leave Caelondia, ending the story either way.
Between levels, the Kid visits the Bastion, where he can use the 'Fragments', the game's form of currency, he has accrued to buy materials and upgrade weapons. Here, he can use establishments, such as a shrine, an armory and a distillery.
In between missions, the player can engage in challenge courses designed to test the player's abilities at using each of the weapons the player has found. The challenges differ depending on the weapon. For example, the hammer, one of the weapons in the game, has its own challenge course where the player must destroy a certain number of objects with it within a given time. Another weapon, the Breaker's Bow, requires you to break targets in the fewest shots possible.
As well as challenge courses, the player can test weapons and loadouts by selecting any one of three journeys to "Who Knows Where," to be selected when at the Bastion via three items the player finds as they progress. The first item found is a large smoking pipe; the second a large cooking pot; the last a bed roll. These trips to Who Knows Where prompt the Kid to fight increasingly tougher waves of enemies, each trip featuring different types found in each of the three general areas of his journey. For example, the pipe has the Kid fight enemies like Turrets, Windbags, Gasfellas, and squirts, while the cooking pot has him fighting wild creatures like Pincushions, Wallflowers, and Stinkeyes. In between each ensuing wave, Rucks will tell the story of how one of the three youngsters came to the Bastion. The pipe tells the backstory of the Kid; the cooking pot of Zia's; the bedroll of Zulf's. The player earns Fragments and experience for each wave completed and each enemy slain.
The game incorporates a unique feature called 'dynamic narration'. Rucks, the old wise man (voiced by Logan Cunningham), serves as the game's narrator. As well as delivering story exposition, he will constantly give different commentary based on the player's actions and style of play - for example, he might remark upon the player's affinity for a certain weapon if said weapon is used frequently during battle.
The Steam version of the game features a new hidden skill (Gel Canister) and a new achievement, which ties into the Portal series of games by Valve Software.
praised the complexities and finesse of the combat mechanics. Gamespot
gave special mention to the visual design, calling it a 'striking art style filled with all sorts of rich and varied detail.' Kotaku
noted that 'the effect of the narration is magical' and that 'it feels like you are living a story into existence.'
Bastion was nominated for the 2011 Independent Games Festival
Awards in the "Excellence In Visual Art" and "Excellence In Audio" categories. It also won the Game Critics Award for Best Downloadable Game of E3 2011
.
reporting an 87/100. GameRankings reports a slightly higher aggregate score of 88.45%. Individual scores ranged from 65% approval to a perfect score. Multiple critics gave the game a perfect score, including McKinley Noble of GamePro
, Dan Crabtree of GamerNode, Jason Evangelho of VideoGameWriters and Luke Halliday of Capsule Computers.
Luke Halliday of Capsule Computers praised Supergiant Games for what they accomplished with Bastion's story and art style. Halliday stated "For a story about the end of the world, Bastion is simply bursting with so much life, you wouldn’t even realise, upon first glance. What they have created here isn’t just graphics for a video game, they have created art."
McKinley Noble of GamePro compared the quality of Bastion to that of previous critically acclaimed Xbox Live Arcade releases. Noble stated that "Bastion stands right at the top with Limbo
and Braid
." Matt Miller of Game Informer
, who gave Bastion a score of 9.25/10, praised the presentation, saying "The sounds and images stick in your mind after you complete the game just like when you closed the final page on a favorite childhood picture book."
IGN's Greg Miller praised the replayability of Bastion, saying "I'm not the repeat type of gamer, but Bastion's leveling, weapon upgrades, and difficulty tweaks are just too gosh-darn addictive." While Francesca Reyes of the Official Xbox Magazine
stated her wish for a deeper battle system, she gave Bastion very high marks, saying, "Carefully crafted and full of charm, Bastion is irresistible." Gamespot's Maxwell McGee lauded the art style of Bastion, as well as the varied challenges that the game presents. McGee stated, "Every stylish bit of scenery is filled with tiny touches that add to the game's fairytale vibe."
Both Good Game
and Good Game: Spawn Point
rated Bastion at 8.5 stars but Good Game: Spawn Point
lamented the lack of a co-op system.
Action role-playing game
Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...
video game produced by independent developer
Indie game
Independent video game development is the process of creating video games without the financial support of a video game publisher. While large firms can create independent games, they are usually designed by an individual or a small team of as many as ten people, depending on the complexity of the...
Supergiant Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game's visual style is inspired by anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
and its narrative style takes the form of a dynamic voice-over. Bastion was released on July 20, 2011 for Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
and on August 16, 2011 for digital download on Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
.
Plot
The game takes place in the aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that suddenly fractured the city of Caelondia and most (if not all) of the world as people knew it into many pieces and led to an infestation of hostile creatures. Players take control of The Kid, a silent protagonist who awakens on one of the few remaining pieces of the old world and sets off for the titular Bastion, where everyone agreed to go in troubled times. He finds almost nothing left upon arrival, but is told by a wise old man called Rucks that together, they could build a stronghold named The Bastion. The Kid then embarks on a quest to the various Cores that once powered Caelondia, so that they can be used to power the Bastion, while the old man narrates his adventure and provides details on what exactly has happened.On his way, The Kid meets two survivors: Zulf, a man hailing from Ura, a tribe who used to be in war with Caelondia; and Zia, an Uran girl who was raised in Caelondia. On his trips, The Kid finds a diary written in Uran language, which he leaves for Zulf to translate. While The Kid is away, Zulf reads the journal, then destroys vital parts of The Bastion and leaves - Rucks tells The Kid and Zia that The Calamity was something engineered by Caelondians, specifically the author of the diary: Zia's father Venn. The Calamity was the result of a defence mechanism to avoid another war against the Urans. It was never intended to be used, but the prospect of doing such destruction aggravated Venn, who rigged the mechanism to backfire when used. Unfortunately, he was the one forced to fire it. Thus, The Calamity has left most of the Urans intact and destroyed most of Caelondia.
To repair The Bastion, The Kid starts collecting shards, but eventually learns that Zulf has taken the last one. He travels to the Uran stronghold to retrieve it, and after he fights his way through the guards, finds Zulf being attacked by his own people, who have decided that Zulf has only brought more suffering upon them. The Kid must make a choice: either drop his only weapon and take Zulf back through the remaining lines of the Ura, or leave him behind and fight his way out.
After he arrives back, Rucks tells The Kid that Bastion is theoretically capable of rewinding time to before The Calamity in the hopes of preventing it, or it can detonate the Cores and evacuate the remaining people from Caelondia, hopefully to somewhere safer. The Kid can then choose to restore the world to before the Calamity or leave Caelondia, ending the story either way.
Gameplay
Bastion is an action RPG with a level structure. The player character moves through fantasy-themed environments that form paths on the fly. The protagonist travels to many unique locations other than the Bastion, including forests, bogs, and a volcano. As the player progresses through each level, the player grows stronger by finding more weapons, materials to upgrade those weapons, and by gaining experience from defeating enemies. At the end of most levels, the player collects cores (which allow the player to add a building to the Bastion) and Shards which allow the player to add a secondary level to said buildings.Between levels, the Kid visits the Bastion, where he can use the 'Fragments', the game's form of currency, he has accrued to buy materials and upgrade weapons. Here, he can use establishments, such as a shrine, an armory and a distillery.
In between missions, the player can engage in challenge courses designed to test the player's abilities at using each of the weapons the player has found. The challenges differ depending on the weapon. For example, the hammer, one of the weapons in the game, has its own challenge course where the player must destroy a certain number of objects with it within a given time. Another weapon, the Breaker's Bow, requires you to break targets in the fewest shots possible.
As well as challenge courses, the player can test weapons and loadouts by selecting any one of three journeys to "Who Knows Where," to be selected when at the Bastion via three items the player finds as they progress. The first item found is a large smoking pipe; the second a large cooking pot; the last a bed roll. These trips to Who Knows Where prompt the Kid to fight increasingly tougher waves of enemies, each trip featuring different types found in each of the three general areas of his journey. For example, the pipe has the Kid fight enemies like Turrets, Windbags, Gasfellas, and squirts, while the cooking pot has him fighting wild creatures like Pincushions, Wallflowers, and Stinkeyes. In between each ensuing wave, Rucks will tell the story of how one of the three youngsters came to the Bastion. The pipe tells the backstory of the Kid; the cooking pot of Zia's; the bedroll of Zulf's. The player earns Fragments and experience for each wave completed and each enemy slain.
The game incorporates a unique feature called 'dynamic narration'. Rucks, the old wise man (voiced by Logan Cunningham), serves as the game's narrator. As well as delivering story exposition, he will constantly give different commentary based on the player's actions and style of play - for example, he might remark upon the player's affinity for a certain weapon if said weapon is used frequently during battle.
The Steam version of the game features a new hidden skill (Gel Canister) and a new achievement, which ties into the Portal series of games by Valve Software.
Pre-release
The critical reception before the game's official release was generally positive. IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
praised the complexities and finesse of the combat mechanics. Gamespot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
gave special mention to the visual design, calling it a 'striking art style filled with all sorts of rich and varied detail.' Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
noted that 'the effect of the narration is magical' and that 'it feels like you are living a story into existence.'
Bastion was nominated for the 2011 Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
Awards in the "Excellence In Visual Art" and "Excellence In Audio" categories. It also won the Game Critics Award for Best Downloadable Game of E3 2011
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011, commonly known as E3 2011, was the 15th Electronic Entertainment Expo held. E3 is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association . The event took place June 7–9, 2011 at the Los Angeles...
.
Post-release
Bastion received generally strong reviews. Aggregate scores were strong, with MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reporting an 87/100. GameRankings reports a slightly higher aggregate score of 88.45%. Individual scores ranged from 65% approval to a perfect score. Multiple critics gave the game a perfect score, including McKinley Noble of GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
, Dan Crabtree of GamerNode, Jason Evangelho of VideoGameWriters and Luke Halliday of Capsule Computers.
Luke Halliday of Capsule Computers praised Supergiant Games for what they accomplished with Bastion's story and art style. Halliday stated "For a story about the end of the world, Bastion is simply bursting with so much life, you wouldn’t even realise, upon first glance. What they have created here isn’t just graphics for a video game, they have created art."
McKinley Noble of GamePro compared the quality of Bastion to that of previous critically acclaimed Xbox Live Arcade releases. Noble stated that "Bastion stands right at the top with Limbo
Limbo (video game)
Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game and the premiere title of independent Danish game developer Playdead. The game was released in July 2010 as a platform exclusive title on Xbox Live Arcade, and was later re-released as part of a retail game pack along with Trials HD and Splosion Man in April...
and Braid
Braid (video game)
Braid is a platform and puzzle video game developed by independent software developer Jonathan Blow. The game was released on August 6, 2008 for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. A Microsoft Windows version was released on April 10, 2009. Hothead Games ported and released the game to Mac OS...
." Matt Miller of Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
, who gave Bastion a score of 9.25/10, praised the presentation, saying "The sounds and images stick in your mind after you complete the game just like when you closed the final page on a favorite childhood picture book."
IGN's Greg Miller praised the replayability of Bastion, saying "I'm not the repeat type of gamer, but Bastion's leveling, weapon upgrades, and difficulty tweaks are just too gosh-darn addictive." While Francesca Reyes of the Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...
stated her wish for a deeper battle system, she gave Bastion very high marks, saying, "Carefully crafted and full of charm, Bastion is irresistible." Gamespot's Maxwell McGee lauded the art style of Bastion, as well as the varied challenges that the game presents. McGee stated, "Every stylish bit of scenery is filled with tiny touches that add to the game's fairytale vibe."
Both Good Game
Good Game
Good Game is an Australian video gaming talk show television programme created by Janet Carr and Jeremy Ray currently on ABC2. It premiered on ABC on 19 September 2006...
and Good Game: Spawn Point
Good Game: Spawn Point
Good Game: Spawn Point , is a spin-off of the original Good Game, which aims to review video games that are rated G or PG. Some material is also taken from its original counterpart. It debuted on ABC3 on 20 February 2010. The show originally ran for 15 minutes, but was extended to 30 minutes per...
rated Bastion at 8.5 stars but Good Game: Spawn Point
Good Game: Spawn Point
Good Game: Spawn Point , is a spin-off of the original Good Game, which aims to review video games that are rated G or PG. Some material is also taken from its original counterpart. It debuted on ABC3 on 20 February 2010. The show originally ran for 15 minutes, but was extended to 30 minutes per...
lamented the lack of a co-op system.