I’m a tiny bit late to the party, but Bastion has rekindled a love affair with my dear Xbox.
If you know me, you’ll know that im pretty much a Sony and Nintendo fan boy. I don’t exactly hate Microsoft and it’s little black box, however as i’m on my THIRD Xbox now, I have a tiny amount of resentment. I own a slim 250gb Xbox and apart from the occasional joust in Gears of War, it pretty much collects dust. I heard quite a lot about an Xbox live arcade game way back in 2011. I saw some videos for it and loved the art style, but the fact that it was on Xbox mean’t I wasn’t really bothered.
Late last year I downloaded this much loved title. If you havn’t guessed it by now, its Bastion! As I stated before, the art style really sings to me. Colorful environments, cute characters and slick animations. This really doesn’t look like a Live Arcade title. The game play itself is quite addictive, I would describe it as what Megaman would play like in 3D. You have a host of weapons from Bow and Arrows to Swords and you can play in a way that suits you. All of these weapons can then be levelled up to be made more effective as the difficulty increases.
The main criticism of the title for most is the story. It’s a fairly simple one, there’s been an apocalyptic disaster. And its up to the player and the few survivors left to rebuild the world bit by bit. Anyone who was expecting more from such a title, is a moron.
Finally we come to the soundtrack. First off the game is fully narrated, you get information on the story from what can be described as a fairly sarcastic American geezer. He also narrates what is happening on screen, such as you kicking ass to embarrassingly falling to your death. A few people have said that they find the narration annoying but I enjoy it, it’s something I havn’t experienced in a game before. The score is pretty good as well, mixing orchestral and techno, that might sound kinda crazy but trust me it works.
I will say nothing more about this game as chances are you already know as they hype still surrounding this game is still immense.
If you’re looking for something to entertain you’re 2012 till the big guns come out later this year, definitely give this a download! (Or atleast give the trial a shot)
