Kid Thinks It's Time to Talk About the Bastion

Last year Supergiant Games released the ARPG Bastion to critical acclaim. This week it found its way to iOS for various iPhones and iPads and maybe even the iPod Touch; I assume any device at this point with and i in it can play Bastion. You can see a full list of compatible devices here.

The lush environments are all hand-drawn, which gives Bastion a unique feel.

Bastion is the story of the Kid, but the most prevalent voice in Bastion is that of the narrator, Rucks, whom supervises the Kid's every mood and narrates what he is doing in a manner most unusual as far as most games are concerned. You learn about the Kid's backstory later through a device that lets you fight your inner demons, so to speak.


The art style in Bastion is both striking and vibrant in color. The characters are well-defined and the animation is fluid. The cutscenes are minimal and typically only portray a comic-esque scene with panning to provide the illusion of movement. I have no problems with the minimalist storytelling; games don't have to be full of flashy CGis to win my seal of approval. My only complaint with the engine is how slow the Kid's walking speed is. This can be circumvented to an extent by rolling around every where you want to go, but it's not a perfect solution, as you can end up rolling off the edge of the map by accident.

Bastion features a variety of weapons that can be upgraded, from a hammer to a trusty carbine and a slew of weapons in between. Bastion is a ARPG which means the combat takes place in real time, or in other words as quick as the player can press the button. The game lets you set two different weapons at once and players are best served by setting a close range and a long range weapon, such as a hammer and gun.

The enemies have interesting lore and unique attacks that set them apart from the common fodder in other games.

The Kid must search for crystals, and later shards of crystals, in order to restore the Bastion to its full potential. The Bastion is the last place of civilization after the Calamity in Caelondia, which destroyed the cities of the Ur and gave rise to the various monsters you have to face in Bastion.

The soundtrack in Bastion is of the highest quality; I can't think of a soundtrack in recent years that I would rate more highly than the work of Bastion. (Yes, even counting Matt Ueleman's fantastic work on Torchlight II). In fact, lets listen to some right now.

Bastion is replayable exactly twice. I don't mean you can only play it twice, but rather you will want to play it twice as it has two different endings and you probably want to see both of them... that is if you are won over by the characters and the story to want to see what happens to them in either situation.

Bastion is available on  the PC for $14.99, Xbox 360 for 600 Microsoft points, iOS devices for $4.99, and Macs for $6.99. You can also play it for free in the Chrome browser here, (must be in Chrome browser to work) so there's really no reason why you shouldn't play it if you haven't already.