Bastion

Bastion is a pretty good game. Not amazing, but a good 7/10, and it's certainly served as a solid foundation for Supergiant's future games. I'd definitely recommend it to people that like Supergiant's other games, and will likely replay it myself sometime, either from the start or on New Game+. If you've played the other Supergiant games like Transistor, or either Hades games (I haven't yet played Pyre), Bastion will look familiar. It's an isometric action RPG that controls largely similarly to the games that come after. You have two weapons bound to the mouse buttons, a special skill that can be either bound to a specific weapon or can be used with any weapon, a shield and the ability to dodge roll. You get a pretty wide variety of weapons throughout the game, from a relatively slow hammer, a wide ranging musket, a lightning fast machete and many more. You can also upgrade each weapon with unique upgrade materials, and once you unlock an upgrade tier, you can swap between either of its two options at the game's hub area. I generally stuck with a single set of upgrades and didn't explore too much in my first playthrough, but I could see the variety of options lending significant extra depth to those willing to explore it. But that's enough about the weapons and abilities, let's get to where you actually use them. The game's levels are... okay. There's not a whole heck of a lot to them to be honest. I like how they look, as floating landscapes with ground rising up ahead of you and obstacles and such falling down from above. Each level usually has at least a couple side paths you can take to grab some extra fragments (the currency used to buy most everything in the hub area), or even just some healing tonics and/or skill tonics, but there's really not much to incentivize going off the beaten path if you aren't intrinsically motivated to do so. Usually, you'll be pressing forward, fighting enemies on your way to the end. The enemies themselves are largely fine as well. You've got melee attackers of various sizes, ranged attackers, stationary turrets and a variety of others foes. Most honestly aren't that interesting, but there are a few I'd call outright bad, particularly in one late game level. Getting locked in place for a few seconds while you get an acid glob launched at you that leaves a lingering, damaging pool isn't particularly fun, and the swarms of little birds that can be found in several levels are largely simple to deal with, but are very irritating with their high attack speed and propensity for flitting about outside your range until they come back for another attack. Aside from these though, levels and enemies are largely inoffensive. I also enjoy how, midway through the game, you unlock idols, representing the gods of this world, which enhance enemies in various ways while also granting you a boost to XP and fragments received. I love modular difficulty options like this and like Transistor's limiters. The idols did cause me irritation in a couple levels, and while I used every one I could for a good chunk of the game, I left them off for the last few levels in the interest of time. There are also proving grounds, special areas holding challenges for each weapon, with upgrade materials and special skills to be earned. These vary significantly in difficulty and quality in my reckoning, but are mostly okay. Now that I've alluded to the world's gods, I ought to finally speak a bit on the story and setting. The game begins with you taking control of the Kid, who awakens as his world is quite literally falling apart. He gets out of bed and immediately sets out for the Bastion, the place the inhabitants of the city of Caelondia are told to go if disaster strikes. The Kid is waylaid by windbags, creatures from underground, many of whom have been driven upward by "the Calamity," the disaster destroying the world. Eventually, the Kid finds the City's crystalline Core and takes it, hastening the crumbling of the City. He eventually makes it the Bastion, where he meets Rucks, who, as it turns out, has been the one narrating the story so far, and who will continue to do so throughout the game. Here at the Bastion, the Kid and the player learn what their ultimate goal is: gather Cores from the ruins of Caelondia to power the Bastion so that it can eventually serve its ultimate purpose. Along the way, the Kid meets a few more survivors, finds mementos of the old world, and learns more about the Calamity, why it happened and exactly what it did. I find it a nice story, set in a world that isn't explored too deeply, but gives enough to inspire curiosity. Characterization for what few characters there are is somewhat sparse, but I know I've missed some, and I still found Rucks in particular quite likeable. A significant part of that is his narration, performed by Logan Cunningham, who went on to voice the titular weapon in Transistor, as well several characters in the Hades games. As with Supergiant's other games, the narration adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game along with the excellent music composed by Darren Korb. Honestly, I would say that the atmosphere is a good part of the reason to play this game, and helps elevate what might otherwise be a merely decent action RPG to something quite good.