Original Publication Date: 14/04/2019

Republished 16/06/2022.

Bastion: Birth of a Supergiant

Welcome to the first part of my three-part series of articles covering my thoughts on the games of esteemed developer Supergiant Games, in my opinion one of the best indie developers currently in operation. Over the near future, I’ll be talking about their three major games currently released, starting today with Bastion, the game that put them on the map, and in many people’s eyes, one of the best indie games ever made.
Bastion tells the story of The Kid, and a handful of other survivors, who attempt to reconstruct and power the titular Bastion, a device that can apparently save them from The Cataclysm, a disaster that has torn the world asunder. On the surface, it seems like a fairly basic indie game, with seemingly well-made yet uninspiring combat, and an interesting yet unambitious plot. But as the game opens up, it's a game that really lets you tailor your playstyle your way, with a story that has a lot more going on than it initially implies. It really became something wonderful, unlike any game I had played until that time.

From the first moment, Bastion makes a massive impression on the player – The titular Kid, alone in a patch of stone isolated in the sky, as a narrator dynamically sets the scene. And, personally, I think no single element of the game contributes more to its acclaim and its general perception than the voice of Rucks, the Narrator of the game who rambles on for its entirety. It’s a really interesting set-up that I hadn’t really seen before to this extent. The game implies the entire game is a story that absolutely happened, but is a story told by Rucks to another character in the game. Ruck’s voice is utterly mesmerizing, and so little of his dialogue is presented to you in a straightforward manner – so much of his narration is presented as if you, the player in the guise of The Kid, is a part of that world – why would he explain certain things if you, The Kid, already know about it? It truly creates a lot of depth for the world of Caelondia that sets it apart from the average indie game that came out at this time – or heck, even today.
The story has a pretty basic set-up, apart from the wonderfully constant narration – go to the various areas of the shattered world and collect the Shards. But, Bastion has a wonderful sense of progression and raising stakes as the story marches on. New characters appear [ ] I won’t mince words – Bastion probably has the weakest story of the three completed Supergiant games, but I don’t say that as a bad thing. The story always has a base level of decent quality that kept me engaged, but I did in its early stages worry that the story would never really escape from just being a fetch quest for the Shards.
I was so damn wrong.

After a few certain events occur, the story changes dramatically. The basic fetch quest style of hunting for an item in most levels remains, but the context is utterly different. A story about just saving the world becomes one about the nature of warfare, racial tensions and so much more. It’s almost too much of a tonal whiplash from the rather hopeful attitude in the face of annihilation. And it all culminates in the final level, where you are given a choice regarding a character you’ve grown close to for the entire game – I wouldn’t in a thousand years spoil what’s happening in this moment, but when combined with Darren Korb’s insanely good music for the scene, it’s goes down as one of my favorite moments in video games, period. Like I said, Bastion probably has the weakest story of the three current Supergiant Games – but it’s also absolutely incredible at the same time.
Think about how I feel about Transistor and Pyre’s stories, huh? But that’s for another day, dear reader.
Progressing in Bastion takes several forms – completing the fourteen or so story levels, where you attempt to collect the Shards to rebuild the Bastion. These shards lead to one of more interesting elements in the game – each one allowing you to create a new service on The Bastion, such as an Armory to change weapons, or a Refinery to equip new skills. On other progression threads are, when obtaining each weapon, you unlock a unique skill-based challenge, rewarding you with upgrade materials and skills for you to play around with. Whilst a few of these were honestly really difficult, the upgrade paths for each of the weapons have enough heft to them that you can spend some time upgrading weapons, then come back and you’ll have the skills and equipment needed to blaze thought he majority of them, with diluting the unique charm of each of them. I also love that they don't challenge locations for the sake of it – they exist in the world of Caelondia, each having a particular reason, such as a junkyard, or a training yard for a certain military force.
Something that I feel Bastion isn’t given enough credit for is its length – on my last run through the game, I’d estimate I took somewhere between five and six hours to try everything and reach one of the endings. Any shorter and I feel the game would’ve felt too short, and too rushed to convey its wonderful story. Any longer, however, and I’d feel the entire experience would’ve been too protracted and too drawn out. It’s the perfect length for a game like this – and when I come around and get the itch to play through it again, it has a great New Game Plus feature, carrying over all of your important progression from the initial run through the game. For completionists, there is a lot to do – Achievements in the form of the Monument, completing the enemy gauntlets, and reaching first place for the trials, but none of it is required content

There’s no two ways around it – Bastion’s score, composed by Darren Korb, is a masterpiece. There aren’t a metric ton of songs present in the game, but just about every single one is a gem within a gem. One of the little things I really like about this game is how every song fits the location it’s set in – the songs set in the town feel very different to The Wilds, and those sound really different to the final levels of the game, set in a different nation. Remember that incredible moment I mentioned earlier? Honestly, an argument could be made for the soundtrack to be considered better than the game itself – I’ve probably listened to the whole thing a dozen times across the years. That amazing scene wouldn’t have a fraction of its impact without Darren Korb’s incredible theme for that scene, and it is mostly why it remains one of my favorite moments in gaming, but I’ve already gushed a bit too much about that. In short, the music for Bastion is nothing short of masterful – which is saying something, when I would rank it as my least favorite of the three soundtracks of Supergiant Games catalog. And that’s one hell of a feat, indeed – though it’s something to expand on in a future article.
Speaking about the music fitting the locations – the locations of Bastion, at least for the ones set in different locations, all feel wildly distinct and unique from one another, really painting a picture of what the world of Caelondia used to be before The Cataclysm. The art direction for the game in general is really strong – maybe not as strong as later games, but for the year it came out, it was crazy good for such a small, indie studio. The enemy variety is also great – they don’t feel like enemies put in the world as just obstacles, but natural occurrences in the world – they were here, just like everyone else, but they’re all that’s left after The Cataclysm. As part of it’s story, the game threw me through a loop, thinking I’d just be fighting the animals and such left over from the disaster, but I was pleasantly surprised at the variety they threw at me at the very end – though it comes with a lot of very sad, violent ideas that tie into it’s late-game story.
Something that Supergiant introduced into this game and included, in a slightly different form, for Transistor and Pyre was a system (called The Shrine in Bastion), that lets you tailor the difficulty to your own extent, allowing you in exchange for a increase in XP, can make enemies faster, or give them more health. In fact, on a gameplay level, Bastion’s greatest trait is allowing the player to choose exactly how they want to play – there are countless different weapons, allowing you to mix and match to work out exactly what playstyle you need, or what’ll help you the most in a certain situation. Beyond that even, there are the Secret Skills, of which there are more than a dozen, that can mix up your playstyle even further, and beyond that there are the Tonics, which give a variety of passive boosts to The Kid. There are so many approaches to playing the game that I really don’t think two unique players will ever have the exact same play style throughout the entire game – for the early game, I used a knife and a pair of pistols for most of the game, but by the end, my strategy had changed to a kind of ‘scorched earth’ policy, using a flamethrower with a spear to clean up. Bastion’s core gameplay might not be the most complicated in the world, but the amount of options it gives you to engage in the world are as deep as an ocean.
Bastion really is something special – at the time, it legitimately could’ve been one of the greatest indie games ever developed – at least, for me, I’d played nothing on its level of quality before. It isn’t perfect when under a microscope, but to me, it’s as close to a masterpiece as it could possibly get. It’s a beautiful, through-provoking game that put one of my favorite developers on the map and had me begging for more wonderful adventures from them. Thankfully, I got plenty, in the form of games that, in some ways, I loved even more than Bastion.
But that’s a story for another time.

Retrospective Comments:

As you'll clearly see, I never did those follow up reviews for Transistor and Pyre - I'm not even sure if I had finished Pyre at this point, to be honest. I still probably will write a review of Transistor sometime - even all these years later, it's still one of my favourite games of all time. Overall, though, I feel like this Bastion review is a bit of a step up from my previous ones, though I think I was a little too descriptive about whas the game is, rather then how I felt about it.