Review by: Danielle Riendeau

One of E3’s happiest surprises, and the kick-off to XBLA’s Summer of Arcade promotion, Bastion is one of the most charming, unique, and fully-realized titles of 2011 – downloadable or not. With an interesting, novel approach to storytelling and unbelievably tight action-RPG gameplay, it’s no doubt put tiny developer SuperGiant Games on the proverbial map, and it deserves to be played by every gamer who’s had at least the tiniest interest in the action/RPG genre.

It all begins in much the same way as A Link To The Past, with a young man fast asleep in his bed. But protagonist “The Kid” isn’t alone – there’s a narrator giving voice to his every move, starting with his first step out of bed. This begins your journey through Caelondia – the psychedelic world literally assembling itself as you walk through it, the narrator chronicling your progress and offering both story cues and helpful hints as you go.

Immediately, you’ll come to grips with the core gameplay – you fight waves of fast-moving monsters with a chosen load out of two weapons (and one special attack), crack the scenery, and try not to fall off into oblivion. Each victory over a baddie nets you XP and potential goodies, like currency, health tonics and black tonics (for your special abilities). As you journey through the broken bits of land, you’ll level up and find new weapons (and weapon upgrades) with which to munch monsters, and add upgrades to the bastion itself (which acts much like an overworld).

Those are the nuts and bolts of the gameplay, which is lightning fast and incredibly satisfying. Think traditional 2D Zelda on high-grade cocaine, with quadruple the enemy numbers, and you’re pretty close. Fighting is fun and robust – there’s fantastic variety in the weapons and abilities, and each enemy type requires its own brand of strategy. The Kid is wonderfully nimble, and several “proving grounds” throughout the game provide incentivized training sessions with each weapon (you’ll earn delicious upgrades for successful runs).

If the game was just simply this – a solid combat engine, a wonderful mix of strategy and rapid-paced action, an addictive layer of RPG-style leveling – it would still be good. What makes it great, however, is its presentation, style, storytelling method, and unique aesthetic.

The narrator has a lot to do with this. With a sort of down-home baritone and the best actual script and technical scripting (he only speaks when it’s relevant – and everything he says is actually important, interesting, and entertaining) I’ve ever seen in a game of this sort, it works incredibly well. The story – a deceptively simple tale about a tiny group of survivors after the world-ending “calamity” has nearly wiped everything – and everyone - out is captivating, and the bits and pieces of lore thrown in among the “bigger” story beats feel like little treats, instead of boring minutia.