Bastion
...reminded me of how games are supposed to be. Deeply visceral, invigorating, experiences invoking the strongest of emotions. This is by far one of the greatest games I have ever played.
"...it ranks alongside the industry changing likes of Super Mario Brothers 3 or Shadow of the Colossus."
Quite the opening eh? The thing is... it's not even "one of the greatest games I've ever played" by the standard definition. If you knew me you'd know that Titan Quest, Diablo, Darkspore, and other various ARPGs are on my list of great games.
Bastion is on a whole other level. Bastion isn't a great game by the standard definition. Bastion is a great game because it ranks alongside the industry changing likes of Super Mario Brothers 3 or Shadow of the Colossus.
Bastion is a stunningly beautiful experience that is constantly being destroyed and reconstructed right in front of you.
"I'd find myself briefly distracted from the combat just because I was so into what the narrator was talking about."
This game is worth way more than the $15 they ask you for so humbly and I'd gladly pay them $50 just so their studio can continue to make games like this and pay their employees lucratively.
Once again, going outside my norm, I'm going to praise the story of this game above most other factors (although they're equally as exciting). I'm not usually one to stop and read every quest or examine every character and normally skip most cut-scenes. Bastion on the other hand is so deeply immersing there is not one second of it you'd want to miss. The voice-over narration is completely fitting and sometimes during gauntlet style battles where it's wave after wave of monster I'd find myself briefly distracted from the combat just because I was so into what the narrator was talking about.
For the duration that I played this game I forgot that Diablo 3 was even on the horizon of being released.
"Never in my years of gaming have I seen a game squeeze every awesome ounce of meaningful choice out of its gameplay."
I decided before sitting down to write this that under no circumstance would I ruin the story of this game by posting any spoilers... that's just how good it is. Not even little spoiler tag hidden messages. Go play it.
If you're still not sold, I do have a few things I wanted to list briefly that I liked about this game and what it does differently:
1) Pick your own difficulty - once you reach a certain point in the game the designers realize that you are at a point that you finally know how to play. They give you access to a "Shrine" that allows you to "blaspheme" certain gods of the Bastion which in turn grant bonuses to enemy mobs and similarly bonuses to your xp and currency generation %'s. These bonuses can range from mobs doing 15% more damage to becoming invulnerable at random! This is an awesome feature that lets you tune the game to your difficulty level. By the end of the game I was using about 5 out of 10 gods. Keep in mind not all are selectable and some are unlockable and even more are obtainable after you beat the game and are on your second play-through.
2) There are no stats - for an ARPG player this comes as an initial shock. No str/dex/wis/con? What the heck man. But after 5 minutes of gameplay you forget you even played a game like that before. Loot-centric gameplay is gone and now you've found a completely new style of gameplay that focuses on progressively giving you a more powerful (but unupgraded) weapon every other game-level or so instead of dropping pointless after pointless useless vendor trash.
3) Choice - never in my years of gaming have I seen a game squeeze every awesome ounce of meaningful choice out of its gameplay. Everything from your weapon load-out, passive bonus potions, shrine gods, and more is a fun choice to be made that does nothing but extend the customization and personality of your gaming experience. Not once did I think to myself, "this is the obvious choice." Bastion also taught me a lot about myself as a video-game player. I may think of myself as a melee juggernaut but when it came down to it I was a sick-nasty ranged character in bastion because it lets you pick what's most fun for you and I really, REALLY, enjoyed being a glass cannon!
If you are an ARPG fan this is a must-buy, must-play, must-tell-everyone-you-know-about game.