I got this game out of curiosity because I heard it's short but sweet. I ended up spending 15 hours with it - I could end the review right here and that would probably be all you need to know. Go buy it and play it, Lunkhead.

If you're still reading, I can tell you that you're in for a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing artstyle, amazing, impactful sound design and heart-warming music. My only complaint in the presentation department is that there's no native support for resolutions beyond 1920x1080, so if you're on a 1440p or 4k monitor, it might look a tad blurry (but the game's artstyle makes it imperceptible, so it's not a huge deal). It's also locked at 60 FPS but since this isn't a game that needs hundreds of FPS, it was all fine and dandy.

This is basically a lite action RPG in isometric view, but the basic combat loop is super satisfying and deep without being obtuse or overly complex. You have a wide variety of weapons that you can upgrade and you can combine two at a time before heading on a mission, which accommodates a lot of different playstyles and I found myself changing weapons a lot because they were all fun to use and balanced out very well. You also have a "Distillery" which offers "Drinks" that give you passive buffs to customize your character further. The enemies are varied and creative as well. I'm being vague on purpose because I don't want to give too much away, I just really want to hammer home the point that the game is very well made and deserves top marks in the gameplay department.

It also has a very tight, short and heart-warming story of war, forgiveness and redemption. There's something wholesomely human about it, and I've never played a game back-to-back twice (NG+) just to see both endings (if you ask me, the Evacuation ending is the better of the two).

I usually try and find at least something that could be improved in every review, but here, I'm left to nitpick and scratch my head. Apart from the minor technical stuff mentioned above, there's nothing really objectively wrong with the game. It's a bit short at its core (it can be finished in 4-5 hours if you rush through it), but it does have achievements, NG plus, an arena mode, upgrades to hunt down, trial maps for all the weapons, it's not like it's short on content, and it's all optional, which in today's day and age of stuffing big, open-world maps with tons of meaningless busywork, feels absolutely refreshing (even though this game is from 2011). If you don't like this type of artstyle, I guess you won't dig the game, but that's 100% subjective, so YMMV.

I'd say it's fairly priced at just under 13€ - you'll get your money's worth if you do the extra stuff; if you're only in it for the story, maybe wait for a sale. In short, Bastion is a superb game to spend a weekend with and it totally deserves your money and time. Great stuff all around!

I got this game out of curiosity because I heard it's short but sweet. I ended up spending 15 hours with it - I could end the review right here and that would probably be all you need to know. Go buy it and play it, Lunkhead. If you're still reading, I can tell you that you're in for a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing artstyle, amazing, impactful sound design and heart-warming music. My only complaint in the presentation department is that there's no native support for resolutions beyond 1920x1080, so if you're on a 1440p or 4k monitor, it might look a tad blurry (but the game's artstyle makes it imperceptible, so it's not a huge deal). It's also locked at 60 FPS but since this isn't a game that needs hundreds of FPS, it was all fine and dandy. This is basically a lite action RPG in isometric view, but the basic combat loop is super satisfying and deep without being obtuse or overly complex. You have a wide variety of weapons that you can upgrade and you can combine two at a time before heading on a mission, which accommodates a lot of different playstyles and I found myself changing weapons a lot because they were all fun to use and balanced out very well. You also have a "Distillery" which offers "Drinks" that give you passive buffs to customize your character further. The enemies are varied and creative as well. I'm being vague on purpose because I don't want to give too much away, I just really want to hammer home the point that the game is very well made and deserves top marks in the gameplay department. It also has a very tight, short and heart-warming story of war, forgiveness and redemption. There's something wholesomely human about it, and I've never played a game back-to-back twice (NG+) just to see both endings (if you ask me, the [spoiler] Evacuation [/spoiler] ending is the better of the two). I usually try and find at least something that could be improved in every review, but here, I'm left to nitpick and scratch my head. Apart from the minor technical stuff mentioned above, there's nothing really objectively wrong with the game. It's a bit short at its core (it can be finished in 4-5 hours if you rush through it), but it does have achievements, NG plus, an arena mode, upgrades to hunt down, trial maps for all the weapons, it's not like it's short on content, and it's all optional, which in today's day and age of stuffing big, open-world maps with tons of meaningless busywork, feels absolutely refreshing (even though this game is from 2011). If you don't like this type of artstyle, I guess you won't dig the game, but that's 100% subjective, so YMMV. I'd say it's fairly priced at just under 13€ - you'll get your money's worth if you do the extra stuff; if you're only in it for the story, maybe wait for a sale. In short, Bastion is a superb game to spend a weekend with and it totally deserves your money and time. Great stuff all around!