Caltrops - Gamerasutra - Re: Bastion is one for the critics.

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by mark 01/16/2012, 7:55am PST

Jerry Whorebach wrote:

playability.
Making your game painfully easy by default, then demanding the player sink hours into it just to unlock adequate difficulty options, is pretty much the opposite of clever. The granularity of options is in keeping with the overall design philosophy, which must have been that no one should ever be presented with one iota more challenge than they're equipped to handle at that particular moment, lest they end up spending too much time on (god forbid repeating) a segment, and realizing the narration isn't quite so dynamic as they'd been lead to believe.

I'm not sure that Bastion does it right, but I still think the mechanic is actually pretty neat. Most types of point based games have some kind of risk-reward scaffolding. Bullet-scrubbing, specific attack styles in DMC, etc. Exposing these levers to the player outside of the gameplay is something I haven't seen before, at least expressed like that. Anyway, even if you do everything, as I did, the game isn't very long.

Agreed the narrative isn't quite as dynamic as it purports to be -- I played through a few levels again in the New Game +, and it is effectively identical. You are also so insanely powerful in replay that the levels take seconds to beat.

The combat is solid. It deserved a better game.

I think the blocking mechanic is a bit finicky, but the weapon switching and rolling and everything else is great. The Carbine in particular is neat. The other weapons are more typical action RPG fare. I used it along side the Musket for most of the end game. The Pike was also a lot of fun, but the Hammer, Bow, Repeater, and Machete all seemed pretty dull.