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Universal Backup

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Universal Backup

Well, if I’m honest, I wasn’t planning to do a review on this one, primarily because I haven’t played it until very recently, having picked it up during one of the Humble Bundles and mistaking it for some little time-spender or a mobile game ported onto a PC. That was by far one of the biggest mistakes I made when considering this game, and when I booted it up as something to pass the time on my laptop, I found that it actually lagged on it. That’s the first bit of proof that it’s more than something to kill half an hour or so. Even so, on the surface, the game Bastion, developed by Supergiant Games who also made Transistor still comes across as a game of fetch-quests, a summary that doesn’t do it justice. May contain spoilers. I would advise anyone with a spoiler allergy to avoid reading as it may incur copious amounts of rage and/or depression.

What Bastion actually is can be best described as an isometric combat game, with unique storytelling and gameplay for a number of reasons. To best describe what I thought of this little number, I’ll be breaking it down into various factors, from characters to difficulty level…and yes, that does have its own segment for reasons I will explain. So, let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Well, maybe not…a story is meant to start at the beginning, but it’s not so simple with this one…

The Characters

A game that could be called small, Bastion features a concise set of well-developed characters, going to a great deal of effort to flesh them out with stories that feel worth being told. You won’t be bored by long passages of their shoe collection nor the number of weapons they have, rather their histories and relation to each other being fleshed out at various points and at a pace you feel comfortable with. No info-dumps either, but that’s another matter.


The Kid
The ‘protagonist’ of our story – yes, those quotation marks will be explained later – and a mute for the purposes of player interaction, Kid is a Caelondian, part of a race of people who emigrated from their so-called ‘Motherland’ and founded a city on a new continent, of course named Caelondia. Like all of our other characters he is one of the few survivors of the Calamity, a devastating analogue of the apocalypse that left the land in ruin, and is doing what he can to reunite the scattered survivors and rebuild the Bastion, a device he is told is important but doesn’t know why. Growing up with only his ill mother the Kid took a five-year round on the Rippling Walls, a bulwark against the wilds to send the money he earned back to his mother. When his turn was up and he came home, he found his mother had passed away in his absence and the money he’d been sending was nowhere to be found.
So he went right back to the Rippling Walls for another five years, an act as of yet unheard of in Caelondia. It’s not a spectacular story but easy to follow and not over the top, turning him immediately into a believable character.

During the game you don’t ever understand Kid’s motivations or beliefs directly, as the narration is performed by a second character, but you are privy to certain aspects of who he is, as the narrator explains to you some of the things the Kid felt as he encountered certain sights or events. In some cases he even recites small portions of his dialogue, though this is rather rare, and much of who the Kid is comes from his actions. Due to this style of narration however, it is implied that Kid interacts normally with other characters, as the narrator is the only voice actually heard for a great deal of the game. It’s a simple yet effective solution to the ‘mute protagonist who takes with telepathy’ problem we get in a lot of games.


Rucks
The second character we encounter, serving as both the narrator for the story and one of the people who worked on the original Bastion, Rucks is the sole source of information throughout the game, though not through the usual method of having to constantly talk to him. Ruck’s role is more complicated than that – through every level and moment of the game his voice follows you, speaking as a storyteller to another audience, rather than to the kid. You have to realise that instead of acting like you’re the player, Rucks treats you as if you are a person within this world to whom he is relating the Kid’s story, filling in the blanks about locations and creatures as he goes.

Shattering some form of wall I’m sure, he still manages to maintain an integral part of the story. Rucks is who sends the Kid to collect Crystals and Shards – which I theorise are crystalized chunks of reality as a result of the Calamity – as well as understanding how the Bastion works, serving as a source of information both for you and the Kid. He has a certain complexity to him, describing things from the perspective of a man who has seen far too much, prior to the Calamity in the Caelondian Army and working on the Bastion, and then post-Calamity, surviving the hardships to make it to safety. Despite being just one of the survivors, Rucks feels like the dependable old grandfather you can come to for advice, having your back however he can from start to finish.


Zulf
I think I’m going to stop calling these characters complex now – they all are, and that’s about it. Zulf is one of the Ura – a race styled on some ancient Asian cultures, located underground in a series of tunnels called the Tazal Terminals. Following a war between the Cael and the Ura, Zulf was taken in by a Cael missionary living in the terminals, and taught morals and peace. Following the death of his mentor Zulf journeyed to Caelondia, hoping to follow in his footsteps, falling in love with a Cael woman on the way. During the Calamity his love died as did so many others, turned to stone in Caelondia’s hanging gardens, where Zulf is found by the Kid, prepared to end his own life until he is asked to come back with him. Apparently happy to meet survivors he introduces himself to the other two, coming across as a kind and well-meaning individual, until the Kid returns from one of his journeys with a fourth survivor and a journal that reveals some horrifying secrets, written in Zulf’s native tongue.

The journal is a detailed account of an Ura man called Zenn, the fourth survivor’s now-deceased father, on the construction of a piece of technology designed to cause the Calamity and wipe out the Ura. Supposedly meant as a last resort even in peacetime, Zenn was forced to construct the device, sabotaging it in such a way that when activated, it would do more damage to Caelondia than the Terminals. As is clear now, it worked, almost completely.
When Zulf discovers this he is thrown into a rage, damaging the Bastion’s monument and power input before fleeing, his parting words “The Calamity failed, but I will not.” In the wake of learning that the Cael had a plan to annihilate his people, he goes from peacekeeper to warmonger, setting out to find his people in the East to destroy the Bastion, not knowing what the Bastion is meant for. Even so, I don’t really see him as a villain – he reacts understandably as he learns what the Cael planned, and as he sees the Bastion as something that may help the lost Cael civilisation, he doesn’t want it to be complete. Despite his sudden violence, it is justified and I can’t exactly fault his behaviour, right to the end. He is arguably one of the deepest characters in this game, and it is pulled off impeccably, not realising he isn’t actually in the wrong right at the end. But then again, neither were the Caelondians, for they may have built the device that caused the Calamity with the intent of wiping out the Ura, but they also built the Bastion, designed to undo time to long before the Calamity, essentially ‘fixing’ everything.


Zia
The fourth and final survivor, Zia is an Ura woman who was born and raised in Caelondia by Zenn, her father, with natural affinity for musical instruments and cooking that makes you hallucinate…sort of. She is found on the same expedition as when retrieving the journal, spending the part of the level searching for her playing an absolutely beautiful song on a lyre. Like the other two characters she has a number of things to speak about, though once again her interactions with the Kid are narrated by Rucks…mostly. Unlike Zulf she is not bilingual, speaking in the Cael language with a limited understanding of the Ura tongue, and as such sides with Rucks when Zulf deciphers the journal, not knowing the cause for his anger. When the extradited Zulf sends her a letter, not long before the Bastion is attacked, she leaves willingly with the attackers, heading East to see what has happened to her people and then returning without rancour to the Bastion when the Kid comes to save her, having believed her kidnapped.

Zia is, however, quite literally the most important person in the story, for without her it would not be being told. You recall I said that Rucks is the narrator? Well, Zia is the one he is narrating it to, supposedly as the kid is embarking on his final expedition to return the shard stolen by Zulf, with all of the previous levels having happened in the past. Well, they happened in the past for the kid, at least, though we see it in the present. There are a number of hints that she is taking the place of the player, as Rucks speaks of scenes involving her with only the most barebones facts, occasionally asking for her thoughts or a reminder, and speaking in the second person when she is involved. Thus, you play as the Kid, but you are really playing as Zia, hearing of his exploits. Accordingly she is also the only other character to have a role in conversation, appearing after the final mission and speaking to you directly as the Kid, where you now are viewing things from his perspective. As a gameplay factor she is otherwise unimportant for the most part, but is instrumental in raising various animals, notably a robotic bull, a floating orb of gel, a subterranean alligator, an eagle, and – in the New Game Plus mode – a turret from the game Portal, all of which are very useful in driving off those who attack the Bastion.




The Bastion
Because it is an entity in itself with a form of life, it does deserve a mention, also being the reason for all of the game’s missions, as you are striving to revive it and utilise its power. Designed as a failsafe by Caelondian scientists in the event of any sort of apocalypse or collapse of society as it is known, the Bastion’s primary function is to rewind time to before said event occurred, acting as an archive to restore the world. Ignoring the problems with  time travel in general, Rucks personally admits that there is a major flaw in the Bastion’s function – the problem with something that reverses time is that you can’t test it, nor can you prevent the events occurring again, which is precisely what would happen. When this is revealed to Zia she wants to know if there’s some other way, some second option they have to escape what the Calamity has left behind. Sure enough, there is – the Bastion’s auxiliary function was a lifeboat, a means of evacuation for the Cael if the city could no longer be held. Even if your entire party is four people, four animals, and a turret, you can still bounce on out of there like Noah. However, doing this will severely damage the Bastion’s power supply. It serves as the hub for everything you do, as well as providing upgrades and additional money or experience as required, along with being a way of modifying your difficult through some far more interesting and unconventional means, once again turning a very generic gameplay mechanic into something far more special.

***

Locations

With the characters out of the way, I feel obligated to briefly describe the locations in which the game takes place, though I will not be detailing every single level, rather the places in which these levels are grouped. What is important to note is that all of these levels are in some way canon, even if they are removed from the main plot to an extent.

Caelondia
The city of the Cael and where the tale begins, Caelondia is a lot of brickwork and ornate stone, built to last with pure strength in mind. Taken from the wilds and carved into a safe haven from the outside, Caelondia was hit worst by the Calamity, torn apart with very little left standing, and that which is only held by the crystals, coming apart as they’re relieved for the Bastion. Inhabited by security and worker forces of various kinds, Caelondia is nothing spectacular, though does feature architecture synonymous with places such as ancient Greece, including statues of various pantheon gods mounted on walls.

The Wilds
The Untamed space outside Caelondia, it is a proving ground in its own way for trappers and thrill-seekers. It is an unforgiving place, home to some of the most dangerous and vile creatures you will encounter, from Pincushions to Stinkweeds. Worst of all is the bog, a place thick with heady fumes that can leave you lost, unable to find your way home.

The Tazal Terminals
The tunnels of the Ura, ripped free from the ground and suspended in the air like the remains of Caelondia, it fared terribly even though the worst of the Calamity was directed at the Cael. Home to the Ura, a race akin to old Asian cultures and sporting lots of crystal formations and stunning visuals, the Ura forms the final few late-game levels, having relatively few appearances when compared to the rest of the locations. This for me was the most spectacular of places, though I believe the developers put into the Wilds to make it look lush and verdant, full of killer plantlife.

The Proving Grounds
Testing grounds of one kind or another, the Proving Grounds are a Caelondian phenomenon, to test your mettle and earn prizes with one weapon at a time. Each weapon has a proving ground to match, and each proving ground has both a trio of prizes to earn based on performance, and a brief addition to the Kid’s exploits to be told by Rucks depending on how well you do. These Proving Grounds can be visited repeatedly until first prize is obtained at which point they are locked off, but due to granting no money and only occasional experience, they are useful to this end only for testing specific weapons and Who Knows Where is a better use of time.

Who Knows Where
Not strictly a canon location but important to the story, Who Knows Where is a set of four locations accessed from different items in the Bastion, each one corresponding to the various histories of the survivors, or in the case of Rucks, the world itself. You are told stories of Zia, the Kid and Zulf, and each one serves as a different difficulty of gauntlet, waves of specific enemies for the item with rewards each level. Who Knows Where is the only place that can be repeatedly visited once completed, serving as a way to earn experience and money or test out weapon upgrades and combinations, while simultaneously teaching you of the past. There are also a handful of achievements associated with beating these gauntlets using the game’s particular challenge settings. This location is one of the most fundamentally useful and helpful areas, as a form of practise as well as currency and experience if you don’t have enough to upgrade anything.

***

Enemies

While there is a wide plethora of different enemies, they can be summarised as the Caelondia Taskforce, The Wilds, and the Ura. While it would be a waste of time to examine every single kind of opponent you face, the number of different types of entity is worth looking at.

Caelondia Taskforce
Consisting of four main types of creature, the Caelondia Taskforce is encountered purely in the early stages of the game and in the first Who Knows Where level. The four main opponents are turrets, stationary constructs shooting energy bolts or actual fire at you; Squirts, small wisps of gel with a simple dash attack and are usually easy to beat. Gasfellas, the footsoldier of the taskforce, floating and carrying a weapon, using various crushing, spinning or charging attacks depending on colour; and Scumbags, orbs full of gel that get smaller as they take damage, using charging or throwing attacks. Other than turrets, all of the Caelondia Taskforce formed part of the working groups of the city, Gasfellas working in quarries and Scumbags being used for waste disposal. Squirts, Gasfellas and Scumbags are all part of the Windbag family, a species in Caelondia with each type representing a different stage of their lifecycle in the order written. The miniboss character of Caelondia is the mechanical Pyth bull, an idol devoted to one of the many gods in the game available for worship, and difficult to beat the first time round without a decent ranged weapon. However, it does suit as a miniboss, with the most frustrating enemy being the charger Gasfella, having an obnoxiously-low charge time giving you no time to prepare and still having a high damage output, made difficult if there’s anything else nearby.

The Wilds
In contrast the Wilds are primarily static creatures, and those that move around are either extremely fragile or incredibly tough. The most prominent creature is the pincushion in its various forms, every variation throwing some number of spines at you. Fortunately they all come with a method of avoiding or blocking it, and have limited range meaning they’re one of the more balanced foes. The come hand in hand with Wallflowers, a more powerful static creature that attacks much in the same way, but with longer periods between attacks or different methods entirely, sacrificing quantity for an armoured shell when hit, needing investment in an anti-armour weapon or simply repeated hits each time their shell comes down. As these are the most numerous foes in The Wilds, all of the other opponents serve in some way to debilitate you or harass you, giving you something to focus on other than them. Stinkeyes are individually weak but cause blurring when they explode, Lunkheads have an armoured front necessitating dodging over blocking, and Bootlickers trap you in place, while Stinkweed acts like a renewable Stinkeye. The bosses of The Wilds are the Lungblossom, a static creature that throws spikes and the Anklegator, a creature that moves below the ground and can only be attacked when attacking. While I enjoyed the Anklegator, getting faster the more you fought it, the Lungblossom was underwhelming, relying almost entirely on summoned creatures to be of any real use as its own attack can be easily dodged by running.

The Ura
Unlike the creatures of The Wilds and Caelondia, the Ura is perhaps the only race in the game completely aware of what they are doing, other than just trying to survive. With Zulf’s knowledge of the Calamity in their hands they see the Kid as their definitive enemy, throwing everything they can at him to take him down. While they wield a variety of weapons, specifically halberds, rifles, crossbows and swords, all of which can be parried, their most potent ability is a form of blink teleport, which serves as their main form of movement and as a reactionary measure to taking too much damage from a single attack. They’re backed by Rattle-Tails, bird creatures that throw rocks at you and can make the area hazardous. As a late-game enemy the Ura are well-suited, but they unfortunately steal away a lot of the difficulty curve, becoming exponentially harder to the point of near-impossibility when using the Pantheon. While I don’t have a complaint about any one of these Ura warriors in particular, the rather disappointing lack of variety was a little boring, as you could count the types of warrior on one hand, whereas Caelondia and the Wilds both had a dozen or more each.

The Story

As has been mentioned, this story couldn’t start from the beginning, could it? Well, you know most of it now – it’s been revealed in the histories of each of the characters and the places involved, but there are still details needed. In terms of actual assessment there is little I can say – the story is straightforward with a few twists and turns that are pulled off effectively, and I didn’t feel led or misled, as the case may be. At every point information was always presented to see if I would pick up on it, rather than outright denying something or trying to tell me something very specific. Despite everything being very definitive, it handled it properly and honestly I can’t fault it, even if it does require you to do a lot of fetching.

The story begins on the Rippling Walls, the Kid waking up to the Calamity having occurred a short time ago. He knows where to go – in case of trouble, go to the Bastion. Along the way he discovers just how bad the city is looking, and begins to see the casualties, acquiring the first handful of gear along the way. He makes it to the Bastion and encounters Rucks – dubbed ‘The Stranger’ for now – who speaks to him of recovering the other cores, the crystals, to bring the Bastion alive…and how the two of them appear to be the only ones to have made it.

So, the quest begins, heading out into various parts of the ruined Caelondia, learning what the Calamity has done to the people there, how it’s annihilated them and left only the Squirts, a race of worker creatures that inhabited the city alongside the Cael, performing the various tasks that required something other than flesh and blood. Along the way he first finds Zulf and brings him back, being introduced to him and Rucks for the first time, though the Kid’s name is never revealed. Soon after Zia is returned to the Bastion, and as the Kid embarks on the journey for the final core, Zulf learns of what happened involving the Calamity and how it was meant for his people, damaging the Bastion monument and fleeting to the terminals. The Kid follows in his wake through the wilds outside the city, accruing various shards of crystal with which to restore the Bastion and complete it without the destroyed core.

This is where it goes downhill…midway through his journey he comes across an Ura warrior, a messenger from Zulf. Mistaking it for the man himself the Kid takes a haymaker to the face, knocked unconscious and left with a letter to bring home with him for Zia when he returns. The note asks her to head East and to find out the truth about her people, Zulf’s attempt to get her to leave before the Bastion falls under siege. It works…partly. As the Ura warriors appear and lay waste she leaves with them when they retreat, walking away of her own volition and leaving the lyre behind, perhaps in the hope that the Kid will come looking for her. As it happens, he does, and once again she returns to the Bastion of her own free will, only having wanted to see what had happened to her people. From there, it’s into the Tazal Terminals.

The Kid journeys for a week to reach the terminals and batters his way through the ranks of Ura warriors, fighting his way through to Zulf and the final shard the way he’s become used to – no quarter, and take down anyone who gets in his way, including destroying the various items keeping the Ura territories intact. Thing is, it isn’t Zulf who greets him, instead a host of his kin and one of their leaders fighting to defend the shard. As the casualties mount and the Kid’s vindication becomes clear, the Ura no longer belief trusting Zulf was a good idea and turn on him, and shortly after retrieving the shard find his body having been mauled by their warriors. This is where the story begins to change…

You’re given the choice. You’ve got your blades or you’ve got him, but you can’t take both – it’s up to you whether or not you want to pick the barely-alive body of Zulf up and bring him back with you to the Bastion. If you choose to let him die, that is that – he expires as you fight you way through the remaining Ura host, but if you pick him up you must stagger through their lines, feeling the bite of their weapons without being able to fight back. But no, they don’t kill the Kid. They know what it’s like to commit everything to a cause and before the final blow can be struck they stop, pull back, letting the Kid leave with Zulf as a sign of respect. The single archer that does fire is cut down for disobeying orders, and it comes to the final choice…flee or rewind?

Down beneath the Bastion is its core, one rebuilt and recharged by the shards and crystals returned by the Kid, and there waiting are Zia and Rucks, the story done and with you finally in the Kid’s shoes, in uncharted territory.  They’re allowing the Kid to do the honours – to make the choice to return the world to the way it was before, or to take flight and see where the wind blows. It’s clear who wants what – Rucks built the Bastion to restore the world, but ultimate will defer to your judgment. Zia, on the other hand, has a different tale. She wants this life – she wants to know Rucks and the Kid, not be turned back to a time before that happened; all of the memories she wants to have were ones that came after the Calamity. And so the choice is made – turn back the clock, giving everyone their lives back, Zulf included, reunited with his loved one, or cast off and roll the dice against fate, with the Ura man still stricken by his loss though still joining them on their voyage.

That’s the story, and it was great for me. Frankly, most of this game’s flaws were gameplay ones, and only a couple of complaints or issues.

Gameplay

The actual mechanics of the game are once again very simple, and this almost deceived me into thinking it was some cheap mobile game. Using an isometric movement system with an endearing art style, the PC version of this game defaults to WASD as the movement keys, Shift as your guard, left and right click for primary and secondary weapons, and Q for the equipped special ability. This was a very solid system, and along with a trip back to Bastion after each level, you were always given the opportunity to upgrade or modify your loadout. I should probably break it down more, or it will be too difficult to keep track of.

Combat
Thanks to the simple and robust controls, combat was always easy to actually play, even if the opponents weren’t always the easiest to beat. You can tell a great deal of effort went into making the system functional at every level. The system uses a combination of mouse and keyboard, with the mouse and reticule being decided which direction your attacks would go in when shooting or while stationary, while movement direction dictated attack direction when mobile and using a melee weapon. The lock-on function shared a key with the guard function, meaning you could pick a target and block their attack before retaliating, at which point it would switch to the other weapon for the duration of the attack, lowering your defence. In addition, the mouse click took priority for the duration of the action if you continued to hold Shift, meaning you would go right back into defence once the motion was concluded, maintaining a decent guard. It wasn’t always successful for me though – the game’s camera and art style meant that I couldn’t always see the angle in which the shield was blocking, leading to me taking damage when I thought I was blocking it. It was only on the shield edge mind, so perhaps that was merely my spatial awareness being a bit poor. Ih addition you’re given five health potions and five black potions, the former for what it says and the latter to use skills, both renewable through exploration or killing opponents.


Money
Money, or fragments as the game calls them, are a currency obtained by breaking things, area exploration, killing peeps or completing challenges such as the proving grounds or the Who Knows Where arenas or various in-level tasks for the Memorial, for larger sums.  Like most games it’s just a number you spend on things, used first and foremost in the upgrading process alongside materials required, it can also be used to buy various other game items in the Lost and Found booth, unlocking various gods in the Pantheon, buying resources for upgrades, straight-up abilities, or Spirits used to boost power. They’re described as shards of the old world used to repair things, another piece of lore that keeps the entire game in-canon.

The Forge
The place where you upgrade the aforementioned items, the forge is used to upgrade any piece of gear to a maximum of level 3, and later on level 5. Each level only requires an item corresponding to the weapon – Something Dense for the Cael Hammer for example – and the requisite amounts of money, and you are allowed to pick from one of two upgrades. You are really just buying the level though, as at any point you’re at the hub you can access that weapon’s upgrades and change them around, letting you customise what you want in a weapon at any stage.
Cael Hammer - The first weapon you get access to and picked up during the first level, the Cael Hammer is the catch-all close-combat weapon for the game. With a small area of effect attack as its main strike, it’s got decent reach, decent damage, and can be upgraded with damage boosters and armour-breakers. However, it does notably suffer from poor hit detection, making attacks against targets too close to the Kid prone to missing, especially against bits of the terrain.
Fang Repeater - Your first ranged weapon, the Fang Repeater is unremarkable, being something like a machine gun that fires bones. Initially it’s got poor damage and a small magazine, but can be quickly upgraded with far larger clips sizes and rounds that home in on targets, making it a useful weapon if you’re trying to manage lots of targets at once, such as a large spawn of Squirts.
Bullguard Shield - Technically not a weapon, the Bullguard shield is your only real method of actually blocking attacks and while it cannot be directly upgraded, it can block any frontal strike or even counter to cause damage to opponents.
Breaker’s Bow - Literally what it says, the Breaker’s Bow is for the most part, one of the best weapons of the game, having a respectable damage level which can be upgraded, along with being able to punch through multiple targets with the disadvantage of having a charge time, slowing you down as it does so.
War Machete - A new melee weapon designed to deal lots of low-damage hits at close range while giving you RSI, it’s a pretty bad weapon until you factor in it as a thrown weapon to take out long-distance targets, as well as being able to upgrade itself with damage-over-time and armour negation.
Scrap Musket - A shotgun, more or less. Knockback and a wide angle of damage, it replaces the Fang Repeater on Crowd Control very quickly due to being upgradeable with higher damage and extreme knockback, at the expense of some hefty recoil to set you back a pace or too. Watch the edge.
Duelling Pistols - A pair of pistols that frankly have very little use. They adopt the War Machete mentality with their speed being determined by the clicks, but have as much power as the Fang Repeater without being able to get homing bullets or the massive final magazine. Not a very good weapon, and more a completionist thing than anything else.
Brusher’s Pike - My weapon of choice, you get the Brusher’s Pike midway through The Wilds, and is a weapon with a long reach and mid-to-high damage, with the potential for armour-piercing on top of that. It suffers from a limited field of attack, only ever striking in a straight line without abilities, but can pierce through multiple targets if you’re close enough and has good hit detection.
Army Carbine - My second weapon of choice, it is essentially a Brusher’s pike at long range. While it can’t pierce through multiple targets and comes with some kickback, it has an instant hit factor that means moving targets are easier to hit, and can turn semi-automatic if you upgrade the aiming speed enough, along with getting armour penetration of its own.
Flame Bellows - An attempt at a flamethrower that once again I didn’t like. When obtained it temporarily replaces the melee weapon in the level, giving you no melee capacity for a short while, doing annoyingly-little damage and running out of fuel very quickly. Its upgrades are either negligible or immobilise you for more damage, making the Flame Bellows once again a completionist’s trophy.
Galleon Mortar - More or less what it says on the tin, an area-of-effect weapon that throws explosives at things. By the point I acquired this weapon I will admit I was a little too sold on the Army Carbine to want it, it was effective in its application at dealing with groups when necessary, alongside a damage field and radius upgrade to make it great at crowd control.
Calamity Cannon - Meant to be the game-winner but ousted by the final weapon, the Calamity Cannon is acquired late-game as a rocket launcher with the possibility to upgrade to homing shots. Unfortunately its high damage rate comes with a lack of armour breaking, and if it explodes too close to you it has a penchant for throwing you off cliffs. Not a bad weapon if you can get the drop, but otherwise rather volatine.
Battering Ram - Now…I really didn’t like this. A weapon you acquire temporarily for the final level of the game, the Battering Ram’s attacks replace your primary and secondary attacks, your block and your ability, at which point I felt disappointed that I couldn’t use the gear I was comfortable with up to this point. Furthermore you can’t retain it because it’s too powerful, and it cannot be upgraded. Powerful, but unfair to the player and the rest of the game.

Distillery
The sole reason for experience, the Distillery allows you to equip spirits, various alcohols that provide boosts to the player’s power, with one spirit per level, some being unlocked automatically, others from Lost and Found and some from upgrading the Distillery. They all invariably provide an advantage, but commonly come with a condition for its activation.
Dreadrum - Provides a 10% boost to Critical Hit chances, but only during full health. Theoretically useful, but annoying in reality as it only works if your health is entirely on 100%, and even the slightest scratch will stop it functioning.
Fetching Fizz - Most useful on your first playthrough, Fetching Fizz absorbs nearby Fragments, making searching a little less frustrating, with no activation conditions.
Werewhisky - Consistently useful even at higher difficulties, Werewhisky increases you Critical Hit chance to 100% whenever your health drops below 33%, giving you a chance in a pinch.
Falling Malt - For a person who runs off edges a lot, Falling Malt reduces the damage you take from falling, but unfortunately increases it if you land on an enemy when you return to the map.
Lunkhead Liqueur - Decent if you can consistently get the block right and very useful when using the Pantheon, it does 100% counter damage from shield blocks. I could never time it well enough to be useful though.
Mender Mead - Another shield booster, it instead gives you health for counter-blocking, which is one of many that provides you with a much-needed advantage at higher levels.
Cinderbrick Stout - Literally a speed boost while moving with the shield, it does what it says on the label. I didn’t use it.
Whale Ale - Another spirit I never equipped, it provided a damage booster to abilities, but I never used them enough to mind.
Graver Gimlet - One of the ones I equipped when I had some space, it gives you a chance to do triple damage for three seconds after killing a foe, once again useful at higher levels…with luck.
Leechade - In practise useful as it gives health for damaging enemies at the cost of reducing health potion potency, you could cancel out the negative effect with another potion but only on the Xbox 360.
Doomshine - A boost to critical hit chance at a health penalty – simple as that.
Cham-Pain - A damage boost with the penalty of losing a life in compensation, I never thought it was worth it due to how little boost is.
Squirt Cider - An early-game unlock ,it gives you a health boost with no negative effects, cancelling out with Doomshine for a critical hit bonus with no penalty.
Hearty Punch - Another pure-positive spirit, gave an extra life and attacked enemies if you were ever defeated, it was useful until I realised I wasn’t dying enough for it.
Bastion Bourbon - Meant to cancel out the negative effects of Leechade, this one gave you a boost to your health tonic capacity as well as meaning they restored full health, with no negative effects.
Black Rye - A boost to Black Tonic capacity and nothing else, again very useful.
Bull Brandy - Another one of the good few with positive without negative, it confers a damage resistance without negative modifies.
Stabsinthe - Hilariously-named, it works well with Leechade as it retaliates when you’re damaged, meaning you can gain health by being attacked.
Lifewine - More a Second Chance than anything else, it lets you survive one critical attack that would kill you, and thus very useful against tougher foes.
Hop-Scotch - Allows you to jump…for the final level. Yeah, disappointing and annoying, since it enables a platforming level.

The Pantheon
A collection of gods, the Pantheon allows you to select from 1-10 gods to worship, incurring a disadvantage but granting an experience and Fragment boost. They also have several Steam achievements and serve as the game’s difficulty scaler, making things progressively harder the more you enabled.
Acobi - Enemies drop a 1 second grenade when killed.
Garmuth - Enemies can randomly deflect attacks.
Hense - Enemies cause more damage.
Lemaign - Enemies slow you down when they hit you.
Micia - Enemies regenerate health. Real sod this one.
Olak - Enemies sometimes can’t be hit.
Jevel - Enemies can take more punishment.
Pyth - Enemies are so much damn faster. This can be so cruel if taken against the Ura.
Roathus - Enemies never drop health or tonics, making every level that much harder.
Yudrig - Enemies do damage on contact. I almost always had this one, as it was very easy with the Pike enabled and provided a subtle boost.


Easter Eggs

I will discuss this only briefly as I found only one, since this is almost seven-thousand words by now. So this was something I found while playing the New Game Plus mode, when you gain a new ability – Gel Cannister, allowing you to spawn turrets from the Portal game, with unique dialogue and no upper limit to the number available. I subsequently found having enough gives you the Turret Opera achievement, when I turned the first Who Knows Where arena into a killing ground.
Almost 7000 words in one day...never again, ever. Seriously, but here's my review of most of the little game Bastion.
© 2014 - 2024 battlebrothertherix
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