Bastion

peak art direction

This was the definitive indie game for a while.

i feel like the rating here is kinda low. Not only did this have a huge impact, its a genuinely fun game with a cool setting, good story, and tons of character.

It hasn't aged well. The narrative voice over is grating after awhile and it doesn't help all the names of enemies are cringe. Story is weird and incomprehensible but not in the dark souls 'good' sort of way. Gameplay loop isn't very satisfying: weapons later in the game are worse than early weapons. It isn't hard enough without stacking idols. Level design is atrocious and boils down to narrow pathways where falling off is punished. Repetitive enemies. You can just block everything. Played it for the first time this past week and without the nostalgia lens, the game just sucks.

Similar feelings here, played for the first time ever now and already after half an hour seems very repetitive and boring. The narrator seemed like a cool idea at first but he has nothing interesting to say, just shallow 'tough guy' kinda comments, more irritating than entertaining. The art style is the only thing I like about the game.

Noone has ever done a "not hit run" of this game. For example how you see the Souls series in one sitting with no damage etc, and that's become sort of a trend. You can find such playthroughs on YT of Hades, more or less this game's spiritual successor, but as of now nobody has ever uploaded Bastion No Damage

Enjoyed this but the experience was probably marred because I had already played Transistor and kept comparing it to that (Transistor is better though)