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Episode 7: Bastion
13 Plays1 month ago
Quick! Come listen to our episode! The world is ending and the only safe place is this Bastion!
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Transcript
Introduction and Apology
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. We recorded this episode two years ago and are just now getting around to releasing it. Sorry for the wait. We hope you enjoy the episode. Hello, this is definitely not Generator.
00:00:12
Speaker
This is going to be so hard, dude.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello. This is definitely not generated by an AI. This is the dot, dot, dot smells burnt podcast. Here today with me is the illustrious Chris, and I'm Oliver. Hey.
00:00:39
Speaker
That's it. That's the intro. That's all. That's all of it.
Recording Together for the First Time
00:00:42
Speaker
So if you recall last time, we said that we had a special surprise. Yeah. Hello. We're in person. We're in person this time. how exciting. I am looking at Chris in real life. In real life.
00:00:52
Speaker
Sitting across the room from him. Not through the interwebs. Wow. There's no lag. So. And of course, now that we're sitting across the room from each other, we don't know what to talk about. Yeah, this is awkward.
00:01:03
Speaker
Actually, so tomorrow is Chris's birthday. Whoa. Yeah.
00:01:10
Speaker
I mean, if we can cut that out if you want. That's like personal information or something. But yeah, that's why I'm in town. Yeah. For various reasons, but one of which is to celebrate Chris's It's birthday tomorrow. I'm turning older than one, but younger than 100.
00:01:26
Speaker
yeah So I'm in town. um I've got my mic. It's actually pretty portable.
Chris's Birthday and Gaming Gift
00:01:32
Speaker
ah Yeah. For a birthday gift, I got Chris a copy of Pokemon Black. True.
00:01:37
Speaker
So we started side-by-side run. So we played Pokemon. So the last episode was about Pokemon, and we played Pokemon for like decades. But I don't feel like I ever actually played it alongside anybody.
00:01:50
Speaker
for whatever reason it was always a solo experience i mean pokemon supposed to be about you're training with your friends you're battling with your friends it's an adventure you take with your friends but for whatever reason i don't think i ever did that and so that's why i thought it'd be kind of fun to like play alongside chris so we could like after every gym or whatever we could do a battle or whatever now here's a question do you do doubles or singles Oh, doubles, definitely.
00:02:15
Speaker
devil Devils? Devils. I wish that there were more doubles double battles in Pokemon. Like, storyline. Have there been more in the more recent games? No, like all single battles.
00:02:28
Speaker
That's strange. I'll be interested to see what you think of ah triple battles and rotation battles. Yeah, that's going to be an experience that I've never had before. And that you'll never have again. They're like, maybe not this.
00:02:41
Speaker
and I don't know if it worked out super well. um But yeah, it's been a month since we've recorded this podcast. And so we'll have to remember, what's the name of the podcast? i don't remember. Dot, dot, dot smells burnt.
00:02:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's right. The AI read it for us.
00:02:56
Speaker
I don't know. This feels a little bit more awkward because I'm in person and I'm like... It just takes a second to... That's true. We have to warm up. I have an icebreaker question. And you may know where this is going, but what is a game?
00:03:08
Speaker
Or series or... a game.
Game Society Loves but Chris Dislikes
00:03:10
Speaker
What is a game? What is a game? miserable pile of secrets. No, what is a game that like society or the people around you like that you absolutely cannot stand? on Society.
00:03:22
Speaker
like Or like your friends, right? Like I would like say you've harbored this inner hatred towards Chrono Trigger and I always talk about it and you hate it, which is not, which is not true. But like something like that.
00:03:34
Speaker
The thing is, is that I don't have super strong opinions. So I have to think about that. for For example, like I don't have any strong opinions against The Last of Us. I know it's a very popular game for a lot of people. I'm not going to say that it's like I hate it, but I don't really have much desire to play it.
00:03:51
Speaker
But like to actually think of a game that I detest, I'll need a second. So let me think about it. Do you have one? Yeah, but I'm going to go after you. I want to hear what you have to say. All right, we can cut out the silence.
00:04:02
Speaker
This portion of the podcast is brought to you by Wow. Wow.
00:04:09
Speaker
um that i hate or like didn't enjoy like you like actively don't want to play it board games in general i'm not a big board holliver is not a big board game except for the goose game yeah and that's where we'll leave that it's not untitled goose game it's a different goose it's a board game it's a board game yeah um dang it's hard i can't think of one That's okay.
00:04:34
Speaker
I kind of sprung this on you. I thought about messaging you, but then I knew you would know what I was going to say after thinking about it for five seconds. Oh, mean, we've talked about it recently, right? Is it that one? I mentioned it, but I didn't tell you why. Okay, yeah, let's go for it.
00:04:47
Speaker
All right, so think back to a time. Transport yourself back to... now Early 2000s. I'm at a friend's house, like family friends. I don't know how we knew them.
00:04:58
Speaker
This is not anyone that you know.
Negative Gaming Experiences
00:05:00
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I'm like, where is this going? We borrowed secret of Evermore from them. That's it. ah We were over at their house, and they were like, oh my gosh, we should play Heroes of Might and Magic 3.
00:05:10
Speaker
And I'm like, sure, that sounds like fun. Let's play it. And what I got sucked into was a 45-minute session of like seven people playing a game. Wait.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I got to take two turns. Were you playing seven-player hot seat? Yes. Are you hecking serious? And I was like, this is one of the worst experiences of my entire life.
00:05:32
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. And I took two turns. And these turns are like what? That's like playing... 30 seconds at the beginning the game? It's like playing seven player Catan, but worse. Yeah. Like, it was it was just an absolute... Maybe maybe we got five turns in.
00:05:46
Speaker
Nobody gave me any direction on what I was supposed to do. And I was just like i don't like, I don't... And then it was like, okay, we have to go. And I was like, okay, bye. I was like, they're like, we'll play next time.
00:05:57
Speaker
We didn't. And then they moved and we never saw them again. And I was like, that game was... Was this in Texas? Yeah, this was in Texas. This was like right when we moved to Texas. That's incredible. Like maybe like 2000. So then what had happened when you came over to like Robert's house? Okay, so then fast forward like five years, ten years.
00:06:13
Speaker
not Not ten years. No, Five to seven years. three Three to five years. I'm over at Oliver's house and people are like... you know what we should play? Heroes of Man Magic 3. yeah And I'm like, I do not have good memories of the one time I played this.
00:06:25
Speaker
They're like, you'll love it. You'll love i was like, okay, we'll play it. This time it was like five people. Hot seat. We got maybe six turns in in like an hour. And I was like, this is literally the worst game I've ever played.
00:06:36
Speaker
And like everyone else was like, yeah, Heroes of Man Magic. And I'm like... I'm so bored. I'm just sitting here watching these people play a game I don't know how to play. All alright right, quick quick
Nostalgic Game Memories
00:06:47
Speaker
explainer. I would kind of describe Heroes of Might and Magic 3. It's the third game in the series. It's like a 4X game, I guess you might call it if you're tall calling it a board game.
00:06:56
Speaker
You have an army and a castle, and you have like heroes that go out and like venture into the countryside. you have to get resources. It's kind of similar to like Age of Empires, but it's not real time. It's turn-based. Yeah.
00:07:07
Speaker
It's just one of those things, dude. I loved it as a kid. Think of the first time that you play an RTS and you're like, I have no idea how to build anything. Oh, that was me because I didn't grow up with RTS. Right, right. And then there are six other people waiting to take their turn behind you. Oh, yeah. So you have no time to read anything because they all know what they're doing.
00:07:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And it's just like the worst experience of your entire life. Of course not. I mean, I played it with Sam. I played it with Robert. And was just like one or two or three people. And that was fine for hot seat. But like seven people on one computer?
00:07:37
Speaker
I can see how it would be fun. But I've already had too many bad experiences. And I will never play it again. Fair enough. Fair enough. So this came up randomly in the Discord chat, and I felt like i had to explain myself because I think that was the first time that I told Oliver.
00:07:54
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair. That I didn't like that game. So I don't have a ah one that a game that I hate, but just reminding me of like Hot Seat. We did play this game called GL Tron.
00:08:07
Speaker
GL Tron. So there's, if I don't know if you're familiar with the movie Tron, but there was a sequence of light cycles where you're kind of like Snake, but you have a little a motorcycle that leaves a light trail behind you and light trail never goes away. And if you're running into it, you die.
00:08:20
Speaker
So you're trying to force other people to crash into your light trails. And it was originally ah game that made around the time the movie, back in the 80s, but then they made a 3D version of it around the 2000s called GL-Tron.
00:08:31
Speaker
ah Robert had a good enough computer that we could run four players simultaneously. So it was like the four of us on one keyboard. just like... We just like portioned like WASD, WASD, IJKL, someone's on the numpad. The arrow keys on the numpad. I think we played until like like two in the morning one time. Could we have found a second keyboard and plugged it in? Probably. sure Did we think about it? No.
00:08:56
Speaker
So fun. We just played over and over and over again. And there's not even that many settings you can tweak. There's like boost or no boost. so Do we play it like in first person mode? Yeah. That's what made it intense, I think.
00:09:07
Speaker
and you're just like, whoa! And it's super fast too, so it's like really twitchy to try to like weave into like corridors and stuff. This is going to be weird. But you learned Gridworld, right?
00:09:19
Speaker
In high school computer science. Gridworld with the ladybugs that poop out flowers. so Yeah. For AP exam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been long time. in Comp Sci 2, we had to make a game using Gridworld.
00:09:30
Speaker
And we made Tron. Me and Joy. I remember Joy. Yeah. trying to think of another game that I hate. I don't feel like I hate a lot of games. I just don't play them or don't like them. Yeah.
00:09:43
Speaker
I mean, like, you guys basically had to convince me to play in Hot Seat. Sure, sure. Okay, I guess. Sure. It'll be fine. It was not fine. But i think also part of it is that when I was a kid, I was very opinionated.
00:09:56
Speaker
and like, if I didn't want to play something, I didn't. And I just didn't. True. And so I don't know if I was really. or you didn't do something like. Yeah. Watch a movie. Yeah. I just didn't. I just would leave or whatever. do you know what I'm referring to? Yeah.
00:10:08
Speaker
We don't have to talk about that. So like, I mean, I'm fine with Halo now, but I didn't want to play Halo as a kid. So I never did. I know I don't. I didn't hate it, but I wasm just like, nah.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. And I just left. Yeah. Anyway, so what are we doing here? Well, you're at my house. Hi. I don't know why you're here. um don't know either. Bye. Just
Discussion on Bastion Game
00:10:28
Speaker
kidding. No! You'll ruin the audio!
00:10:33
Speaker
Well, we're here to talk about, as those faithful listeners know that listened to last week's episode, Bastion, which was released in 2011 by Supergiant Games.
00:10:45
Speaker
Like, usually I'm already looking at the screen looking at you. I don't have to swivel my chair. That's fair. Supergiant Games, for those of you who don't know, are the ones that make Hades, which is their most famous game, I would say, now.
00:10:56
Speaker
Probably. I mean, they have been around for a while, since 2011, and they've made a lot of popular games. Transistor. Transistor. Pyre. Pyre and Hades. I think that's it. But Hades was, like, their big breakthrough. Yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker
Like, Game of the Year. Yeah. Do I own it? Yes. Have I played it enough? Definitely I we're not going to talk about Hades right because that could come up on another episode of the podcast. but What do you mean you haven't played it? I have played it, but not enough.
00:11:18
Speaker
What do you mean by I've only done like three runs. Oh, okay. That's not a lot. not It's not enough. Yeah. My brother gave it to me for Christmas. Sorry, brother. He listens.
00:11:30
Speaker
All right. Do you want to guess what platforms it's on since it's right there the screen? Yeah. Well, I can see the screen. Just tell it me because it that's fascinating how many... Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox 360, Xbox One, iOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita.
00:11:45
Speaker
iOS? It was also released for Android and Switch. I must have not have copied the entire list. But they they basically just like keep releasing it because people buy it, I guess. Yeah, it's a good game. What were your initial impressions of Bastion? so Tell me your story because you already owned Bastion.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, back in college, there was a humble indie bundle that had bundled with it, Bastion. But at the time, I had a bad computer. Well, not a bad computer. I had a Mac, and that's kind of the the root cause of a lot of my problems. He games on a Mac?
00:12:19
Speaker
Whatever, whatever. But so yeah, at the time, I didn't even have a mouse, and so i was trying to play it with keyboard and trackpad, which was atrocious. Never do that. would be so terrible. So I never really played it and I didn't play it for a very long time. I did listen to the soundtrack, which we'll talk about in a sec.
00:12:35
Speaker
So I've been told from my brother and lots of other people, oh, it's amazing. It's so good. You should definitely play it. And I just never got around to it. I followed their studio. I thought Transistor was pretty cool. And then, of course, when Hades came out, that was a banger.
00:12:48
Speaker
yeah um But I hadn't really fired it up since it came up on the randomizer. And I was like, yeah, let's do it. I'm excited to play through it. And now I had too new of a computer, and I couldn't get it to recognize my gamepad. Nice.
00:13:05
Speaker
And maybe it would have been better if i had PC or tried to play on PC, but I eventually just tried to play it. I had a mouse at that point, and I could do keyboard mouse, and it was doable. Passable?
00:13:16
Speaker
Passable, yeah. It's not playing Dark Souls with keyboard mouse. Yes. Yes. It was interesting because, like, so you'd have, like, a... No, it wasn't WASD. They have this method of like you click and then move the mouse as kind of like an analog control, so you can kind of move in a certain way. Okay.
00:13:32
Speaker
And it allows you to kind of flick around to move. it was It was a novel control scheme, but it was a little awkward. Yeah. Yeah. isn so Okay, so you're moving with the mouse, so you can't just like target with the mouse.
00:13:45
Speaker
The targeting still is like... You kind of do. Yeah. Maybe we we can pull it. I can show you later. Okay. Pull it up. But yeah. Because they have a wasz a typical Waz control scheme, but then you have a move with the mouse control scheme, and that's what I used.
00:14:00
Speaker
but original But initial impressions, beautiful art, really nice looking. Soundtrack already knew about. It was banger. Cool game. Yeah. I won't go into it too much deeper, but you go for it.
00:14:11
Speaker
Well, I looked up. I own it on GOG. G-O-G. However people say I've never heard it said out loud. Yeah, good old games. I've never heard anyone say it out loud like that. But, you know, SNES, whatever.
00:14:22
Speaker
SNES. SNES. ah That's a deep cut from seven episodes ago. Was that the first episode that I said that? I think so, yeah. I bought it March 23rd, 2016. I had the order history. I was like, oh, that's when I bought it.
00:14:36
Speaker
And I remember playing it, but like maybe one area. Like I remember getting the first few weapons and that's it. um So much like Ollie just said, I hadn't played it since back then. I was like, I think I own it.
00:14:51
Speaker
I couldn't remember if it was Humble or GOG or yeah you know Prime Gaming or whatever. you know So I found it and played it. That's another thing. So really quick.
00:15:02
Speaker
So I got the game on humble indie bundle and it was a DRM free version of the game. However, it was 32 bit and yeah Apple some time ago basically made it so you can't play any 32 bit games.
00:15:16
Speaker
And so I couldn't play my humble version. I had to redeem a steam key and download the steam Mac version to be able to run it on my new computer. and then But the controller wasn't working. But controller wasn't working.
00:15:26
Speaker
Maybe you just you know what um you just had to set up Steam controller support. I tried. okay Granted, i'm not like I don't use Steam a lot. I usually like do console. so yeah it could be That's okay. that's okay so then well Those are our initial impressions.
00:15:41
Speaker
Now we'll move on to gameplay. gameplay cause that i mean Something to note about the gameplay. The story is there happening, but your focus a moment to moment is like focused solely on gameplay.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, maybe we should talk about that really quick. So the big thing about Bastion and its claim to fame was the narrator. And I don't know if there was a lot of other games like that at the time, but like there's a narrator that's narrating either your actions or stuff that's happening in the story as you're playing the game. yeah And it's kind of interesting because Supergiant Games has a voice actor on staff, like on salary.
00:16:18
Speaker
always keep him on i think it's Cunningham is his last name. I can't remember his first name. But like he's really good. He's a really good voice actor, and they've used him in all his games.
00:16:29
Speaker
You can find him. Okay, yeah. um He actually plays like six or seven different characters in Hades. That's funny. But yeah, though like that was kind of his claim to fame. is And that's kind of why, as you're playing the game, it has a very specific feel because you have this narrator either commenting on what you're doing.
00:16:46
Speaker
Like if you go off on a beaten path, off the beaten path, he'll say something. yeah Or he's talking about the story as you go along. Yeah. Gameplay. Gameplay. That was a good segue.
00:16:56
Speaker
It's kind of a running gun? Not a running gun. It's just like an action RPG. You go and fight enemies. So basically like the gameplay loop is you have like a hub, the bastion.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yep. Right? You go to basically a level. You play through the level. It's fairly linear. Yep. There are like more open areas where you fight a lot of enemies, but usually you're walking down a pathway and there's the narrator talking about what you're doing or the story as you go.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yep. And then maybe you usually in the story missions get a new weapon and you fight the enemies on the way. And then at the end, you either get a core or a shard, depending on how far in the game you are.
00:17:31
Speaker
Yep. And then you go back to the bastion and you insert that item you got into the bastion so you can upgrade or add buildings to your bastion. Upgrade shops, like achievement and the rewards. And they have like relics, which make the game harder, but you gain more experience, yep which I did not do.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, me there. But yeah, so the weapons, like you have like a melee weapon and you have ranged weapon. There's a couple different kinds. For example, there's the bow where you kind of have to, it's a little bit of time. You have to hold down the button. And then when you flash, you want to let it go. And that does the most damage.
00:18:06
Speaker
You have a hammer that's like a kind of a long swing, but more damage. You have a machete that's like slashy. And then you have a special move, which is kind of attached to one of those two weapons, right? um So, you when when you enter a level, before you leave the Bastion to enter a level, you can only choose two weapons. Yep. You can go two melee or two ranged.
00:18:24
Speaker
Oh, okay. But you pretty much always want to go one melee, one ranged. Yeah. Because you need to be able to... There's a lot of enemies that are off path that can't reach. On islands that you can't reach, yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
So, ah then your special move is either related to one of your two weapons... Or it's like a general special use one. Like there's one where you throw a grenade. Oh, that's right. That's like not attached to any weapon. um The weapons that you can get, there's like a hammer, like a machine gun bow, a normal like bow, a machete, a musket, dual pistols, a spear, a sniper rifle, like fire bellows that spit out fire, a mortar, um like a bazooka, kind of like Secret of Evermore style.
00:19:06
Speaker
If you think of that. um And at the very end, you get a battering ram. Yep. Because. Yep. Which was weird. Yeah. I'm not quite sure why that came up. But the idea is it's kind of like, I think it's also kind of contemporary for that time period for games where you yeah you pick your loadout.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah. And then you pick what upgrades you want on those weapons. And then you have your favorite play style. Yep. Kind of thing. Which you saw my favorite pre style play style. Yep. So I had get gotten to the final level before Ollie came.
00:19:35
Speaker
And I was like, we'll just beat the final level together. And he saw that I like to use the machete and the bow. yep solid weapons now the you can go to the next level when you choose level or there's these things called proving grounds where it's basically like hey you can only use the weapon that you're trying to get better with in this place and if you beat it fast enough or there's like with the few amount fewest amount of shots or whatever um you get rewards and a special technique if you do it the best yep um i was able to complete proven grounds for everything except for the shield i only got tier one and two rewards i didn't want to go back and do it it's it's so long and tedious it like it's not necessarily hard it's just tedious it's tedious yeah and like you can only get hit three times sure because you're like so you also have a shield and you can like counter and it like deflects or hurts the other person it's like a counter hit
00:20:27
Speaker
You also have a dodge roll. You also have a dodge roll. But, like, you just have to wait for them to attack. And then there's, like, downtime in between waves of enemies. And I was just like, that's good enough. yeah I don't care. And then the other one I didn't do was the last weapon, the bazooka.
00:20:40
Speaker
I did it once, and I was like, I don't care to do this. I hate this weapon. um But I did all the other ones. Yeah. And I, the challenge that I offered Ollie, we'll just skip to challenge really quick. Sure. Was to beat the machete one yeah because I tried like seven times and couldn't even get anywhere close to the second prize, let alone the first prize.
00:21:01
Speaker
And then i eventually was like, you know what I'm gonna look up the strategy. Uh-huh. And I felt really stupid. Really? Because what happens is all those little squirt guys spawn in the middle. So you're just just to run up and just like mash the attack. I see. I went and killed the generators first. Oh, But by that time they had it all spread out and I could not kill them past them.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, I gotcha. So I should disclaimer quick. I didn't get super far in the game this time around. I was dealing with some stuff at work and whatever else. So I didn't have... I think I only got maybe Three or four main areas in and maybe like one or two Proving Garans.
00:21:38
Speaker
I didn't get to the machete, so I didn't get to complete the change the challenge this time. The bow one is cool, though. I did like the bow one. Yeah, the bow one is not time-based. It's shot-based. And if you can do...
00:21:48
Speaker
the right timing on drawing the bow and shooting it, it does a lot more damage. You can penetrate more enemies. And so the idea they're kind of lined up in such a way that you have to figure out what is the optimal to use the least number of shots. What's the order and that you shoot them and then trying to get in as few shots.
00:22:06
Speaker
And it was very satisfying to, to like finish that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one took me a few tries. Because, like, the timing on the shot. little bit of a puzzle as well as getting the timing right. I was going to say the Proving Grounds are a little more puzzly than action-y in some of them. But, like, in general, they're more like the puzzly kind. Like, oh, how am I supposed to do this the best versus, like, yeah let me just roll through all these. and yeah,
00:22:27
Speaker
The Bastion, as you upgrade it with cores and shards, you get six
Weapon Upgrade System in Bastion
00:22:31
Speaker
buildings. There's the arsenal where you choose your loadout. Yep. The Forge where you upgrade your weapons. The Lost and Found where you basically can buy upgrades slash drinks that we'll talk about in sec or relics that make the game harder.
00:22:45
Speaker
The Memorial, which gives you like points for her doing basically achievements in the game, like kill three enemies at the same time with a bow and arrow with a power chop or whatever, you know, stuff like that. yeah And then the distillery where you can basically give yourself a permanent buff in something.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah. Which I kind of just kept the ones that I used the entire game. Sure. And you get an extra slot every time you level up, which only level up Oh, yeah. So you can choose which buff you want to have in that slot.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing about the forge when you're upgrading your weapons is that they have, you can upgrade two different ways for every tier. So maybe a weapon has five tiers. And then once you unlock them, you can always swap between those upgrades. So it could be like, okay, either faster reload or faster shooting. Yeah.
00:23:29
Speaker
Or it'd be like slightly more damage or like slightly more shots. Or a higher crit chance or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So even when you're upgrading your weapon, you're adding buffs, but you can also choose which buffs you want to add to it.
00:23:41
Speaker
There was... Which I kind of like. For like having fixed weapons, there was more customization than I expected. Yeah. Because I could be like, oh my machete, I want it to deal damage over time and weaken the enemies.
00:23:52
Speaker
So I can like... Because it's really good at attacking really fast, so I'll deal more and more damage as I attack them. Yeah. And my bow, I want to be able to, like, drop fast so I can shoot a lot, you know? Yeah. Or maybe if you're not super good at getting the sweet spot, there might be one where it, like, makes the sweet spot slightly bigger. Like, bigger, yeah. Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
It's really interesting.
Bastion's Art Style
00:24:10
Speaker
I really liked the – the gameplay loop was pretty good. Like, sometimes with the games that we've played, I'm like, okay, yeah, like I'm done with this. but like, you know what? This game – like, I looked up the time to be fairly close to now, like, recently.
00:24:23
Speaker
And it was only, like, six, seven hours. And I was like, okay, I can finish. Yeah. before we record today yeah so i would say the gameplay for me was fun but i felt like it kind of showed its age a little bit yeah there wasn't a whole lot once you're like in the main story levels there wasn't a whole lot of variety yeah to its gameplay it's mostly just running around and smacking stuff and i would have liked a little bit more personally They do kind of the Dragon Quest where you have like a blue slime and then it's a green slime and then it's a yellow slime. Yeah. And they all look the same. They're just like palette changes. So there's a lot of enemies that are like, like squirts are like the easiest enemies in the game, but there's like harder squirts.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. And so there's not like super enemy variety either. Which also makes sense because it's an indie studio. yeah So they try to make would do with what they had. I think it's also partly because I played more of Hades, which is the same game, but just like, sorry, the same studio, but a decade removed. And so, of course, they've been able to polish. Refine. They brought a lot of similar mechanics to the new game, but refined and also new mechanics. yeah So it just made a little bit more fun.
00:25:28
Speaker
A couple times I was like, I kind of would rather play Hades. That's just me. Yeah, and I mean, playing this game, I was like, man, I need to get back to Hades. Because like, but should we just jump into the art really quick?
00:25:40
Speaker
Sure, let's do think, the as you said, the game looks, especially for 2011, I think the art direction and art style and is wonderful is great. Yeah, like super colorful. Let me see, I wrote something. Hold on, hold I wrote.
00:25:55
Speaker
Like it's very stylized. The characters are almost chibi like, like big heads. Yeah. You know, like small body. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Not like full chibi. Yeah. You know, the landscapes like look like they're painted, yeah but they're in blocks that like come up as you walk.
00:26:10
Speaker
That is kind of a cool thing. So like the world, from what we I understand, is like you're on these floating islands in the sky. And so as you're running along, the floor kind of comes up to meet you.
00:26:21
Speaker
yeah And so you you don't always know exactly where you're running, but it's very evocative, very cool. haven't ever really seen another game like it since. makes sense it's like the pathway is dynamic in that it comes up as you walk. Yeah. yeah And I think they really intentionally tried to make it look painted.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah. For all the art assets rather than really smooth. Yeah. Nice aesthetic. Did spell it wrong? Oh, it's aesthetic. Oh, whoops. Look, I was typing fast, okay?
00:26:48
Speaker
It has a nice aesthetic, I think. Yeah, and I think those like touches really go well. like Beginning of the story, there was a calamity. The world is dead. Yeah. Right? And these little remnants. You're bringing it back to life. Yeah. You're bringing back to life. These little remnants as you walk reattach themselves to the world and form a path for you. Yeah.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah. love it. Okay. Let's, I just want to ask you speed running. Sure. There are three categories. Okay. I'm going to ask you the one that you would probably know the best, which is all story levels.
00:27:18
Speaker
How long do you think it takes to be for a speed runner? The fastest. I don't think there's any major skips of any kind. So I'm probably going to guess 40 minutes. 42 minutes. Sick. That was awesome.
00:27:29
Speaker
Nice. Sick. Now, there are two other categories. I don't know what the any percent category entails. I didn't watch a video, but basically it's like walk up to the bastion and finish the game, question mark.
00:27:42
Speaker
um and It's like 12 minutes long. Maybe there's a bug trigger. Well, and then there's menu storage that takes four minutes is the fastest Like four minutes and like 10 seconds. Maybe we'll just watch afterwards. for Yeah. Because it looks sensibly music.
00:27:56
Speaker
You wanted to talk about the
Bastion's Soundtrack
00:27:57
Speaker
music. I love the music for Bastion. So it is really good. Yeah. So even though i didn't really have or play the, I didn't really play the game when I got it on humble bundle, it also came with the soundtrack and I've listened to it ever since. And it's,
00:28:11
Speaker
I think one of the, I don't really feel like I've heard any music like it except for maybe ah Age of Empires 2. It's, I actually found somebody that was describing it on like a band camp page as Frontier Trip Hop, which is, I think actually extremely accurate. was going to say, it's like, I don't know if was going say hip hop, but now that you say it's like hip hop with like a Western vibe. Well, Trip Hop.
00:28:34
Speaker
So it's like, has a lot of those same kind of like instruments, but it's a little bit lower down tempo vibe. Okay. I didn't know that that's what it was called. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, they've got fiddles and banjos. It's like twangy almost, but not in a bad way.
00:28:48
Speaker
But then with like break beats and like really punchy bass drums. Yeah. Like, It's honestly like they really drive up the distortion a little bit It's really crunchy. yeah But like when you start up the soundtrack, the very first track is just like the narrator saying some story.
00:29:04
Speaker
And then it goes into the second track, a proper story. And it's like such a banger. A lot of medieval instruments, but was still with that modern beat making and sensibility. Super cool. Yeah. um Apparently, I did some like research on this.
00:29:17
Speaker
I think the the composer was hired on to work on this game. they He had known the directors and like the people that were making the game for a while. He recorded it in his bedroom closet.
00:29:28
Speaker
Nice. And I think he recorded most, if not all, the instruments himself. Dude, that's sick. It's sick. It's such a good soundtrack. It's really good. Oh, man. And it's really evocative, too. Like, the music when you're, like, when things are breaking and it's got, like, the really, like, astringent strings where it's, like, did internet du did and yeah it's, like, really, like, harsh and stuff. Yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
Really, like, gets you going. Yeah. It's good. It's good soundtrack. It's good. and I don't know what else we can say about it. It's just good. Go listen to it. How about the sound effects? The sound effects?
00:30:00
Speaker
I thought they were just, they're fine. They sound good. Oh, and also maybe the narrator. Like the machete is the one that heard the most. Yeah. Oh yeah. And the narrator. yeah oh yeah and the narrator There's one thing you have to know, though. I can't do his voice. but He's like slightly Western, right? Yeah, super Western.
00:30:17
Speaker
There was a calamity. I can't do it. Super, super like idiosyncratic. Super like characteristic of the game. Yes. yeah yeah yeah Quintessential.
00:30:30
Speaker
Quintessential. So the story slash writing, there's only a handful of characters because everyone's dead. Yeah. There are big senses for like game two races of people. They're the Kalandians and the Ura.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah. Then the kid is Kalandian as is the old dude slash narrator because he's telling the story. Yeah. The kid is your player. Yeah.
Bastion's Story and Characters
00:30:50
Speaker
And then there's a girl named Zia and a guy named Zulf who are Uras that the narrator is actually telling the story to Zia, which I didn't realize until like over three quarters of the way through. i don't think it's revealed until then.
00:31:03
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. Unless it says at the beginning and i forgot. So he's like narrating it from the future. Like telling Zia what happened. Which is funny because as you're playing the game, he'll comment on what you're doing, which kind of reflects it's like, oh, yeah, he's like from the future and saying, oh, yeah, this is what he did. And then he did this. and Yeah. did that It's it almost has the like the um it's kind of almost like a frame story. I kind of like it.
00:31:25
Speaker
prince of persia vibe if you've ever played prince of persia if you like it die he's like narrating himself okay right and if you die he's like wait wait that's not what happened you're like okay i only ever played like the original for the like the old computer um i'm talking ps2 yeah yeah i never played that one that's funny yeah it's it was it was when he said that the first time like oh that's funny And then as far as the story goes, there's a calamity. The world's been destroyed.
00:31:51
Speaker
um It's like, you're supposed to build up the Bastion to be a safe haven for the people who were left. And as you go through collecting cords and shards, you learn about what happened and like, Twists happen and things happen and then you beat the game.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. Not to, not to spoil what happens, but as it's pretty good story, but yeah. Yeah. Fun memories or stories. If you've played before, well, we kind of talked about that, but the ending was ruined.
00:32:16
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So this is like literally an hour ago. oh Chris is upstairs trying to play the game. I'm like steam linked into my PC. Yeah. Playing it on the big screen TV so that Oliver can actually watch instead of sitting in this tiny office space. Yeah. um I beat the final level, make a choice, come back.
00:32:35
Speaker
And it's like, okay, put the shard in the monument, like the last shard that you get. And like literally we lift up the ending. There's another like three minutes left of the game. And suddenly the game just like wants to walk up.
00:32:45
Speaker
And no matter what I did, it couldn't walk. And then Oliver's like, it should have saved, right? I'm like, it normally saves when you go to the Bastion. So we turn it off, turn back on. And of course, it didn't save because it was the end of the game. so we just watched the ending. Yeah, there's something weird about how either the the controller lost connection or there was just some bug.
00:33:03
Speaker
Because when we restarted it, you got their control back. Yeah, but... It froze. Yeah, was something with the game application. Because like even plugging in my controller down here, I couldn't do anything. Yeah, bummer. So the ending was ruined. Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
But we watched it afterwards. All right. Let me see if I can pull up. I'm going to try to do a ah monologue here. Try to, let's see, what is it by? Logan Cunningham is the voice actor. I'm going to try to see if I can do an impression.
00:33:31
Speaker
Listen, this all takes a lot of getting used to. And you do get used to it after a while. There's three things I'll always miss, though. One, not having to watch my step all the time.
00:33:45
Speaker
Two, ah, forget about two. And three, I miss the songs. Folks from Kaledonia knew how to carry a tune. Sure, we've got some songs on the old gramophone, but trying to imagine what they sounded like, playing to a room full of fine people, unwanted, the sole regret, right after a hard day's work, those were the days.
00:34:07
Speaker
This is pretty good. Yeah, like this is deep, like, southern drama. Yeah, yeah, like the whole game. It's like that. It's so good. So funny. Listener letters. Listener letters. Do have a listener letter? I do not.
00:34:17
Speaker
I do. Oh. So I was probably three quarters way through the game and my wife was awake while I was playing and the narrator is talking the entire game and she says, the narrator sounds like the narrator of a western or a film where bunch of animated critters solve deforestation and overcome differences.
00:34:37
Speaker
Wait, away wait, wait. Super melodramatic narrator. But why is it so specific about critters and deforestation? I don't know. Incredible.
00:34:48
Speaker
I do hope like if you listen to the podcast, if you should love write in the letter later on and let us know what you think about the game. Cause again, it's a really like kind of like in that time period of the early 2010s when they're the indie boom was really going. Yeah.
00:35:02
Speaker
It's a really seminal indie game, really popular and kind of paved the way for super giant to make its later games.
Final Thoughts on Bastion
00:35:11
Speaker
So we'd love to hear what people think about it.
00:35:14
Speaker
That's all I have to say about bastion. Do you have anything? I think that's most of it. Like I kind of been disappointed that didn't really have the time to dive more into it, but it's like a really well-made game. I think if only the gameplay was a little bit more fleshed out, which I think that's mostly because of playing the game 2023 makes it hard, but otherwise like it's a stellar game.
00:35:38
Speaker
yes Well, we weren't rating it, but you kind of gave it away. Well, part of it. Sure. I mean, I haven't actually made my rating, but you can kind of sense what, where I'm going with it. What, uh, quick question before we finish.
00:35:50
Speaker
Sure. What other super giant games have you played? I've always wanted to play Transistor, never gotten around to it. um But it's mostly just this and Hades.
00:36:01
Speaker
okay The interesting thing about Transistor is that it has kind of similar isometric um perspective, kind of top-down action RPG gameplay. But apparently there's some amount of like, um it's slightly turn-based in that you program your actions before you do them, going with like the Transistor theme.
00:36:22
Speaker
Which sounds pretty cool. I just had never gotten around to it. I've had on my wish list for years. I own it. I started It was fun. Yeah. But I never got through beating it. It's like an issue of mine where I like startup games. I'm like, wow, this is really great. And then life happens and I just never get back to it.
00:36:39
Speaker
Well, life happens. i have well I mean, this was like college. What life is happening other than school, right? it's like Sorry to all our college age readers. Listeners, I mean. Let's just head into rating. Yeah, let's do it.
00:36:50
Speaker
I can go first. Okay. One thumb up. One thumb? Yep. Reasoning? The game is stellar except for the gameplay. And that's mostly just because I was tired of the gameplay, but I would give it one thumb up. yeah I could even be convinced to give it up to two if I played through the most of it, but it's very good.
00:37:05
Speaker
I think I'm going to also give it one. I was thinking two as well, but... I feel like it's more of a game. If you like played Hades and really liked it or play transistor, it's worth playing to see like where they started and where they went.
00:37:22
Speaker
And it is fun. Like I enjoyed my time with it. Yeah. But like you said, like there are parts that didn't age. It's not that it aged poorly. It's just like, it's not like your gaming tastes have evolved since then.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah. Like even as a society. Yeah. Right. So one star, if you own it and you haven't played it yet, I'd say give it a try. Yeah. ah The Proving Grounds are really fun. Except for the shield. it's so if It sucks. If it's on sale, definitely pick it up. Oh, it's on sale for so cheap.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah. Normally. Yeah. And it's not very long, so you can beat it in like a weekend or even less. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. All right. Not bad. Two thumbs total. ah Two thumbs total. yeah Did you change your... Oh, like what's going on? Okay.
00:38:04
Speaker
So as we close the book on Bastion... Yes. And think back fondly in the past period of time that we've played it. Yes. We now look forward into the future of the unknown, no, no, no, no.
00:38:17
Speaker
And now we're going to go
Selection of Next Games
00:38:18
Speaker
roll. Drum roll. Play the song. Play sound effect.
00:38:25
Speaker
Okay. Super Puyo Puyo 2. Huh. Now, what I remember about Puyo Puyo, it's not exactly... Yeah, it's the Mean Bean Machine, which isn't like super... long i'd say let's do two games two games two games i'm gonna roll twice more because like this will be fun to play multiplayer i'm a big fan of puyo but like it's not super deep yeah agreed agreed okay here we go we're roll rolling again yep we're rolling again
00:38:52
Speaker
This game came out in 1994. Dynamite Heady, whatever that is. So Dynamite Heady is, I think, a treasure game. Are you familiar with the game development studio Treasure?
00:39:04
Speaker
Are they the ones that did Monkey Island? No. but What do they do? They've done Gunstar Heroes. Oh. And like Ikaruga and Radiant Silver Gun and a lot of really famous games.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think that's one of theirs. Is this the one that's like a puzzle You're a dynamite and you can explode. Oliver, you're dynamite.
00:39:26
Speaker
I don't remember the whole gameplay, but I'm pretty sure that's a treasure game. I don't know why we got two Genesis games, but okay. Sure. Yeah. It's the Neo Genesis of the podcast.
00:39:37
Speaker
Can we like maybe play a little bit of Mean Bean Machine and a little bit of Kirby's Avalanche just to compare them? because they're all the same game. Yeah. Let's do it Because it's fun to play Kirby's Avalanche because they have like the classic Kirby music.
00:39:50
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And we'll just mark them all off and just compare them. i guess Yeah. Because there's not really much reason to like play Kirby's Avalanche after this. Yeah. Sweet. So Super Puyo Puyo 2 and Dynamite Heady, as well as the other Puyos that are on Switch Online. Yep.
00:40:06
Speaker
Excellent. That's it. Awesome. Find your bastions and play with us. Explode your head. Explode your head. Find your safe space, your bastion, and join us and we'll talk about it next time.
00:40:21
Speaker
Toodaloo. Toodaloo. As I was editing, there was a big spot where we had some downtime due to technical difficulties. So this is what happened in that time.
00:40:32
Speaker
do do do doo Do do do do do. do do di itoo-ooooooo do do doodoooo do do do dude do do do do
00:40:56
Speaker
mark
00:40:59
Speaker
you
00:41:03
Speaker
What's the last game we played? but um um um You better not cut out my Jeopardy song.