I just read about this on Entertainment Weekly, of all places. One of their top RPGs to look for, alongside bigger names like Skyrim and Final Fantasy XIII-2.
What is Bastion?
Bastion is an original action role-playing game featuring a reactive narrator who marks your every move, lush hand-painted 2D artwork, and tight responsive gameplay that rewards playing with finesse. The game is designed to be simple to pick up and start playing, while offering a lot of rich choices around character customization as well as a deep story and gameworld you can lose yourself in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX48y24t9iU&feature=player_embeddedDeveloper FAQ
It looks absolutely gorgeous. The other big selling point, besides the art, is the reactive narrator. They recorded 3,000 lines of dialog, and the narrator will actively respond to the things you're doing. Sounds like it could be an interesting addition.
What is the story of the game about?
In Bastion, you play as a young man who wakes up to find his world shattered to pieces in a surreal catastrophe called the Calamity. You head for a place called the Bastion, where your people were supposed to go in case anything ever went wrong. But all you find there is an old man… who believes he can fix everything that’s happened, but he needs your help. You then seek out the materials necessary to complete the Bastion and realize its true power.
This story unfolds through the use of real-time narration, so you will be piecing together the mysteries of the gameworld every step of the way, as the narrator conveys the greater meaning behind your every action.
As someone who loves building/fixing towns in games, this pricked my ears up. Hopefully it is robust and not automatic, but I can't tell from this blurb.
Release Date: Coming to XBLA
this summer, and PC after that.
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The town rebuilding in Dark Cloud was fun.
Fix'd. Gonna be hitting the mute buttopn on that jerk. I don't know why but to me he's just the aural equivalent of sandpaper on my asshole.
No sound at work. What's the narrator sound like, Ben Stein or something?
He sorta sounds like a manager of a trailer park trying to sound bad-ass.
Game looks rad.
Also, nifty. I had forgotten it was an XBLA title, I had it in my head that it was a full-price one.
Man, I love that this generation has made all these $5-$20 games available. Though I do wish sales happened more often.
durandal proves his taste is crap.
Podcast WHORING: Episodes 2-8 (Thanks Zonghui)
Based on what I saw of the game in videos and interviews, it doesn't look like there's any real Dark Cloud elements. Maybe there's a little Soul Blazer in there, though. You just see the world "build up" around you as you walk down a path.
I also saw it at E3. The combat is fun, it looks great in motion, and the narration feature adds a lot of atmosphere to the world. You can turn it off if you must, but the guy's voice fits the context of the game well. Needless to say I am really, really excited about Bastion, moreso than any other XBLA game yet.
I asked about the release date- turns out they're in the XBLA Summer of Arcade which starts July 20(?), runs five weeks, releasing one game per week. They don't know which "slot" they're in yet.
I would be happy to have a vibe from either, as I loved both games. Dark Cloud 2 is still one of my all time favorite games and that there has never been a sequel is a constant reminder to me of everything that is wrong with the video game industry.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Here's the videos link for anybody who wants to watch. They provide a lot of insight you don't often get from developers.
Yeah, Dark Cloud 2 was fantastic. I never did finish that last chapter...
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
I could listen to his voice forever
looking forward to this
I worry about this, but given that it's a central feature of the game, I'm sure they must have taken every effort to have him speak in a dynamic and interesting way so that he doesn't just become a background drone.
I should hope not, that would drive everybody insane.
What I'm wondering though is if it's dynamic, so it responds to how you're playing and what you've achieved. Or whether it is just static "reach X, play next bit of narration"
And PC, eventually. Not sure if Microsoft has some timed exclusive mojo going on or what, but there's not even an official 360 release date yet.
It's a really small team, so they're focusing on one platform at a time. They've confirmed that they're currently working on the PC version. A PSN version seems likely at some point.
They wrote their engine in XNA, so... probably not Maybe for Bastion 2!
Def want to sex him up.
If the president had any real power, he'd be able to live wherever the fuck he wanted.
I can't wait for it to come out, really all of the summer of arcade games look good.
and I just finished Clash of Heroes and got nothing to play