next »

[mysteriosum]

There has been a discussion brewing in this thread and I think this warrants its own; at least, I would like to give my 2 cents

This discussion arose because the quality of Bastion's story was called into question, and various people have spoken up on either side of the argument.

I believe, at the very least, the story of Bastion has a lot of value.

Commercially it works very well. It got people who liked it to keep playing to the end, because it developed in interesting and uncomplicated ways. The simplicity of the plot and the relationship between the characters made for an interesting experience. This won me (and others) over as permanent Supergiant fans.

As for the real quality of the story.... It's difficult to judge anything in terms of 'good' or 'bad' because there are so many elements that go into any story. Simply having had a bad experience with one trope or archetype can ruin that for you forever.

I sort of think of Bastion as a fairy tale. It's fantastical, has huge stakes, simple characters and plot, and a morally ambiguous ending. Fairy tales fill an important role in our culture's breadth of narrative. They are simple, with recognisable tropes that familiarise young people with storytelling techniques. Bastion has a lot of potential to inspire more works because of this.

The other point I want to make is how much I appreciate the ubiquity of its story. The narrator explains in an unobtrusive manner the history of almost every enemy, weapon, dead person, and event. It makes me care about who I am, who I'm trying to save, it makes me pity those I'm fighting against, and appreciate and understand those 'enemies' who fight with me. Few games achieve this level of cohesion within their own universes. For me, it worked remarkably well.

What do you think? What worked in Bastion? What didn't work, why?

[Sved]

Oh, I see. you should link back there to here as well ^^

Bastion's story may have been average if told through NPCs' textboxes. But it was not. Instead they chose to have a narrator (with a great soothing voice) telling the story during the game.

And that simple idea is genius. The story becomes non-intrusive and accompany your actions, it doesn't stop everything you do to throw a wall of text explaining why you should care (and repeat the same when you check if there was more to it).

I would love classic RPGs to take this approach, contextualize the storytelling and tell the story (through your party dialogues, for example) during these loooong map travels or dungeon crawls.

[mysteriosum]

Thanks for pointing that out, I added the link

[Graham-]

How much of it was thanks to the narration being voice? Commenting on what the player was doing? The novelty of that is powerful.

It's tough to dissect the value of a story in a game.

I remember playing Prince of Persia 3: Two Thrones. The "bad" prince would argue with the good one, in voice, while you were platforming. That was cool. Sometimes it even changed on repeat tries, I think.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

since i was the main one who said i didn't care much for bastion's story, i'll elaborate here a bit, though to be clear i didn't finish the game; i got to the end and could not finish the final level (but i did watch the endings on youtube later on). however, a caveat is i haven't played the game since it came out, so my memory isn't perfect here

the main thing i didn't like is "the kid" had no personality. i don't remember if he ever talked, but if he did i don't remember anything he said. was he a "silent protagonist" or just so incredibly boring that nobody remembers anything about him? he doesn't seem to display any emotion towards the loss of his friends and family, for example. could they make a more generic hero? i couldn't, not if i tried

the plot itself is very typical. collect x cores. totally uninspired macguffin stuff. there's some backstory, but nothing a typical fantasy novelist couldn't have come up with far better than in his or her sleep. it's typical videogame fare, but being typical doesn't mean that the typical isn't terrible

of the characters, rucks is a typical elder/advisor character, zia is the typical girl in a videogame, and zulf was probably the only interesting character (he's the only character i actually even remembered the name of without having to look it up -- including the kid's name of "the kid")

rucks was somewhat interesting because he was also the game's narrator, but it's silly to say that this "hasn't been done before", in-game narrators have been present since gauntlet in the 1980s arcade, and people who are impressed by bastion's narration just make me feel sad that nobody remembers gauntlet. what's more accurate is that the narrator isn't that often an in-game character, not that the narration itself is new. the voice certainly gives him personality, but at times it feels as if it's more the personality of the voice actor than of rucks, the character. the voice actor is almost too good, he takes the spotlight away from the character he's supposed to be representing, and instead focuses it on himself

by saying zia is the typical girl i mean she is captured and has to be rescued, at least twice, and otherwise doesn't have an active role in the plot, only a passive one -- you can read about her backstory in the stockpot, but that's optional and isn't even very compelling anyway. in the game all she does is cook for you, and intentionally get captured in order to "spy on" the enemy (which felt like the game's cheap excuse about why she's not a damsel in distress)

zulf i liked because i have a soft spot for 'villains with a heart of gold / villains who secretly have good motives but do bad things', even though it's becoming hackneyed by now. i first came across this archetype in krelian in xenogears, which i'm sure wasn't the first but i still think he was the most well done, so perhaps i like zulf because he reminds me of krelian (although zulf is much younger and has a branch where you can either save him or not, which krelian didn't). in any case, even if it's an archetype by now, at least it's a rarer and more interesting archetype than 'boring hero' and 'videogame girl' and 'elder adviser guy', so i'll give him a pass and call him a good character; that's one good character out of four

the ending choice and two possible endings was acceptable, one of the few decent parts of the game's story. but the choice depends entirely on the player's choice, rather than the gameplay; i prefer when a game's story's branching depends on your actions in the game rather than your dialogue choices. i also didn't like that one ending was, tonally, better than the other, even though the choice itself was ambivalent. it's like: give the player a vague choice that is morally unclear, but then make one result obviously so much better than the other result, that doesn't make sense. it'd be better if both endings more ambivalent



tl;dr version: zulf is the only good character, out of four (the others are: typical silent hero, typical elder/advisor, typical girl to rescue). the game's plot largely consists of collecting macguffins, and although thankfully there was some branching to the story

[Graham-]

I'm going to riff a little on the idea of the way in which Bastion delivered its story, as a general method, and skip the plot, because I haven't finished the game either. First some intro.

When Bastion was first making the press rounds, before its release, people were hyping the narration. People hyped it the way they hyped the "mind-bending" nature of Braid. I felt like there was a particular hunger that was being satisfied, and critics were jumping on a particular bandwagon, knowingly, because they were just so darn happy that someone noticed they had an itch waiting to be scratched. Kind of like a long-time single dude "falling in love" with the first girl he has a legitimate connection with, the community unapologetically latched on to what Bastion meant for the growth of games.

I like Bastion a lot. I know people who love Bastion. I really enjoyed the GDC Vault session with Bastion's music guy detailing the sound recording sessions (with Logan, the narrator), among other things. I want to consider the idea of narration that bends to "gameplay," and its value, and try to separate it from the value of the story proper. Delivery vs content, or mechanics-driven vs static, are the points of contention, for me.

So frequently I feel like a passive participant in a game's narrative. In Mass Effect I can affect the story in some ways. In Bastion I affect the plot and characters less so, but I affect the pacing, the order of delivery, because the delivery feels more wrapped around my actual actions. I think this is the reason Bastion's story is so popular. It hits the sweet spot, where we, as gamers, want something we are participatory in, and Bastion understands that, and tries to drive right there, to that spot, and scratch away. How meaningful is the story without that? Does it even matter? Though that question is what lead me to fall on Paul's side of the fence in the previous thread.

You play Bastion and dream about games that cast you as the main character in a story. That's the dream I had as a kid. I loved games because I wanted an adventure that I could control, that was about me. That's the dream I've been chasing professionally... forever. Bastion chases the dream too, so who cares if its story is typical? Well I do. Imagine if it was even better.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

one thing that cemented my opinion on its story was to mentally compare bastion's story to similar games in the same genre, with far better stories. here's a list of action-rpgs that i feel have much better stories than bastion:

- seiken densetsu 3
- illusion of gaia
- soul blazer
- terranigma

i do think bastion's presentation was better than that of those four games, but the characters, plot, and setting of bastion was less interesting than that of those games.

soul blazer in particular is very similar to bastion in basic premise (the world has disappeared and you have to put it back together again piece by piece) but does a much better job in comparison; much more memorable characters, much better plot -- i enjoyed the story of soul blazer so much more

[mysteriosum]

These are games I haven't tried, so I'm missing this comparison. I'm going to try Soul Blazer and my friend has been trying to get me to play Terranigma for a while. Thanks for the heads up!

I've always seen the Kid as a silent protagonist. He has a vague background, but he's essentially a blank slate for the player to paint himself onto. His white hair accentuates this: it's welcoming your brush. Everyone always ends up using a different weapon combination. This kind of thing is what characterises the Kid. A gun master holding two pistols and a rifle feels a lot different from an archer/swordsman. He starts out with a hammer, because of his job: who knows how he reacts once every option is open to him? You do!

What I consider the most innovative part of Bastion is the Idols. They act as the difficulty setting without feeling like it, while also contributing to the world.

I also think it's impossible to remove the presentation of a story when judging its quality. Like in cooking, presentation is key. A dish is worse if presented improperly. Just so, a good production of Hamlet will have a better story than a bad one. The actors, their costumes and the set all contribute to the story.

In Bastion everything contributes to the story, which gives it a very full quality. A story in this medium goes beyond characters and plot.

[Graham-]

This is true: story goes beyond characters and plot. I was using the word "story" to mean that - writing/plot - outside of the environments, character created by interaction etc. There isn't a necessity to think that way.

[Alex Higgins]

the main thing i didn't like is "the kid" had no personality. i don't remember if he ever talked, but if he did i don't remember anything he said. was he a "silent protagonist" or just so incredibly boring that nobody remembers anything about him? he doesn't seem to display any emotion towards the loss of his friends and family, for example. could they make a more generic hero? i couldn't, not if i tried

I've always seen the Kid as a silent protagonist. He has a vague background, but he's essentially a blank slate for the player to paint himself onto.

And I think that's the point. It's a really common technique to have a protagonist serve as a blank slate, especially in games for obvious reasons, but even in other media (I read something about how this one comic strip artist - I think the one for Pogo? - did this, but you can see this done everywhere, to differing degrees). By making the Kid devoid of personality, it allows the player to insert their own personality into him.

Does it make the Kid a boring-ass character? Yes. But does it make Bastion a better experience? Probably.

[Graham-]

It's hard to write flexible characters. So blank slates are useful.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

even with a silent protagonist it doesn't have to be boring. for example: chrono trigger. in that game, even though crono is silent, he has a clear personality (unlike the kid). people remember things about crono through his emotional expressions in different situations. the kid has no emotional expression animations at any time, whereas crono would sometimes jump up and down, look down in sadness, get scared, laugh, and so on

[Alex Higgins]

Mm. That's a good point.

[Graham-]

Blankish slate.

[Dan_Tsukasa]

even with a silent protagonist it doesn't have to be boring. for example: chrono trigger. in that game, even though crono is silent, he has a clear personality (unlike the kid). people remember things about crono through his emotional expressions in different situations. the kid has no emotional expression animations at any time, whereas crono would sometimes jump up and down, look down in sadness, get scared, laugh, and so on

I belive with Chrono Trigger this is likely due to the contrast of the various characters, though Chrono may be silent, and essentially void of personality, because other characters interact with him in various well scripted situations, you begin as time goes on to envision Chrono as something more interesting than he really is. Chrono is also a much longer game so the number of situations, both serious and comedic, is much higher and so leaves more room for you to care about him, despite knowing that he's essentially a hollow vessel for the player.

Also, I may be in the unpopular opinion here that I reallt touch Bastion because I cannot stand the narrator. I'm really not big on the whole Wild West thing, and the accent grinds against my brain.