Bastion — E3 Notes from IGN Interview
IGN interviewing Greg Kasavin of Super Giant Games.
Title is a narrated action RPG; no dialogue scrolling for this game. The game is made by a team of “7 guys living in a house in San Jose”—expatriates from EA Games (worked on Command & Conquer) and Infinity Ward (worked on Modern Warfare 1&2). Kind of a dream project. They’ve been thinking about bits of this game concept for years. They’re fans of ’90s era action and adventure games. In various interviews I’ve seen, Greg routinely mentions Chrono Trigger among others as spiritual inspiration. Logan Cunningham’s voice work as The Narrator was actually done in a coat closet (he’s a roommate).
Game mechanics: Narration has been designed to comment in response to your actions; the idea is that you’ll develop a rapport with him. They note that, while you can turn the narrator’s volume to 0, it will somewhat hamstring the game owing to story context clues delivered by him. They’ve included timing-based attacks, Greg likening it to Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden. Each weapon you find is designed to have it’s own mechanic and maintain viability throughout the game. Bastion does not rely on leveling up and getting stronger! They designed it where you gain access to a widening variety of tools, allowing you to specialize your character. You essentially have to keep moving, in order to survive in this game. Turns out the Narrator is part of the game, and you’re supposed to be learning about him as the game goes on.
They’ve managed to record over 3000 lines of dialogue. Super Giant decided to deliberately kept Bastion a 2D style of game.
Release date: coming first to Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade event, then PC later in the year.
