Bastion represents many things I like about games all mixed together, and on top of that it made me cry a little. Music from its soundtrack is still in my playlist twelve years later, and I'd still rate it number one in my list of top ten games. It's only ten hours, so you owe it to yourself to play it through and discover a solid story, smooth narration, beautiful art, fun action RPG gameplay, challenging puzzle scenarios, and the musical stylings of award winning music director Darren Korb and the delightful singing of absolute angel, too pure for this world, Ashley Barret,

If you've newer played this game, you do not have any idea what is waiting for you. I played it when it first came out, the gameplay loop was good, but it was lacking in content. A game can only hold my interest for so long without things to explore or a story to follow and it was light on both those things. I recommended it, but tempered that recommendation with its shortcomings. Afterwards, I never really looked back and saw Warframe as a live service game that kept putting out banger music tracks in its trailers.

When a friend asked for a Taxi to a planet he hadn't unlocked, I logged back in a decade later not planning to engage outside of a helping hand. Only to discover that in the intervening time the gameplay was more varied, more polished, more fun.

And there was now ten years worth of story to catch up on. I guess this is my life now.

And they added space ship piloting, fishing and a dating sim.

I didn't come back to the game because they added a dating sim, okay. The timing was a coincidence. The ability to romance the narrator from Baldur's Gate 3 didn't sway my decision in any way, even if she was a monster girl with a prehensile tongue.

But I'm glad I came back, I got 1300 hours out of my second pass, and I'll definitely pop back in occasionally when the accretion of new content coincides with a change in circumstances that pushes me to nolife a game for a few months.