So once in a while you encounter a little gem amidst all of the other stuff. Lying about, being all inconspicuous and all, and its true value only becomes clear to you after you stare at it a whole lot longer.

One of those gems is the game Bastion.

I remember buying it really cheap off of steam, usually the term 'indie' scares me, but these graphics looked nice and the trailer promoted neat gameplay.

I remember feeling like 'wtf is going on' for the first hour in the game, especially at the very beginning, but the brilliant narrative and storytelling just eggs you to go on.

What I encountered was a powerful story about, hatred, war, loss, regret, betrayal. About friendship, hope, and the power of choice.

Almost the heartwrenching bioware's trademark sort of choices, the ones where you truely don't know what to do and you find yourself stuck for more than just 10 minutes pondering your options, because the decision you make will influence everything and everyone, even though it is at the end of the game.

So why am I going on and on and even make one of those rare journal entries about a game of all things?

Because it blew my fucking mind.

The soundtrack is powerful, it is sad yet exciting and it's just point-blank amazingly well done. When the credits popped up and I heard the song that was played, with all the knowledge of what happened and the choice that I had made, I cried. YES. I CRIED. SUE ME.

What I found to be so brilliant was the fact that this was a game that leaves such a big fucking impact that you actually ponder it for quite a while after you've finished it. Also it really encourages you to replay it just to try what you missed out on if you had chosen the other ending, if you had not helped this particular person, if you perhaps started to doubt your own previous motive. A powerful example of 'if i had done this, maybe i shouldn't have done that' and 'i'll do it for him, instead'. The interactions with the people and the mobs, although limited at some, is so powerful and the end of the game and the running up to it is so realistic and powerful that it can always apply to your real life in some way. You start wondering what you would have done if you had been the character Zulf, or Zia. Or the kid. Listening to 'setting sail, coming home' for days after, for instance when travelling by train and watching outside still brought that beautiful, fantasy-like melancholic mood over me. It still does so even now.

So why promote it in my journal? Because this is a game worth playing, not just because it's fun and good in a game-like sense, but because it actually has power. Emotional power. You know, just like those kind of movies that maybe aren't totally up your alley but you end up watching anyway because the implications are just too big to ignore.

Steam has it on sale pretty often. I still regret not buying the game ánd the amazing soundtrack for a total of 5 euros. Wooptidoo. But really, I'd even pay the current 13. Just saying.