The plot of Bastion, on a zoomed-out level, is hard to read as anything other than fiercely anti-imperialist and even revolutionary. Caelondia treated the Ura people insidiously, stealing what was theirs, trampling over their land, keeping their people captive, and finally resorting to attempted genocide in order to cement supremacy eternally.

This is not immediately obvious as Rucks' narration tries to position the Ura in a negative light, tries to convince you that all these horrible actions were necessary and justified. Gradually it dawns on you that Rucks is not a reliable narrator though, and even just a couple hours into playing the game I found myself seeing the city of Caelondia as wholly and unambiguously morally repugnant.

Portraying imperialism in such a critical light is obviously just inherently a really good thing, and so many of the things Rucks is made to say feel like they border on biting satire once you realise what is actually going on, the sort of truth-bending you'll hear on the news everyday. A particularly effective detail is that for much of the game whenever you try to talk to Zia the narration strips her of her voice, often not even answering the questions you were asking; imperialism needs to silence people in order to ensure its continued existence.

There were problems for me though, one major one in particular which is that about halfway through the game I genuinely just wanted to turn the game off and stop playing never to return; as Kid you perform horrendous actions, breaking into territory to slaughter wildlife, and later on murdering people who are just trying to defend their homes, with your increasingly destructive weapons, all in an attempt to reconstruct some husk of the past.

You're not really given any option other than to proceed, and by the point I'd realised what was going on there were more than a couple hours of this left still; if I hadn't been streaming the game I simply wouldn't have finished the game. Whilst I think the game is clearly trying to be critical of the horrific acts Caelondia committed, I have to imagine it really doesn't want you to just stop playing halfway through like I would have so, for me at least, this feels like a big failing on its part.

You can justify the fact the game never explicitly gives you the option to stop your rampage because it's Kid's story and you're just playing it out, he's a military boy who is just following the orders he's given from Rucks so of course he wouldn't question what he's doing, killing is all he knows. I'm not sure how much I can really agree with that as this reading makes the options given to you at the end of the game feel weirdly dissonant to me by contrast; that said discovering that the only real option at the end is to evacuate the Bastion, that restoring things to how they were simply continues the cycle of violence, was a very powerful moment for me.