The New Game Plus (NG+) mode for Bastion becomes available in the main menu after you’ve completed the game once. It lets you experience the entire story again from the beginning.
Except for a couple of lines in the first level, the narrative remains the same. However, NG+ does give you these benefits:
- All your weapons, idols, spirits, fragments, and XP carry over in the new playthrough.
- The fourth Dream appears after completing the Workmen Ward.
- Several new items appear for free in their respective buildings:
- Two idols in the Shrine
- Two spirits in the Distillery
- One Secret Skill in the Arsenal
- Bastion buildings can be built in any order. They also come with their “True” functions unlocked. So enhancing them with Shards each gives you 2500 fragments instead.
Because of these additions, certain achievements can only be obtained in a NG+. There are 7 achievements like this in total.
Most are related to the new items, while two achievements are tied to the fourth Dream. If you’d like more info on the achievements just skip to the bottom of this article for their full details.
New Idols
Idol | Enemy Buff |
---|---|
Roathus | Never drops health or black tonics |
Olak | Randomly makes attacks miss |
These two are up there for the most problematic idols in the game. You’ll need to prepare well for them, particularly if you’re doing the Dream challenges.
You can work around Roathus by equipping Leechade. This spirit lets you recover health by damaging enemies. It does reduce the potency of health tonics, but that’s not a big deal anymore because of Roathus.
On the other hand, Olak doesn’t have any direct counter.
One thing you can do is to choose weapons based on their damage rather than their speed. Olak activates at whim on every hit. This means that fast-firing weapons like the Repeater can proc Olak more often. Your total damage per second will get diminished as a result.
New Spirits
Spirit | Effect |
---|---|
Doomshine |
|
Cham-Pain |
|
Doomshine and Cham-Pain are well-balanced in what they offer. They boost your damage potential while reducing your survivability.
But you can negate their ill-effects by pairing them with their positive counterparts.
For Doomshine, you can offset it with Squirt Cider’s +10 max health. This leaves you with its improved critical hit chance. However, that’s actually not that useful.
This is also considering that you’re committing two spirit slots for it. Werewhiskey or simple weapon upgrades are better for improving your criticals – opt for those instead.
For Cham-Pain, you can pair it with Hearty Punch’s +1 chance to carry on. You get to keep your default extra life and the positive effects of both spirits. And unlike Doomshine, Cham-Pain is much more reliable, as it’s always in effect. Plus you’ll also increase your healing factor from Leechade if you have that equipped.
New Secret Skill
Secret Skill: Gel Cannister
Using the Cannister deploys a Sentry Turret in front of you. It only has a 45° cone of fire and can’t turn around. But it does have a powerful machine gun. Its high damage, high rate of fire can mow down any enemy that comes into its range.
It’s best used to control an area. As long as it doesn’t get destroyed, it can mow down any foe.
Fun fact: This Skill is an homage to Portal, a puzzle-platforming game made by Valve. The Cannister Sentry Turrets are exactly identical to the ones in Portal. They even have their signature “musical hum”.
NG+ Achievements
Achievement | Requirement |
---|---|
Calamity Kid |
Complete the story in a New Game Plus |
Turret Opera |
Get 25 kills with one Gel Cannister Sentry Turret |
Just Like That |
Complete the Kid’s Dream with all ten Shrine idols invoked |
Calamity All Around |
Complete the Singer’s Dream with all ten Shrine idols invoked |
Ashes in the Sky |
Complete the Survivor’s Dream with all ten Shrine idols invoked |
All in the Mind |
Complete the Stranger’s Dream with five or more Shrine Idols invoked |
About the Author |
Complete the Stranger’s Dream with all ten Shrine Idols invoked |
Calamity Kid is pretty straightforward. It’s better to do it with no idols invoked so you can blitz through the story again.
For the Dream achievements, we have complete Who Knows Where guides on our Bastion strategy guide page, so check those out for more in-depth tips.
Turret Opera Achievement
For this achievement, you’ll need one of your Sentry Turrets to kill 25 enemies. It’s easy to do that in the Kid’s Dream without any idols. You just have to set your Turret on the entrance of the Dream.
It’ll gun down incoming enemies as they enter its range. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth wave, it’ll have enough kills for the achievement.
-
Bastion
- Bastion: New Game+ Guide & Achievements List