Bastion/YMMV

• 8.8: Jim Sterling's infamous review, which gave it a 6.5, a stark contrast with the game's otherwise positive reviews.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Lots of it.
  • For example, Zulf's Theme or Zia's Theme and those are just the ones with lyrics.
  • The two of them are beautiful on their own, but phenomenal when combined.
• Demonic Spiders: Lunkheads, large Rattletails, and the hammer-spinning Gasbags, to name a few. The entire Ura clan also qualifies.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Rucks. Ask anyone who hasn't played the game, but at least knows about it what they know about the game, and they'll probably tell you about the gravelly-voiced Lemony Narrator.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Werewhiskey, which gives 100% critical hit chance at 33% health. Combine this with Lifewine and Bull Brandy to maximize your survivability and it doesn't matter that you're constantly at critical health, because almost nothing in the game will live long enough for it to matter. This is especially true in the weapon challenges, which become much easier simply by falling off the edge enough to activate Werewhiskey's effect.
  • Using Leechade lets you heal by attacking enemies, but reduces the effectiveness of your Life Tonics... unless you're also using Bastion Bourbon, which lets you heal to full with Life Tonics and cancels out Leechade's detrimental effects. This was eliminated in later releases, however.
  • The Scrap Musket with increased knockback and double tap mods becomes a wonderful tool for knocking any damn thing that isn't rooted to the ground off the nearest ledge. Perfect the art of baiting enemies towards cliff edges and even Lunkheads and Ura soldiers don't stand a chance.
  • The Galleon Mortar. The game places it as the second-to-last weapon, but you are far less likely to blow yourself up with it than you are the Calamity Cannon (even with the increased blast radius upgrade), you can lob the projectiles over the enemies instead of the projectile exploding on the first thing it hits, and with the right upgrades you can fire off shots rather quickly. It does enough damage that most things will die in two hits, usually one hit for a lot of common enemies, and that's without upgrading its damage. It's basically an infinite hand grenade that takes a sec or two to set up. With a little practice, you can run'n'gun and nothing will touch you whatsoever, and if you get good at lobbing the projectiles in just the right way, you can lead enemies so that they get the thing right on their heads while they're chasing you.
• Goddamn Bats: Squirts and Peckers are swarming weaklings that usually act as distractions for bigger enemies to clobber you. Miniature Rattletails also count. Peckers are far worse because Squirts are easily countered to death, while the bog-standard Peckers aren't (and the charging Peckers have an unusual timing to their counters that takes a bit to get used to, all while they're carving huge chunks out of your health).
• Good Bad Bugs: When you arrive after either saving or leaving Zulf, if you decide to do the Stranger's Dream, you will be able to jump and use the Battering Ram to fight.
• Hell Is That Noise: At one point in the game, Rucks hums "Build That Wall". It comes out of nowhere and it's WAY creepier than you think it is.
• That One Boss: Queen Anne, the Anklegator. It starts off easy, but her speed increases as her health goes down, and the finishing hit takes split-second timing to pull off.
• That One Level: Point Lemaign. Narrow platforms with Lunkheads at every chokepoint, Stinkeyes on the elevator portions, elevator portions that swarm you with enemies (especially the second one, which is flat-out ridiculous), all coming together to make a level that will have you pulling your hair out. And if you came in using idols? Yeah, just kill yourself because they'll surely do it for you.
• That One Sidequest: The Proving Grounds vary widely in terms of difficulty. Some, like the Galleon Mortar, you can conceivably pass on your first try. Others are only tricky (Breaker's Bow) or nearly impossible (Fang Repeater) until you get the appropriate upgrades or learn the right trick (War Machete). Then there's the Bullhead Shield trial. There's no upgrade that will help significantly, no trick to make it easier. Just your timing and luck. You'll need plenty of both. However, clever use of Spirits can make some of the more difficult Proving Grounds much easier; notably, the Bullhead Shield trial can be made easier using Lunkhead Liqueur (to return more damage when blocking with the shield), and any trials where dealing damage is an integral key to success (such as the Fang Repeater or Dueling Pistol trials) can be beaten more easily by equipping Werewhiskey and purposefully dropping to less than 33% health.
• The Woobie: Zia.
  • Iron Woobie/Stoic Woobie: The Kid.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Zulf.