The Tale of Bistun Review

On the slopes of Mount Bistun a stone carver with no memory awakens to find that a strange blight is leaking into this world, poisoning the local wildlife, and turning them into something else. A mysterious whisper begins to direct the stone carver’s actions between this world and a world made of forgotten memories. Some of those memories will reveal the stone carver’s past, and will further drive his desire to put an end to this blight in the game The Tale of Bistun.

I kind of stumbled upon this game when I was browsing through games on Steam, and decided to take this action-adventure game for a spin. You will be playing as the stone carver, and ultimately you will have your choice between two different weapons, which you can switch out at blacksmith anvils that can be found throughout each of the levels. For the most part, each area that you’re going to be playing through follows a linear path. There are a couple of exceptions to the rule, but for the most part you will progress through sections in a specific order, and won’t return through those sections. Each of these sections will see you dealing with a certain number of enemies that are “hatched”, once all of them are taken care of you will be able to heal that area. I do have a helpful hint for those completionists out there, when you’re going through a level any time you see clusters of pots, break them, break them all.

I have to say that the thing that surprised me about this game the most was the story. When I started playing the game I had no idea it was loosely based on a 12th century Persian poem called “Khosrow and Shirin”. The story unfolds through stone carvings, trips to the world of forgotten memories, and cut-scenes revolving around your guide bird. Each of these reveals fills in a gap in the stone carver’s memories and adds an additional layer to the character’s loss and determination. The story alone makes this game worth it.

This isn’t a game that is going to blow you away with its gameplay or its graphics, but there is something there that caught a hold of me and I had to complete the game as soon as I could. I think I ended up putting just under 4 hours into the game, and I’m pretty sure that I did it in only 2 sessions. That’s how much of a hold the game had on me. I will admit that the final boss definitely caused me to be on the verge of rage quitting, but I knew I had to stick with the game and see it to the end. Speaking of the end, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that this game’s story could continue if the developers decided to keep going.