Bastion
In Bastion, something called the "Great Calamity" has rolled in and taken out your entire civilization. You awaken as "the Kid," and set off to restore the Bastion -- a spot where everyone was supposed to meet if bad stuff went down. To do this, you'll need to dive into levels, best foes, and collect shards. Like I said, not that different from your average RPG, and it never hooked me. By the time it reached the branching ending, I didn't have strong enough feelings to really care one way or another about the outcome.
Still -- and this is the rare occasion I say this about a story -- it didn't matter. Bastion is just too damn good. The graphics are amazing; I can only describe the scenes as a watercolor painting with stained glass influences. The sound immersed me in the game. The narrator entertained me as he announced what I was doing and why it mattered, but his sultry tones also kept me company. Bastion's a single-player game, but the narrator was my companion through thick and thin. Toss in some fantastic music and sound effects, and Bastion is a blast to experience.
However, those are just the accoutrements. Bastion's gameplay is the main event. I hacked and slashed my way through these levels, but I got to choose my loadouts before I set out. As I played, I unlocked new weapons like a six shooter and a machete, I found new elixirs that increased the damage of my attacks, and I even unlocked idols that made levels tougher -- made enemies unable to be beaten by normal attacks but that gave me greater rewards. All of this made me want to keep playing -- and play in different ways. Was my loadout the best? How hard could I make a level and still have it be fun? What loot would the next seemingly dead end yield? I loved coming back to answer these questions.
These variations on the gameplay, these carrots at the end of the stick only become available the deeper you get. As I played, I unlocked a new twist to my hub world (the Bastion) with each level my character achieved. I had an in-game achievement center that rewarded me with XP for completing tasks, a store, a crazy pipe to hit and fall into an XP farm, and so on. Hell, even after I beat the game, there was a new game plus that kept my progress, started over, and made reference to the fact that I was playing through the story again.
The best thing Bastion has going for it is that I was always surprised by what came next. The levels, the enemies, the crazy weapon-testing mini-games -- there's always something up this game's sleeve.
When I beat Bastion for the first time, I reloaded my save and played through for the second ending. When that was done, I started my new game plus. I'm not the repeat type of gamer, but Bastion's leveling, weapon upgrades, and difficulty tweaks are just too gosh-darn addictive. The story could've been better, but it doesn't matter. This game is amazing and you owe it to yourself to download it.