bastion
In Bastion, you will often come across stone statues of people. I've destroyed few I've already come across, however now I'm wondering what the consquences of destroying them are.
Do either destroying or not destroying the statues have any effect on gameplay?
Pets do 3 things:
Later on in the plot, The Bastion will be attacked. Any pets that you have acquired will help defend against the attack. You can fight the attack off yourself if you have no pets, but the pets make it easier. You may lose a few of your pets in the attack, but they won't do anything after the attack aside from hang out, so don't worry if you lose a few of them. As for Squirt being angry, you're fine. I did the same thing and he still participated in the attack.
As Mana mentioned, you'll get access to the Smoking Pipe at some point, which allows you to combat waves of enemies in return for fragments. You'll also eventually gain access to the Bedroll and Stockpot, which function in the same way, but offer variation on the narration and enemy types.
More specifically, the Smoking Pipe pits you against enemies from the Old World, the Bedroll pits you against Ura warriors, and the Stockpot pits you against beasts from the Wild. They all offer about the same reward as far as fragments are concerned, and without any bonuses to fragment collection you can expect to get approximately 750 fragments per run.
To increase this amount, consider enabling one or more idols in the Shrine, if you have one. Not only does this give a percentage bonus for fragments collected, completing these dungeons with at least one idol enabled completes a vigil at the Memorial, which will grant you an additional one-time lump bonus.
Best Answer
The only effect you get is extra narration; there's no loot. You're not judged better for not knocking apart the stone/ash statues, either. In fact, the game encourages you to knock them down: there are a few plot points where you have to hit one of the figures to continue, and others where the narration builds on the story of the level when you do knock them down.