Banner Saga

As one of the Kickstarter backers, I am proud to say Stoic have delivered what they promised, and have created a truly original and worthwhile game, which I have enjoyed greatly. As can be seen from the screenshots, the presentation is excellent, with a unique art style. The game world is an interesting one, featuring a world where the gods are dead, and humans and giants (called "varl") wander through the snowy landscape, trying to survive while hordes of "dredge" (seemingly some type of automatons) are invading their lands. As for the gameplay, it consists primarily of two parts, where the smallest is dialogs through which decisions are made. You will want to think carefully about what you choose, as there may be consequences which may not become known to you until far further into your adventure. Combined with the fact that you are not free to save at any time, this means that you will probably have to live with the consequences of your mistakes. The other main component of the gameplay is the combat, which is tactical and turn-based. This is the biggest part of the gameplay, and fortunately, it is very good. There are not a high number of stats and upgrade options, but the choices you have to make matter, and you will find yourself having to adapt your strategy depending on the situation. The Banner Saga is not a huge game, and it does leave me wanting more. What is there is very enjoyable, however, and an excellent start to the planned trilogy.

The visuals, animations and sound are all well done. The story is serviceable but poorly written and forgettable. The choices in the game are mostly superficial and the upgrade system isn't very deep. You will see everything the game has to offer in terms of the gameplay within the first hour of play. The combats are repetitive and become very boring, with every map being an open field and very little variations in the enemy units. The tactical turn-based combat isn't necessarily bad, but is simply not for everyone. The thing I didn't like about it is the my-turn-your-turn system that discourages you from killing enemy units (taking them down to 1 hit point makes them weak and takes up enemy turns) and puts the player with the most units at a disadvantage. It just feels wrong and backwards to me and I can't enjoy it. When you take the enemy down to 1 unit, the combat enters 'Pillage mode' where all of your units get to move before the remaining enemy unit does. This is done to counter the fact that the combat system would have given that last unit an endless amount of turns, but I in my opinion the problem pervades the system, it's just a bad way of doing tactical combat. As an original Kickstarter backer, I can't say the game is bad enough that I feel my pledge was wasted, but I didn't personally like the game and couldn't actually finish it.

For the duration of its 12 hours, I was completely drawn into "The Banner Saga". I didn't expect this to happen during the first 20 minutes or so, and I still find it hard to explain why it gripped me this much. The artwork is utterly gorgeous, but there is almost no animation at all and little variation. The combat is pretty hard, tactical and engaging, but can also be somewhat repetitive and there are certainly games with deeper combat. The management of the trek and character customisation too aren't that deep. The many choices you have to make are well designed and interesting, but for the most part do not feel like they have a wide-ranging impact. But "The Banner Saga" is more than the sum of its parts. The writing, together with the evocative artwork and the truly unbelievably stunning soundtrack create a living world with sympathetic and interesting characters in a broad and well-crafted story. These things infuse the game with so much meaning and character that its (small) shortcomings were completely forgotten while playing the game. "The Banner Saga" is a masterpiece of atmosphere and I cannot wait to play the next part of the story.

At first I thought this was really good. I mean, it has amazing artwork, an interesting world, interesting characters, and a combat system which somewhat seems like Fire Emblem. The only problem is, as impressive those first 1-2 hours are, that's actually all there is to it. Though the game is 8-10 hours long, it never once moves beyond what it shows you in the early moments. It still feels like the tutorial at the end, entirely due to how simplistic, forgettable and unimportant everything is. Worst is probably that ~20% of your time is spent watching a trek of ~1,5cm tall 2D sprites move across a 2D background. No interaction, no management, no random encounters, no random ailments, no nothing. The real shame is in just how interesting the concept, the world and the premise seems. Just... nothing came of it.