Banner Saga

There is a unique and well-designed combat system at the heart of this game, but it is not enough to carry a game of even this short length. The game is mostly small-scale, turn-based skirmishes between two groups of units, and in between are choose-your-own-adventure-style management choices. The choices do not have a major effect on the direction of the game, and some appear to do no more than change the conversation and carry no lasting effects. This could have been an X-COM-style game that alternates between combat and base management (with the base being a moving caravan in this case), but the game in between combat is barely there, and X-Com (2012) was a bit repetitive as it is. I would recommend this game only to enthusiasts of the turn-based-tactics genre who may want to try the unique combat system for a bit and then shelve their copy forever.

The best parts of this game art by far its aesthetic presentation and the solid soundtrack playing in the background. With the good parts out of the way, let's address the average/infuriating sections: (Av) Combat is explained in a pretty rudimentary manner, half the fighters feel awful to use in combat (let alone getting low-levels mid-late in the game with little chance to level them effectively), and combat consists less of carefully planning who'll go where and do what, and more "who do I need to throw the entire party at first so I can kill it the fastest and slog onto the next?" So if you don't get it on your first few tries you'll basically just be better off restarting the campaign early as opposed to resting, due to... (Nf) ...Resources dwindling like truffles to swine - worse yet, resting (resources expend per-day) is the only way to keep your core fighters in tip-top shape, and defeat in battle provides plenty of "#-days'-rest-required" casualties unless you plan on knocking things down to Easy. (Av) Dialogue is serviceable, what with 1/3 of the characters being murderers and another 1/3 being naive - about half of the event-interaction choices allow you to spend incredibly valuable amounts of time amounting to absolutely zero payoff (at least give me a penny for wasting my time, don't leave me a pauper). (Nf) The game has a penchant for murdering characters off-screen or through text-events; "Egil" was near-invincible on the battlefield, yet has no less than FOUR "chances" to randomly die in events without so much as an "excuse you" for his troubles (somehow he always loses his skull or throat, too, despite his skill and MASSIVE shield...). I've given up on a story that wants to top the amount and stupidity of deaths in the Game Of Thrones and Friday 13th franchises combined. Okay game in total, but I'll wait to see if the sequels are less ludicrous in design.

I love the world, the characters, the choices you have to make and their consequences, the artwork, the soundtrack and the first part of the story. Why only the first part of the story, you may ask?. Because The Banner Saga ist, as it seems, only the first game of a trilogy and that's not mentioned once here. I nearly feel robbed, because I normaly don't buy unfinished stories - I even wait with Game of Thrones until it's done, so I don't have to wait a year or two for the next book/episode. Shame on you, stoic studio and/or gog.com, for not making that clear.

OMG This is coooool game :D but not for me really. So first things first. YOU CAN'T SAVE I will never accept that, never! There is not a single reason that should prevent me from saving the game when I want during non-combat sections! Good thing is the game saves when you quit so you don't have to reach any "specific" checkpoint or lose progress and yes I completed the game but won't play it again until the save system will be changed. What's good about the game? Basically everything because it's refreshing and well made. Combat is interesting and challenging. The turn based system is easy to learn and allows for interesting tactics. Character progression is simple. The plot is interesting and choices you make sometimes can be tough. Game isn't too long which is actually good thing because it could get boring and look like dragging the game. So if you want combat + dialogues with great music and good looking drawings I recommend you this game. It's a game which had an idea and implemented it well there won't be any fireworks and you will either like it or not here's no middle ground

The Banner Saga takes place in a wonderfully built world with nice characters, an interesting story, and a great theme. The problem is, of course, that for all its shine and patina it seems to be missing a lot. The game is terribly short and I don't mean that a gameplay time of 10 hours is bad I mean that I feel that the first game in the series feels incredibly unfinished. Each of the Star Wars movies works as a story by itself. Each has its own beginning, middle, and end. The Banner Saga is a $20 game that is, solely, a beginning. When one completes The Banner Saga one is not left wanting more, one is left groaning "Wait, that's #@$&ing it?!" The game play is also somewhat repetitive. To compare it to something, Final Fantasy Tactics works because each class is extremely viable (as the Straight Character Challenges would show) as well as being different and interesting enough. Additionally, FFT let you generate generic characters in addition to the numerous story characters so you could thoroughly poke at and experiment with the game. None of this is true for The Banner Saga and it suffers for it.