Posted on: October 28, 2016

DXXVIII

Games: 130 Reviews: 1

Overrated

I'm honestly rather surprised at all the gushing reviews for this. It's not a terrible game but it's not that deep fantasy saga some people paint it to be. It's an mediocre tactical game glued together with an average story which boils down to trite pulp fantasy tropes. Which is fine, if the characters are fun, or interesting, or memorable. But chances are you'll have forgotten all of them by the time the credits stop rolling. And I'm only being slightly hyperbolic here. But what about the core gameplay? What is the combat like? The combat isn't necessarily bad (though it is for me), but it is abstract and counter-intuitive. It's all about herding/hamstringing enemies and abusing turn order to your advantage. I.e.: You'll be finding yourself keeping some poor hostile critters barely alive at 1HP (you sadistic monster) so that they take up space in the enemy turn queue in order for you to swarm their boss before it gets a chance to even act. However, if that sounds intriguing to you, by all means, go for it. And the caravaning? Handled similarly: You may find it a lot easier to simply let them all starve. They honestly serve no gameplay purpose. Your heroes can't starve and the points which pay for your hero upgrades come from the same pool which buy rations for your caravan. And there's your incentive to simply do away with all the virtual plebs weighing you down. Whoa! Is there some cynical meta-commentary hidden away in the Banner Saga? Probably not, the game is not that clever. Not by a long shot. There are other shortcomings, but those are mostly nitpicky in nature (change resolution? Volume? rotate camera?). To end on a positive note, the art direction is nice and it all looks quite appealing (Dare I say crisp?)

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: September 23, 2017

Resoula

Verified owner

Games: 324 Reviews: 28

A disappointing lie

Video Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwlnmUWvoIo The Banner Saga is a turn based strategy game where you get to live through a book basically. I feel like describing it any other way would be technically incorrect. You do a lot of reading and make a lot of choices like choose your own adventure games. Is The Banner Saga worth your time? Let’s talk our way through that. The gameplay of the banner saga in terms of the combat is turn based as you can expect. There’s some special armor and hitpoint mechanics that make it very unique. WIth three different well-scaled difficulty settings you can find a challenge no matter your skill level. There’s many different classes you’ll find available to you too that you can use to bring into battle. It’s a lot of fun, if maybe a little repetitive over time since the goal is always the same. Kill approximately six enemies. Over and over and over. It’s fun enough though and short enough that that’s not really a problem unless you plan on replaying it for different story results. The biggest problem with the gameplay is that to level a character you need to kill the enemy with that character. Apparently warriors don’t learn by fighting, they learn by killing. And be careful who you choose to give kills because almost everyone is expendable, but we’ll get to that later To read the full text review (because GoG's space limitations are very low) check it out on steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Resoula/recommended/237990/

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: November 1, 2018

Aurelien1980

Verified owner

Games: 466 Reviews: 3

It seems a good game but with some flaws

Actually, I've played the 3 first chapters of the game. But I will not go further. This for three reasons. -The game is more a wash/rinse/repeat sort in the tactical phases. Even if the placement and the use of the appropriate characters is taken into account, I found these phases very repetitive and similar along the game, with few tactical choices. -The french traduction is awful, to the point that the story becomes completely incomprehensible. -In terms of storypath, the story seems a little throw at you, with one obvious path. A disappointment because I buy this game after reading a bunch of good critics.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: July 25, 2021

Solarflight

Verified owner

Games: 82 Reviews: 14

Incredibly atmospheric and engrossing

It's been about half a year since I played this, and I'm finally about to start the second game in the trilogy. However, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Banner Saga 1 in all that time. This game is probably the best use of a Viking/Nordic setting that I have ever experienced. It's made crystal-clear that this is a world that's slowly but inevitably dying. The elder races are dying off, the weather is eternally winter, people struggle merely to eke out a basic existence. Even if our protagonists manage to escape their current threat and reach their end goal, will they truly be safe, or are they just living on borrowed time and postponing the inevitable? Is there anywhere in the world that's truly safe? The game starts off bleak and never lets up that tension throughout its runtime. I loved the game for this. It made the roleplay decisions you're face with all the more agonizing and meaningful; you can't save everybody, so what do you prioritize? The art style and the music also really help sell this feeling of forlorn desolation: the music in particular relies mostly on (I'm assuming) traditional Scandinavian folk instruments, which adds to the melancholy atmosphere. In terms of gameplay, the game experiments with some innovative and unique mechanics, for better or worse. Overall, I thought the gameplay was fine, although the random placement of enemies at the start of battles can wildly affect the difficulty of combats. I also found the "race against time" element of the game (where you have to manage your supply of rations) to be stressful - although I suppose that was the point. As you can carry over your savefile between games in the trilogy, I probably was more cautious and conservative in my playthrough than I would've been had this been a standalone game. If you're looking for a RPG with deep gameplay and an impactful storyline, you can't go wrong with Banner Saga. Looking forward to playing BS2!

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: September 15, 2014

Sævius

Verified owner

Games: 660 Reviews: 32

Waiting for the trilogy

The BioWare past background of developers is felt in this game. It's a very elaborate story-telling game with atmosphere and so on, but it lacks all the rest. Maybe safe the battles which are quite satisfying. The authors have depicted a vast and spectacular world but they don't let us to play with it. Instead of it, they play with it themselves. It may sound strange but this game reminded me Mass Effect trilogy: you are just an actor that chooses the variants of answers in multitudinous dialogues. Hey, guys, I want FREEDOM in such a beautiful world! Your story may be heart-touching but it's forgettable and it doesn't inspire to play it one more time. I hope though that this game will be sold well and we can hope for the trilogy (as devs promised). Maybe they will give us more freedom and maybe they'll can to grow some meat on game's bones. P.S. And the term "dredge" looks heterogenous in this harsh Northern world, it smells like awful Hollywood movies about aliens. It could be possible to invent something more Norse-like and suitable for the game world.

Is this helpful to you?

Discover CD PROJEKT RED games

Highlights

Featured

Close, but not an exact hit

Banner Saga

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Delete this review?

Report this review

Additional Details (required):

Report this review