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?)
