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!
I had such high hopes going in to this game. I'd heard it would be an emotional game that dealt with mental health issues, which sounded really interesting and unique. I was excited to play it. If only the game had focused on that, instead of trying to shove in action and puzzle elements as well, I'm sure I would've loved it. Instead, I uninstalled it after 3 hours of play. I will say that they nailed the atmosphere for this game. The graphics are gorgeous and moody, the sound design is also appropriately unsettling. Unfortunately, the combat controls are clunky and slow, making fights a chore to get through - even on easy mode. Even more annoying, each boss fight is accompanied by a long unskippable cutscene beforehand, and with the way the autosave system works, you're forced to rewatch them if you decide to exit out of the game and come back to the fight later. Eventually I realized that I wasn't even that invested in the main story either; I was far more interested in the Lore collectibles telling the mythology of the Norse gods, than I was of the actual game's story itself. Senua's story is your typical fantasy quest of a warrior who has to fight/get revenge on the gods in order to rescue her lover. The mental-illness selling point of the game involves Senua hearing voices in her head...wow, how original [/sarcasm]. Honestly, by the end of my playtime, I was more annoyed at the gimmick than emotionally invested in Senua. The developers might've have some interesting ideas, but IMHO the game was marred by clumsy execution. If they'd focused on fine-tuning the story rather than trying to wedge in the action elements, it might've been a good game, but as is, this game isn't worth my time to finish.
