the banner saga is the fantasy epic of our times. visiting it again, my appreciation for everything it achieves grows deeper. games as economy require clever solutions for costly goals, and the format of traveling via a caravan allow the fantasy of a world fully immersed and realized for the player. indeed, the game evokes a long history buried in the deep snow of the north, one of a fragile peace subsiding once again to old war and devastation, and seemingly even further: total annihilation. we see only the edges of this in this game, and the ending haunts of what is to come.
on this playthrough i played the campaign on hard difficulty, and the emphasis on attrition of resources became even greater. the tactical combat layer to the game i think is misunderstood and i think even underrated, but it is understandable. in traditional turn-based tactics game, the meta is undoubtedly to focus a single target, whittling them down one-by-one. the banner saga's combination of health and attack power into one stat dramatically changes this. indeed, there is little point to killing an enemy who has one strength left, or more importantly: an enemy who has less strength than any of your roster. if you waste your resources on inefficient targets, you can easily find yourself at the end being picked off by those you left alone.
the game is richest when you're in this cycle of carefully utilizing your resources. renown can be used to buy supplies which keep the caravan strong and thriving, but also to buy trinkets or direct upgrades for your troops. there are many optional battles too that may reward renown and supplies, but fights can be costly and you can rack up injuries on your troops which dramatically undermine their combat ability. in many tactics games you often maintain a single roster, but on hard difficulty it askes you to be effective with many. most games struggle to have meaningful difficulty, i feel, but banner saga realizes its metaplay quite well and it feels fair all around.
i move now to continue the series with the banner saga 2.
on this playthrough i played the campaign on hard difficulty, and the emphasis on attrition of resources became even greater. the tactical combat layer to the game i think is misunderstood and i think even underrated, but it is understandable. in traditional turn-based tactics game, the meta is undoubtedly to focus a single target, whittling them down one-by-one. the banner saga's combination of health and attack power into one stat dramatically changes this. indeed, there is little point to killing an enemy who has one strength left, or more importantly: an enemy who has less strength than any of your roster. if you waste your resources on inefficient targets, you can easily find yourself at the end being picked off by those you left alone.
the game is richest when you're in this cycle of carefully utilizing your resources. renown can be used to buy supplies which keep the caravan strong and thriving, but also to buy trinkets or direct upgrades for your troops. there are many optional battles too that may reward renown and supplies, but fights can be costly and you can rack up injuries on your troops which dramatically undermine their combat ability. in many tactics games you often maintain a single roster, but on hard difficulty it askes you to be effective with many. most games struggle to have meaningful difficulty, i feel, but banner saga realizes its metaplay quite well and it feels fair all around.
i move now to continue the series with the banner saga 2.
Banner Saga was an entry point for me to its genre of turn based tactics and managing a small army, but I had no issue with quickly understanding and being invested in all of its systems. And it was a great experience, excellently intertwining its gameplay and narrative to immerse me in its tale of fighting desperately for whatever it is you value as the world comes to an end.
The star of its gameplay is the armor/health system, where all units have 2 health bars that each have unique properties. Armor gives a flat reduction to regular damage, making high armor enemies immune to almost anything you throw at them until you chip it away. All units can do specifically anti-armor attacks instead, doing a much smaller amount of damage directly to it, but this is necessary to be able to later do significant damage to high armor enemies. Where it really shines though is that every unit's health is also its attack damage. So it's not only a decision of how to most efficiently kill an enemy, but when you can weave in direct damage so that it will be less dangerous. Doing some small chip damage to an enemies' health might be less efficient than armor damage to kill it, but can prevent it from getting an attack through the armor of one of your units. These decisions become all the more meaningful with later enemies that have huge amounts of health and armor, where you'll have to chip away huge amounts of armor, but for as long as you don't do direct damage, they can one-shot your units. This also puts an exceptional value on a few abilities that can do direct damage ignoring armor entirely.
This is in addition to all of the vital strategy of positioning. Units normally can't move through each other, and many powerful abilities have limited fixed ranges. This makes some clever positioning and manipulation of enemy move and attack ranges able to make your damage much more efficient, force enemies to attack your tanks, or even skip their turns entirely.
This natural depth to the combat made me excited and engaged in every single fight. There isn't a ton of variety in enemies and enemy abilities, only at the end of the game do we get a few more complex ones that I might've expected, like enemies with passive buffs to their fellows until you kill them, and spells that do damage over time. But I didn't mind that most fights are against the same relatively simple enemies, because the depth of the gameplay is in its basic systems, such that there's a lot of meaningful decision making even fighting just big stat sticks. At normal difficulty you do have a comfortable margin for error, but I'd be interested in a replay on hard to be forced to play as efficiently as possible.
I've went this far without mentioning the story, which certainly bears mentioning. It tells a story of two races, men and Varl, a race of huge, long lived ox men. Although previously in conflict, they've come together in the face of worldwide calamity, from an incursion of a race of violent stone skinned creatures, and more mysterious and celestial signs of the end times. The main character perspective changes intermittently, giving you the points of view of both men and Varl.
It's this use of perspective that was the most engaging part of Banner Saga for me. The most main protagonist is Rook, a man who's inherited the responsibility of leading a village of hundreds of peasants on a journey through desolate mountains and the crumbling remnants of civilization, now inhabited by vultures looking to pick you for scraps, and beset by monsters that far exceed your human stature.
These parts of the game give an immense immersion of Rook's desperation, your caravan is just barely holding on by a thread, every risk needs to be calculated, but you won't be able to survive without large risks. This is impressed on you by the gameplay, with your team of largely vulnerable archers, facing down and defeating hulking brutes that can club your head in with one swing, through the cooperation and ingenuity of mankind. It's also impressed on you by the out of combat decision making, as you're faced with constant dilemmas--do you take these men with you, or leave them to die, when they'll take more food and might betray you? How do you settle disputes within your caravan to maintain order and resources, while still maintaining morale? Do you risk going through enemy territory, or take the long way, losing precious time and food? I felt the game was constantly calling attention to Rook's character, what is he really fighting for? What is he willing to sacrifice? I felt the weight of his life, and those of everyone he was protecting hang in the balance for all of these choices.
Compared to the intimacy and palpable mortality of Rook's story, the perspective of the Varl is distinctly different. Armed with the confidence and wisdom of hundreds of years of life, they feel much more detached. Many of the Varl have isolated themselves, living in small communities in the far north. You feel that solemnity in the historian Ubin, who may be the oldest living Varl, and even in the great warrior Hakon. They react to the impending apocalypse with more of a grim resignation. You particularly sense this in the immense value they put on historical landmarks and achievements of their forefathers. In the vast scope of their lives, men will live and die quickly, but a monument that stands for centuries is far more meaningful.
I haven't yet started the second and third games as of writing this, but I'm excited to. Banner Saga is an excellently cohesive experience that I'd recommend to almost anyone.
The star of its gameplay is the armor/health system, where all units have 2 health bars that each have unique properties. Armor gives a flat reduction to regular damage, making high armor enemies immune to almost anything you throw at them until you chip it away. All units can do specifically anti-armor attacks instead, doing a much smaller amount of damage directly to it, but this is necessary to be able to later do significant damage to high armor enemies. Where it really shines though is that every unit's health is also its attack damage. So it's not only a decision of how to most efficiently kill an enemy, but when you can weave in direct damage so that it will be less dangerous. Doing some small chip damage to an enemies' health might be less efficient than armor damage to kill it, but can prevent it from getting an attack through the armor of one of your units. These decisions become all the more meaningful with later enemies that have huge amounts of health and armor, where you'll have to chip away huge amounts of armor, but for as long as you don't do direct damage, they can one-shot your units. This also puts an exceptional value on a few abilities that can do direct damage ignoring armor entirely.
This is in addition to all of the vital strategy of positioning. Units normally can't move through each other, and many powerful abilities have limited fixed ranges. This makes some clever positioning and manipulation of enemy move and attack ranges able to make your damage much more efficient, force enemies to attack your tanks, or even skip their turns entirely.
This natural depth to the combat made me excited and engaged in every single fight. There isn't a ton of variety in enemies and enemy abilities, only at the end of the game do we get a few more complex ones that I might've expected, like enemies with passive buffs to their fellows until you kill them, and spells that do damage over time. But I didn't mind that most fights are against the same relatively simple enemies, because the depth of the gameplay is in its basic systems, such that there's a lot of meaningful decision making even fighting just big stat sticks. At normal difficulty you do have a comfortable margin for error, but I'd be interested in a replay on hard to be forced to play as efficiently as possible.
I've went this far without mentioning the story, which certainly bears mentioning. It tells a story of two races, men and Varl, a race of huge, long lived ox men. Although previously in conflict, they've come together in the face of worldwide calamity, from an incursion of a race of violent stone skinned creatures, and more mysterious and celestial signs of the end times. The main character perspective changes intermittently, giving you the points of view of both men and Varl.
It's this use of perspective that was the most engaging part of Banner Saga for me. The most main protagonist is Rook, a man who's inherited the responsibility of leading a village of hundreds of peasants on a journey through desolate mountains and the crumbling remnants of civilization, now inhabited by vultures looking to pick you for scraps, and beset by monsters that far exceed your human stature.
These parts of the game give an immense immersion of Rook's desperation, your caravan is just barely holding on by a thread, every risk needs to be calculated, but you won't be able to survive without large risks. This is impressed on you by the gameplay, with your team of largely vulnerable archers, facing down and defeating hulking brutes that can club your head in with one swing, through the cooperation and ingenuity of mankind. It's also impressed on you by the out of combat decision making, as you're faced with constant dilemmas--do you take these men with you, or leave them to die, when they'll take more food and might betray you? How do you settle disputes within your caravan to maintain order and resources, while still maintaining morale? Do you risk going through enemy territory, or take the long way, losing precious time and food? I felt the game was constantly calling attention to Rook's character, what is he really fighting for? What is he willing to sacrifice? I felt the weight of his life, and those of everyone he was protecting hang in the balance for all of these choices.
Compared to the intimacy and palpable mortality of Rook's story, the perspective of the Varl is distinctly different. Armed with the confidence and wisdom of hundreds of years of life, they feel much more detached. Many of the Varl have isolated themselves, living in small communities in the far north. You feel that solemnity in the historian Ubin, who may be the oldest living Varl, and even in the great warrior Hakon. They react to the impending apocalypse with more of a grim resignation. You particularly sense this in the immense value they put on historical landmarks and achievements of their forefathers. In the vast scope of their lives, men will live and die quickly, but a monument that stands for centuries is far more meaningful.
I haven't yet started the second and third games as of writing this, but I'm excited to. Banner Saga is an excellently cohesive experience that I'd recommend to almost anyone.
It is commonly advised and encouraged in game design to frontload the first hour of your game with as much presentation and polish and pizzazz as you possibly can, as that first hour is the part where you are doing everything in your power to entice a player to carry on through into the rest of your game knowing that what they just saw hooked them in.
It's also a good idea to save some of that sauce for the rest of your game.
It's also a good idea to save some of that sauce for the rest of your game.
+ El apartado artístico es precioso.
+ El combate es interesante.
- Te vende que "las decisiones importan" pero ¿realmente podemos considerarlas "decisiones" cuando en su mayoría tienen consecuencias imprevisibles (o incluso se ignora tu decisión)?
- Las unidades (o efectos) pueden llegar a taparse unas a otras en la batalla. Entiendo que no se pueda rotar la cámara pero deberían haber encontrado alguna otra solución.
No sé si jugaré el resto de la saga.
+ El combate es interesante.
- Te vende que "las decisiones importan" pero ¿realmente podemos considerarlas "decisiones" cuando en su mayoría tienen consecuencias imprevisibles (o incluso se ignora tu decisión)?
- Las unidades (o efectos) pueden llegar a taparse unas a otras en la batalla. Entiendo que no se pueda rotar la cámara pero deberían haber encontrado alguna otra solución.
No sé si jugaré el resto de la saga.
A cool twist on tactics gameplay, set in an engrossing world and framed by a great soundtrack. This game really made me feel the bleakness of trudging along an unknown path fraught with danger. The Viking setting was well-executed and really helped draw me in. Excited to jump into the sequels!
On its own, the game pushes three stars, but with the other two in the trilogy, the experience as a whole is raised.
I enjoyed what I played, thought the combat was pretty interesting. Hopefully I can go back and give it another shot one day.
Tactical game set in Norse mythology in the style of Oregon Trail, in which you have to look after a clan, ensure their safety and food and make momentous decisions. It looked fantastic, sounded even better and had cool characters. Unfortunately, I found many decisions very arbitrary or the consequences completely unpredictable, which frustrated me a lot.
At some point I couldn't live with the harsh consequences of my choices, so I waned off playing. It's interesting though, I really want to force myself through it 'cause I kind of love the idea that I can screw up so bad and still progress, somehow...
No es especialmente profundo pero rebajado es un must para los amantes del rol estratégico. A nivel artístico es brutal
Awesome art. Simple strategy rpg combined with caravan travel game.
This was so genuinely refreshing. The art was beautiful. The soundtrack was haunting. And the stories that you push through were so good. Managing your caravans and troops at the same time got so stressful sometimes but was so rewarding.
görsellik olarak hoş diye 3 yıldız hikayesi hiç sarmadı
Slow
This game is so emotionally exhausting for some reasons
I don't know why but I had notion that Banner Saga was some indie masterpiece so that explains why I'm more than a little dissapointed. The art style is stunning and the world building is fairly unique and well done, I specially like how the map is used to convey the lore in 1 or 2 setences. The combat felt alright if a bit lacking so my initial impressions were quite positive. But the more I played the more I realized something about the whole experience wasn't quite grabbing me.
The lack of many enemy types and abilities made the combat feel quite stale. Whatever abilities you do get isn't interesting enough to vary how you approach fights, positioning being the main factor to consider. I think the game wanted the experience to one of survival on a long arduous journey but the whole injury mechanic coupled with morale didn't really impact my playthrough in any meaningful way. Maybe I just got lucky in my choices or maybe the mechanics shine on hard difficulty. The writing while quite good on the surface felt too dry for the lack of a better word. Events happened, characters died and people just moved on without much deliberation. I feel odd complaining about that as it fits the tone of the story but it also make me, the player feel like a distant observer to the events rather than intimately engaged in their story.
I've seen people praising the story and since I haven't finished it, I'm hopeful it will get better. I'll give it another shot when I'm less burnt out on viking media.
The lack of many enemy types and abilities made the combat feel quite stale. Whatever abilities you do get isn't interesting enough to vary how you approach fights, positioning being the main factor to consider. I think the game wanted the experience to one of survival on a long arduous journey but the whole injury mechanic coupled with morale didn't really impact my playthrough in any meaningful way. Maybe I just got lucky in my choices or maybe the mechanics shine on hard difficulty. The writing while quite good on the surface felt too dry for the lack of a better word. Events happened, characters died and people just moved on without much deliberation. I feel odd complaining about that as it fits the tone of the story but it also make me, the player feel like a distant observer to the events rather than intimately engaged in their story.
I've seen people praising the story and since I haven't finished it, I'm hopeful it will get better. I'll give it another shot when I'm less burnt out on viking media.
a história é realmente interessante, o universo do jogo é muito interessante, porém as escolhas não mudam nada narrativamente (somente uma), a dificuldade é meio elevada, caso se descuide vai acabar passando um sufoco.
Interesting story, okay gameplay
A great game in which narrative and world building are both well made. The gameplay is fun enough, but it is a little too repetitive. There are few enemies and the fights are all to samey. But there are a lot of narrative choices to be made, and they are real choices which alter the plot in a deep way. I strongly recommend this game.
Melancholic journey full of unexpected twists and deaths
With health being the same stat as your strength stat, Banner Saga was able to create a very dynamic and interesting round-based combat system. Additionally the game has a great story with nordic themes and realistic, believable characters.
My only gripe is that Banner Saga 2 & 3 were very buggy at times.
My only gripe is that Banner Saga 2 & 3 were very buggy at times.
Curious experience. Loved the decision making on the visual novel side. The tactics side can be a bit easy to abuse but it was still a breath of fresh air. Definitely leaves you wanting for more specially because of how your decisions will affect the next game
Bom jogo, é um estilo parecido com Xadrez, junto de uma historia bem interessante e uma particularidade que eu curti muito, que foi o fato de se um personagem morrer em luta, ele realmente não volta.
Mildly fun tactics game. story choices are fun if nothing special.
A great experience that I enjoyed from start to finish. Combining the turn-based combat of XCOM, the worldbuilding and narrative decisions of Dragon Age with a gorgeous hand-drawn art-style (which I've never seen in a game before, but I haven't played that many) results in a really addictive experience that can be completed in around 10 hours.
10 hours might seem short for a narrative RPG, but considering that this is the first part of a trilogy that isn't an issue. In fact, after playing so many 50-hour RPGs that often contain a lot of padding, it is refreshing to play a game that is so lean and well-paced.
Due to its shorter length, there are probably less than 20 combat encounters in the entire game (I'm just guessing at this number) but it's because of this that I never felt like the combat got repetitive. Granted, I am definitely a casual turn-based strategy game player (the only other game of this type that I've played is XCOM: Enemy Unknown) so I found the combat to always be delightful and satisfying to play. However, I've read that veterans of the genre may find it too simple, so that's important to bear in mind.
It's hard to really say anything about the story, because in terms of plot it's mostly just setting up the later installments. By the end of the game, we're not even sure what the real threat is. Overall, the story really just consists of you and your caravan travelling to different places, trying to escape the enemies pursuing you. The strength of the writing really shines in the smaller stories that occur during your travels. While your caravan is travelling through the world (which you watch happen on the screen in real-time, which may be boring for some players but the beautiful landscape art was always a joy to watch for me), sometimes text will pop-up informing you of some conflict that has happened in the caravan or some discovery you've made on the journey (I'm not sure if this is randomly picked from a list or scripted). You then have to make choices, as the leader of the caravan, of how to deal with the problem. There never seems to be a right choice, but there are always multiple ways to approach the problem that can fit the type of leader you are role-playing as. The choices never have an immediate effect on the story, and the game purposefully delays the effect so that you can't save-scum and have to live with your choices. Without spoiling anything, I made a choice towards the end of the game that led to an awful consequence which I had not expected at all and almost made me want to restart the chapter just to get a different outcome. I ended up stopping myself because that would take away the impact of that ending, and I think that the game wants players to accept the consequences of their action, not just game the system to get the most optimal outcome.
The characters are all strong enough to get you to care about them, but due to the short length of the game and the small number of interactions you have with them, the relationships are not as deep as some longer RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. I'm sure this won't be a problem after the roughly 20 hours of gameplay that the next 2 games promise.
10 hours might seem short for a narrative RPG, but considering that this is the first part of a trilogy that isn't an issue. In fact, after playing so many 50-hour RPGs that often contain a lot of padding, it is refreshing to play a game that is so lean and well-paced.
Due to its shorter length, there are probably less than 20 combat encounters in the entire game (I'm just guessing at this number) but it's because of this that I never felt like the combat got repetitive. Granted, I am definitely a casual turn-based strategy game player (the only other game of this type that I've played is XCOM: Enemy Unknown) so I found the combat to always be delightful and satisfying to play. However, I've read that veterans of the genre may find it too simple, so that's important to bear in mind.
It's hard to really say anything about the story, because in terms of plot it's mostly just setting up the later installments. By the end of the game, we're not even sure what the real threat is. Overall, the story really just consists of you and your caravan travelling to different places, trying to escape the enemies pursuing you. The strength of the writing really shines in the smaller stories that occur during your travels. While your caravan is travelling through the world (which you watch happen on the screen in real-time, which may be boring for some players but the beautiful landscape art was always a joy to watch for me), sometimes text will pop-up informing you of some conflict that has happened in the caravan or some discovery you've made on the journey (I'm not sure if this is randomly picked from a list or scripted). You then have to make choices, as the leader of the caravan, of how to deal with the problem. There never seems to be a right choice, but there are always multiple ways to approach the problem that can fit the type of leader you are role-playing as. The choices never have an immediate effect on the story, and the game purposefully delays the effect so that you can't save-scum and have to live with your choices. Without spoiling anything, I made a choice towards the end of the game that led to an awful consequence which I had not expected at all and almost made me want to restart the chapter just to get a different outcome. I ended up stopping myself because that would take away the impact of that ending, and I think that the game wants players to accept the consequences of their action, not just game the system to get the most optimal outcome.
The characters are all strong enough to get you to care about them, but due to the short length of the game and the small number of interactions you have with them, the relationships are not as deep as some longer RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. I'm sure this won't be a problem after the roughly 20 hours of gameplay that the next 2 games promise.
More games should look at how this series handles player choice. It never shows its hand and you’re never really sure if you could have prevented things going wrong.
This game has beautiful, artsy graphics and tells an interesting story where the choices you make matter. The mechanics in the game, when it comes to combat and resources, didn't feel super fun to me, and there's very little variation in the enemy encounters. The end fight had a huge spike in difficulty, but I wasn't motivated enough to keep trying, so I ended up lowering the difficulty for that last fight. Overall, I give this game a moderate recommendation; it has its merits, but also some aspects that might not appeal to everyone.
Enjoyable narrative, engaging gameplay.
Digital (Steam)
One of my favorite indie games and probably my go to in the genre. Very cool world that you should play in game order cuz it's one giant epic/saga. Management convoy meets choices matter meets a unique tactics gameplay that factors in the size of units cuz they take up multiple spaces.