The Banner Saga trilogy is a little like Fire Emblem but trades out relationships for an unexpectedly engaging visual novel. What's impressive about this Viking-inspired saga, broken into three parts, is that there are many choices to make. Tough ones, too.
I think of it as the West's answer to FE, but I'm comparing the two series only because of loose similarities: combat is turn-based tactical placement, and you choose fighters from a large roster of party members.
Combat is only half of Banner Saga, the other half being the visual novel. There's an overworld to travel, during which many sticky situations occur, requiring your wisdom as leader of a caravan. That's where the choices come in.
I'm thinking of reviewing the trilogy for LadiesGamers, so I'm parking notes here. Hopefully, this will help me summarize the three games in a single review later.
Banner Saga 1
Things I liked:
- Choices with consequences. I haven't played a game recently with so many weighty decisions to make. Often in BS1 you can't quite guess what the consequences will be. They can be dire for people in your caravan . . . or not. You can permanently lose party members.
- Realism. This is just a personal preference. Lately, anime-style stuff isn't my thing anymore. The BS series, like many Western games as compared to Japanese games, leans more towards realism in art style, characterization, and plot.
- Plot with a punch. Like a good novel, it had me wanting to turn the page. The ending of BS1 was poignant and a satisfying place to stop, though by that point I was eager to continue my saga right away.
- Replayability. I was also tempted to replay BS1 right away. Things could have gone so differently!
- Art. Inspired by Don Bluth, the artist best known for Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Quite a bit of time spent watching my caravan trudge across the screen, but I didn't mind because the landscapes were so good to look at. Combat animations are joy to watch, like how a dredge slinger slaps two deadly shatterstones together and hurls them at your party.
- Music. Oh, the music. Soundtracks for the ending scenes and credit roll are particularly moving. You should play this game as much for the music and art as anything else. The sound effects are excellent too.
- Saves. Autosaves at every chapter. What a great way to revisit major and minor decisions.
- Strength and Armor. The most distinctive and unique mechanic in
this series. Strength doubles up as health and attack points. Armor
reduces damage inflicted on Strength. You can choose to attack either
the enemy's Strength or Armor.
- Willpower. Like in Fire Emblem, characters move and take an
action. In BS, certain actions require Willpower points, a very limited
resource. You can potentially increase attack damage by spending
Willpower too. I enjoyed managing this additional element in combat.
- Injury. Characters knocked out in battle are marked "injured."
Resting in camp heals them, though at the expense of time and
supplies. Injured characters suffer stat penalties otherwise.
- Turn order. Rather different from what I've previously experienced. Turns alternate between individuals in your party and the enemy's party (instead of everyone in your party moving first, then followed by the enemy's party). This requires more planning and foresight.
- Difficulty. Playing on Normal felt pretty difficult at first. Those dredge, the enemy species you're up against, seem so strong. But that also adds to a thrilling sense of danger.
Things I didn't like:
- Controls and UI. Forget your PS4 controller; the mouse is far superior. The latter is more precise for choosing targets. I struggled dreadfully with controls and UI during combat until I finally switched over to the mouse. One lingering problem, though, it's still hard to distinguish which enemy's about to move next if two identical enemies are standing near each other. Also, I wish I didn't have to count tiles; BS should have taken a leaf from the Fire Emblem book by auto-highlighting tiles that are within enemy attack range.
- Confusing narrative at first. Who's talking? Who's who? Who cares? In the early hours, none of this was clear. Dialogue, name tags, and the visuals onscreen didn't always match, and that was disorienting. Switching between two different stories--two different caravans that would eventually converge on the world map--kept things from feeling cohesive and focused. It didn't help that BS1 starts from Ubin's point of view. By the end of the game I still didn't know why, because this fellow Ubin doesn't seem the least bit important.
- No saving between back-to-back battles. Also, no saving when you quit in the middle of combat or conversations.
- Renown points are scarce. It's tough sharing them between three needs: leveling up characters, buying food supplies, and buying mostly-pricey items.
- War is what? There's a vaguely-explained thing called "War," which occurs when your caravan faces a large army of dredge. You're given 5 options of how to approach the situation, some of which lead to a typical battle. Hard to tell which is best.
- Who's wearing what again? Can never remember what each item does. It's irritating scrolling through the Heroes menu, re-checking each item description.
- Teen novel. I sure like the story, but I don't care terribly for the dialogue writing style. It strikes me as mildly high-schoolish, a little too modern-casual.
- Steep learning curve. By the time you've really got the hang of Banner Saga, you're probably halfway through the first game, having wasted Renown points on trying to level up too many characters.
No major grouses, though the first two grouses nearly put me off the game initially.
Banner Saga 2
I'm nearing the middle of BS2 now and loving it! A few words, in case I forget later on . . .
The second game allows you to import a save from BS1. Optionally, you can start the game "fresh," choosing between two characters to be the first caravan's leader. Like in the first game, the narrative goes back and forth between two stories, two caravans. I was pleasantly surprised by who the second caravan's leader turned out to
be. They had much more entertaining dialogue choices.
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Unfortunately the tutorial, controls, and UI are almost an exact copy of the one in BS1. But BS2 made significant improvements in other departments.
First of all, leveling up characters is easier as this now costs fewer Renown points. In addition, all BS1 characters who were behind in level are automatically boosted to level 3.
Renown points are also in greater supply; you can earn a cartload of 'em from the "Training" tent in camp. Training used to only be a practice arena for battles, but in BS2 it is also an avenue for earning Renown by completing short battle scenarios. These scenarios help you learn the strengths of different characters. This is brilliant for those of us who aren't tactical geniuses.
Lastly, at the Training tent you can convert "clansmen" into "fighters." Clansmen can forage for supplies, but when trained into fighters they will stop foraging and focus on protecting clansmen during a "War" situation.
There are new character classes, abilities, and enemy types. More characters, more races, more animated cutscenes, more everything good!
After a quiet warm-up chapter, BS2 really got started with an impressive bang. I can't wait to see what tough new choices it'll set before me.
In queue
It'll be awhile before I complete the trilogy, though. In fact, I actually haven't touched BS2 in a fortnight. Been busy writing for LadiesGamers, most notably:
- a demo report on Square Enix's upcoming Project Triangle Strategy
- a casual poll of Ring Fit players
- a review of 80 Days
- chatting over strategy games with a fellow reviewer
And I've got tons more ideas for what to write about . . .
But writing competes heavily with gaming now. So it'll be a feat if I write even once a month for this blog!