Bioshock: Burial at Sea Episode 1 Review

Review for Bioshock Infinite Episode 1: Burial at Sea

This review will contain as little spoilers as possible for other Bioshocks (there will be none about Burial at Sea however), but it is impossible to eliminate all of them

So with the new episode of the add-on for Bioshock Infinite announced and the trailer released. I thought now would be a good time for me to revisit Rapture and review Burial at Sea. I went into Burial at Sea with having played all of the previous Bioshocks and loving all of them from Bioshock through Infinite. While not loving every aspect of the game the thing that keeps bringing me back to Bioshock is the atmosphere and Burial at Sea is the best of the series at creating a living and breathing world that you just want to explore every corner and every line of dialogue. While I do like this episode for its atmosphere, there are plenty of other flaws to point out and let the reader decide if Burial at Sea is right for him/her.

The Ease of Entry will not cover how easy it is to get into the genre of shooter, but how easy it is to under the game without playing the previous Bioshocks.

Background

                Burial at Sea takes place in Rapture, before the fall of the city in an alternate universe, similar to how Infinite worked. Burial at Sea starts out with Booker DeWitt hired to look for a little girl, with unknown reasons, and as the reasons starts to come together the reasons for this girl get darker and darker.

Gameplay

                The game play is an Infinite clone, with a few minor changes in the city of Rapture. So if you have played Bioshock Infinite you will be used to the combat, the styling of the UI, and the overall flow of the game.

The only major difference is that you can no longer only carry two guns at a time. You now have access to a weapons wheel that allows you to scroll through all the weapons in the game and see how much ammo you have for each weapon. This allows you to choose the right gun for each situation and never have to worry about not having the Rifle when you need it in a long range shootout or the SMG when you are in close quarters. However, this has the drawback of making Burial at Sea way too easy. This is because you never worry about which gun to bring, so you are never really caught off guard with the wrong gun for the wrong situation, and that was half the fun of Bioshock. The “Oh Sh*t, Sh*t, Sh*t!” moments of Bioshock where you only have 5 Rifle bullets and you are trying to aim at the heart of a Handyman were what made Bioshock different and exciting to play through.

Burial at Sea also adds a new Plasmids (or Vigor as they are called in Infinite) which is called “Old Man Winter”. The Old Man Winter Plasmid, as you can assume, uses ice to freeze enemies and the environment around Booker. This is obviously very similar to the Winter Blast power used in the first two Bioshocks. I’m personally glad they brought this Plasmid/Vigor back into the game because I loved the freeze then headshot with the Rifle/Pistol combination; the shattering of enemies was very satisfying. However, in Burial at Sea the Old Man Winter Plasmid can be use to alter the terrain to get to new areas of the map as well as progress through the story.

This exploration is pretty new to Bioshock at least at this level of exploring where there are areas of the map that Booker never has to step foot onto. While Bioshock has always had some level of minor exploration the level that Burial at Sea takes it to is pretty great and I hope they continue it throughout the DLCs *crosses fingers*  and other Bioshock games.

A picture of the newly added Weapons Wheel

Ease of Entry

                The Ease of Entry is pretty high for fully understanding the game, the inside jokes and hidden material. A perfect example of this is the first 30-45 minutes of the game where you and Elizabeth are running around Rapture trying to find a ticket to get into Sander Cohen’s party. If you have no idea who Sander Cohen is, why he does crazy parties for the rich of Rapture, or why he himself is so…. interesting you probably will not enjoy the experience of wandering around Rapture looking for a ticket for 30-45 minutes. Even along the way of finding the ticket you go into different stores, each with their own reference back to Bioshock. But I had a great time and the build up to actually seeing one of Cohen’s parties that was so heavily mentioned and referenced to in the first Bioshock made the experience enjoyable for me.

Style

                The style of Burial at Sea is what really makes this game worth at least one play through. This is especially true for people who have played the previous Bioshocks.  Seeing a living and breathing Rapture made Burial at Sea worth the purchase. All you see in the first Bioshock were Plasmid insane humans obsessed with getting their next fix, and the only glimpse you see into the regular life of people of Rapture is that of the audio logs that were scattered throughout the game. Now however you get to talk to people that are there, hear people’s views of politics, society, and their views on life in Rapture directly from them.

                Also seeing Rapture in the updating graphics of the Infinite game engine is amazing. While the first Bioshock never looked terrible, and still holds up well in modern games, seeing the brightness and the reflections of the city instead of a darker and gloomier Rapture really kept me looking throughout the city just to see more.

                The only thing that drew me out of the game was the lack of movement from the NPCs throughout the city, especially in the beginning of the game. The NPCs would just stand there and say their lines without moving much of their body. I would have liked to see a bit of walking around, ordering food in the restaurant, moving from shop to shop just to make the city feel more realistic and lifelike.

From when you first walk out of Booker's 

Writing

                The writing in Burial at Sea is good, however there isn’t too much of it. The game is pretty average for DLC with about 3-4 hours of gameplay to complete the story and do a bit of exploring. Plus writing in an Action/Shooting is not as needed in other games such as an RPG. While the writing in Bioshocks in the past have been amazing, Burial at Sea did nothing to blow me out of the water. I don’t know if this has to do with my higher expectations I set for this DLC because of the previous Bioshocks or if the writing itself was that much worse. Either way the writing did its job and explained the story, and kept me playing. I never felt that a character said something that was out of his/her realm of possibility.

Characters discussing Rapture politics

Conclusion

                In conclusion if you have played the other Bioshocks and understand the story you will thoroughly enjoy this game. However if you have not, the game play is acceptable as a shooter and you will enjoy the game, but you will feel utterly lost in the cut scenes and the hidden Easter Eggs will not do the work that Irrational Studios put into them worthwhile for you.

The Banner Saga Review

Review for The Banner Saga

I go into this review not as an expert on Strategic RPGs, but someone who has a good amount of past experiences with popular versions of the genre such as Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Civilization. I will tell you my overall view and opinions of the game after about 6 hours of game play, and then let the reader decide for themselves if this game is right for them or not.

In the Ease of Entry section I want to give reasoning to how easy or hard it is to pick up a game when you have never played any other type of game in the genre.

Background

The Banner Saga is a Strategic RPG set in a mystical world based on Nordic lore where the sun has mysteriously stopped setting, a mysterious invasion of a previously thought extinct race of mechanical-like creatures, Dredge, terrorize villages, and an uneasy alliance between the Varl, a race of horned giants, and humans.  You switch between two storylines; one of Hakon, a Varl sent to protect the stuck up Prince of Men on his way to the Varl capital to the east in order to train him in diplomacy, and Rook, who only has his daughter left after his wife died and village was burned and asked to lead them west for safety from the Dredge.

The story and the lore are very detailed in the map, but if you delve further into the lore behind The Banner Saga it is not very well explained. I wish they would have explained the story as much as they did the game play, but maybe Stoic Studies is taking the head first type strategy with lore.

Game Play

 In both stories you lead a caravan of people on an easterly or westerly set path towards their destination. Much like Oregon Trail the caravan automatically heads in one direction only stopping when an event appears or you decide to stop and camp. Also like Oregon Trail you try to maintain a balance between the supplies and happiness. While you travel you see the days travel add up and you see the happiness of the caravan diminish, so you stop and camp to improve the wellbeing of the caravan. In this menu you will be brought to a town style type menu where you click on buildings/tents to go into character menus, training battles, or rest to improve the overall happiness.

The Camp menu screen and the options shown

In the character menu screens you can level up your character, look and assign at stats, or give him/her an item. You level up through combat, which I will explain in detail later in the review. Other choices throughout the story you gain Renown which the currency used throughout the game to not only level up characters but to also buy supplies for the caravan and items in the markets.  The character menu is very easy to navigate and there is always a help button at the bottom of the screen that will display what all the stats do and how they affect your character in battle.

Now for the main part of The Banner Saga, the combat. Combat is the typical Strategic RPG style of battle where there are movement squares and then after you move depending on the character and his/her attack range you can attack afterwards. Any tile highlighted in blue will show where the character will be able in one turn. However if you need to move just a bit further you can use your Willpower, which is used for abilities as well, to advance to the yellow title at one Willpower per tile. The size of each character affects the strategy of the battle as well. The Varl take up a 2x2 tile space while the humans only take up one at a time, and allies cannot pass through each other (unless their abilities specifically states so). So this ends up in a lot of complex strategies of blockades and aggro tactics which is nice for advanced players.

In combat you can do one of three options in the wait, abilities, or attack. The Banner Saga uses an interesting mechanic for the combat, which instead of just HP you have armor too, which affects how much damage you do to a target’s HP. When you attack you can either attack the armor or the HP of the target.  You can also increase the damage of an attack by using Willpower to shatter even more armor or take away even more HP. The HP of the target affects how much damage the enemy is able to put out as well. The less HP the less damage the enemy can deal to you. You get a “Are you sure?” double click button before confirming an attack, but not one for movement which would have been nice.

Abilities are based on each character and some seem way more useful than others. Such as one on my tank lets me push an enemy back up to six spaces damaging them based on how many enemies I hit them through, while another requires an archer to get into melee range to use. The Class system so far in the game seems to be pretty minimal. You have your basic tanks, archers, melee damage, and support style characters. This is good for players who are new to the RPG in general, but it really seems to lack depth.

The turn system in The Banner Saga is “You move one character, enemy moves one character, you move one character, etc…”. This is nice in the sense that you can’t lose multiple units in one enemy turn, like in Fire Emblem, but this makes you stuck with your choice of movement for multiple turns without any option to fix it. So the game really rewards you for thinking multiple turns ahead, and adapting to the changing board.

The camera is fixed in one direction and cannot be moved around. So when you start to stack units close to each other it gets a bit hard to click the feet of the target or ally you want to target. However the UI is very minimal so it does not clutter the screen with information so this issue of a one direction camera has never really been a huge issue for me.

The battle screen in Training mode

Ease of Entry

                I believe the entry level of The Banner Saga is VERY low, which can be its own double edge sword.

 The Banner Saga starts out with a great and short intro tutorial that goes over each element of the game, menu, and combat as if you have never played a Strategic RPG before. These help bars are always available when you need them again if you click the question mark located on most screens.

However this low bar of entry gives the game a lack of depth and sometimes customization. This is best represented by the item system in the game. That was not a typo before; each character can only carry one item, that’s it. The items are very well explained and are not that complicated, but most people familiar with RPGs are used to hold about 5-8 items on a character.

The character menu with the help button on 

Style

                The style of The Banner Saga is one of the best artistically styled games I have played in a very long time. The style of a slightly still highlighted foreground with minor movement done by characters, such as the wind blowing on a shirt or the eyes rolling ever few seconds, with a still slightly blurred background gives you the feel of television cartoon from the 1970s or 1980s. While some people might not enjoy this art style, I personally found this slightly still artwork throughout the game interesting and kept me looking for each movement in the scene while never getting the feeling that I was just staring at a picture.

Snow consistently falling during the menu screens and especially during the dialog options gave a sense of mood for the game. While the snow has little effect graphically, setting wise it was huge. Really giving me the feel that I was in the Nordic lore of a game. Everything is done with the Nordic lore in mind. From the horn at the top of the screen during battle that shows you the gained willpower for every killed enemy to the background of the character select menu in which you see ancient Nordic artwork and styling.

Simple Conversation to show the style and the number of choices

                The only problem is I could see a less patient player not even knowing that the character’s clothes or eyes were moving.  This is due to the lack of voice acting throughout most of the game. While there is some voice-overs in some major transitional cut scenes, the majority of the game is reading the text at the bottom of the screen. This draws your attention to the bottom of the screen instead of seeing, in my opinion, the beautiful art style that Stoic Studios has made. So if you are willing to take the time through the game, and specifically the dialog, you will enjoy the game a lot more than if you try to rush through.

Writing

                The dialog in The Banner Saga is very well written, with many choices on how you choose to progress through the story. No character so far seems to say anything that is too far out of the realm of his/her personality or the realm of what we generally think a Viking would say. Even when you choose an option that doesn’t seem to fit the personality the writing, much like Mass Effect, corrects the conversation and makes it seem possible for the character to say that line. Also while the humor in the game was not Laugh Out Loud funny it did give me a few smirks and never felt forced.

There are also many options in each dialog menu. It was very rare for me to only have two options to choose from. Generally there were three to four options for each end to the speech varying from passive to reckless options. Each choice seems to have lasting effects throughout the story, even the choices that don’t seem to be a major choice can have huge consequences.  A good example of this is that I had an option to send one of three characters to fend off a Dredge attack on a villager, so I sent the character with the shield and he ended up getting his skull bashed in without a chance of user controlled combat.

The writing in this game does not hold your hand throughout and uses words that are not common in conversational English. This use of more “advanced” English appears more often in the inner thoughts of the characters than in the conversation between the characters. So if English is not your first language you might have to pause and look up some words to get the full meaning of the text. 

Conclusion

                I think The Banner Saga is of the best Strategy RPGs I have ever played, and I think it would be a good transition game for people looking to get into the genre. It has a simple itemization, with a complex battle system, a beautiful art style, and a story that makes me want to find out what’s next.