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.