The Banner Saga

About damn time, feels like forever.

This related toThe Banner Saga: Factions on Steam?

I didn't realize that is was "a thing". Is it like a book or something?

It was a kickstarter, factions is the pvp version and the single player is coming out soon. Factions will get updated as well.

Seems like a fun game. Anyone tried it yet? Certainly looks good.

Currently at 83% on metacritic.The Banner Saga for PC Reviews - Metacritic

Quote from the Gametrailers reviewThe Banner Saga Review | GameTrailers

If you're looking for a fast-paced game that will you're your reflexes and boost your ego, The Banner Saga may not for you. Its turn-based combat is deliberate and often brutally difficult, so failure is common. You'll make choices that determine the fate of your group, and most of the decisions you make will be wrong. It requires a lot of thought and it almost seems like work. but all that work is largely worth it.

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I've been enjoying it a lot more than I expected to. I'm not terribly far into it (only a few hours), but the more I play it, the more strategic I'm finding battles to be. It seems pretty simple at first glance, but as the game goes on, you start to see where there is a more depth that requires you to think more about your units and how you position and use them. I'd expand on this more, but I think I'm just starting to reach the point where I'm beginning how to understand combat since, for better or worse, the game seems to rely on you to figure out these things yourself.

I'm also surprised by how much it appears the story can branch. I accidentally let one of my units die in one of the first battles, not realizing it made the character permanently die, and now my story has largely shifted to being about how one of the other characters has had to step into his place and how not everyone is happy about that. I'm looking forward to replaying the game and seeing how much different the game's story is if I don't let that character get killed.

Anyone playing this game? it's pretty awesome, although I'm only about 3 hours into it

I've beaten it twice now and can say that it has a lot going for it especially the artwork and general atmosphere crafted by the nature of the story. If you begin the game by role playing the character decisions you will have a lot of fun and will get invested in whats going on, also your choices do have impact at least gameplay wise; characters you favor can be killed or survive based on how you do in combat or on a story choice. The overarching story itself cannot be greatly manipulated, what changes is the units you use but it works well and the choices you can make have an appropriate weight to them. My only complaint about the craftsmanship of the story is the lack of voice acting and the sparse variety of character cut scene art but they were a kickstarter with a limited budget and on the whole they did very well with what resources they had.

The game revolves around leading caravans of warriors/refugees to your final destination in order to survive against the Dredge (mysterious, hostile, golem like creatures) and a greater threat to the wider world that's lurking in the background. Along the way you fight many tactical battles and accumulate renown which is this games currency for buying items/supplies as well as for upgrading your characters. As such you want to be fighting as much as possible, though you can also acquire renown through random events along the journey. This system can be annoying at times but it does create a feeling a scarcity throughout the later half of the game which contributes well to the feeling of desperation and struggle cultivated by the narrative.

As for weak points the elephant in the room is the combat which I never came to love but mostly just got used to. Here's how it works: Unit HP doubles as attack power with an armor value to protect it, so as you get hurt your damage potential decreases. If your units attack is greater than enemy armor you get to hit them for the difference (instead of just 1 or 0), there are also abilities in place to go after armor directly but as the game goes on its more usual to just have heavy hitting melee ignoring enemy armor in favor of HP and archers to plink the AC. Turns use an I Go, You Go system until only 1 unit is left on the enemy side, so you could be outnumbered and you will still have alternating turns each round; as a result you can never prevent an enemy turn through killing the next opponent and you will benefit from leaving gravely injured enemies alive instead of giving their turn slot to healthy opponents (unless they have annoying abilities). There are a variety of special abilities and a willpower system to deal bonus HP damage/AC damage but in the late game the majority of your actions will focus solely on standard + willpower HP/AC attacks in favor of most of the specials. As a result battles can be rather slow, repetitive (especially since enemy types are very limited) and counter intuitive at first.

All that said I still love this game as the excellent art, story and atmosphere more than outweighs the lackluster combat, and once you get used to it there is fun to be had there as well. Also note that this is an episodic game and there are two more installments (iirc) to come in the near future so this one ends somewhat abruptly. At any rate I'm looking forward to the next installment and consider part one to be more than worth its price.

Gask, my biggest thing right now is sometimes I can't tell where my range attacks will hit without moving a character.

Is there some way around this? and also without the ability to rotate the map its really hard to tell where some units are.

Column_sl said:

Gask, my biggest thing right now is sometimes I can't tell where my range attacks will hit without moving a character.

Is there some way around this? and also without the ability to rotate the map its really hard to tell where some units are.

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On your turn you can move your cursor along the grid prior to moving, if that character will be in range to attack an enemy at that position then a little box will appear giving the amount of damage they can do from a direct HP attack near that enemies feet. Unfortunately this only works for standard attacks and not for specials, for those you will have to count it out manually . As for the games perspective, yep its locked and will just have to pan around to look out for enemy units.

Gask_sl said:

On your turn you can move your cursor along the grid prior to moving, if that character will be in range to attack an enemy at that position then a little box will appear giving the amount of damage they can do from a direct HP attack near that enemies feet. Unfortunately this only works for standard attacks and not for specials, for those you will have to count it out manually

. As for the games perspective, yep its locked and will just have to pan around to look out for enemy units.

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Yeah, that's gotta be my biggest pet peeve with the game right now. So many times, I move a unit only to find out its special attack won't reach the unit I was going for. Personally, I just wish they wouldn't lock you into where you move until you finish your turn or use an attack.

I want to like this game, but the more I play it the more I get aggravated by the combat.

Thanks for the tip on the damage box tho.

I'm going to see the Dev team for this in a month in Austin, so I was hoping to play through the whole game, but it's kind a of a chore.

Combat UI definitely could do with some improvements and a few aspects about the combat system in general are just annoying (no wait command, killing enemies before they act won't advance your next guys turn etc.), anybody who's played a bunch of SRPGs before will immediately miss certain mechanics.

With that said, absolutely incredible atmosphere. I hate all these pseudo games like Gone Home we're seeing lately, which pride themselves for their "atmospheric experience" when really they're just completely shallow and lack any kind of gameplay. Banner Saga is MUCH better than these "games" though, great art and music (although the music is a bit sparse at times), lots of interesting choices and engaging story.

Really looking forward to the next parts, although I guess that it will take quite some time until we see them, if they get released at all.

Ok, I finished this today. This is an extremlry short game.
Agree with all the above comments, gorgeous artwork and incredible atmosphere. Also a very engaging story.

The problem is it's not much of a game. The combat is extremely simplistic, and lacks allot of functions of even games from 20 years ago.
The choices you make don't really seem to matter. You can let everyone die, and you will still easlly finish this game.


It's more like a short story with some choose your own adventure choices, and the game play is pretty much tacked on as a novelty.

That being said I think its probably worth about 10- 15 bucks if you can find it rebated.

Game is really, really short. The map at first made you think this will take a while, then after you've travelled like three roads it's the finale.

It didn't feel that fleshed out either. Why do I have 5 more mini-plots in the final city to manage caravan and supplies when you weren't leaving that town again anyways? I was on weak and poor morale on the rest of the game because I didn't have any options when it actually mattered. A pretty good example of graphics over gameplay, as ironic as that is on an indie game.

Been playing for a few hours now and having fun with this. I was hoping for Viking Shining Force, and while it isn't that(sadly), it's still a fun little game.

The overland wagon traveling reminds me of Oregon Trail, I keep waiting for my party to stop and tell me that someone has died of dysentery.