The Banner Saga is a
crowd-funded game that came out a couple of years ago for PC, but has
just come out (digital only, for now) for the Xbox One and PS4, with
a Vita version in development. Banner Saga 2 is also in the works,
though there’s no release date as yet. It’s also the first game
I’ve acquired without a CD (well, not counting the cartridges for
my Mega Drive. Or the cassette tapes for my Amstrad).
This will be a
spoiler-minimal review. I’ll give away only the barest premise of
the story, as well as some combat info.
Story
Because
this is crucial to the game, I’m going to be vague here to avoid
spoilers.
The
story is cut into chapters, sometimes focusing on different
characters. The world is essentially mythical Nordic (albeit with
original god names and so forth), and feature three races: men, varl
(horned giants, all male) and dredge, (metal creatures who are
antagonists for both men and varl, to the extent two previous wars
forced the previously warring men and varl to form alliance against
the dredge).
The
writers have done an excellent job with creating dilemmas that have
no right answer, and avoid the Good, Bad, Neutral options pretty
well. More than that, being nice (with one character I was largely
nice) can lead to bad consequences.
It’s
also not clear (in a good way) whether a decision you take will have
a minor impact, a serious impact, or a delayed but significant
consequence.
The
characters you acquire, or put off, through story decisions also have
a gameplay impact, as it can increase or decrease your roster of
potential fighters (up to six per fight), which is important as they
can get injured and it’s better to have an unwounded line-up.
Gameplay
Combat is turn-based,
and has some interesting strategy elements that can, with cunning,
see the battle shift in your review. Every character has an armour
stat, and a health stat (which doubles as strength). So, if your
character loses health, they also become weaker. However, hitting an
enemy’s armour can make sense, because damage is the difference
between the attacker’s strength and the defender’s armour.
Not only that, humans
take up one space on the 2-D isometric grid that comprises
battlefields, whereas the varl (giants) take up four. This means you
can use the varl to try and crowd your enemy and make it harder to
reach your humans.
The turns are alternate
between player and enemy, until you reduce the enemy to just one
unit, then you enter Pillage mode. This means every character has
their turn, so you might have three consecutive turns (if you have
three characters left) before the enemy can move.
You also have a limited
resource, per character, to either enhance movement beyond the usual
range or do increased damage. You get one more of this per slain
enemy, and can then allocate the points to your character(s).
It’s a clever but
easy to grasp battle system. After the first few battles, I felt
completely at home with it.
For winning, you get
renown, which is the in-game currency (also acquired by some
out-of-combat decisions). It can be used to buy things, including
supplies, items for characters to wear (just one each), and for
promoting your characters to make them stronger.
When in camp, you can
pause to rest. This boosts morale and gives time for people to heal
if injured, but also costs supplies. It’s a realistic decision
that’s simple but means even the smallest choice puts you on the
horns of a dilemma.
Graphics
This
section could be retitled ‘art’. The scenes of trekking across
the frozen land, which could be tedious, are very attractive indeed.
Not only does it give a real sense of journey and progression to the
characters and plot, but the vistas are beautiful.
During
dialogue, as well as often not speaking (see Sound, below) characters
often stand there, facing one another, with a slight animation to
indicate wind etc. This didn’t bother me (I still hark back to the
days of Phantasy Star IV) but it might be a bit off-putting to some.
The
map looks properly Norse, and lore-junkies will rejoice at being able
to scan over the whole thing, getting more information about a bridge
here, or mountains there. It also might be useful (at the time of
writing this I don’t know) to check the area you’re heading
towards.
Sound
Sound
is limited. I enjoy the music, which helps (along with the excellent
art) make the simple act of marching from place to place feel epic.
Music is common, but voice-acting is very rare, and without
subtitles.
In-game
sound effects seem limited to combat, where they’re reasonable.
Definitely scope to add more.
Bugs and Other
Issues
Early
on, I had a combat bug whereby an enemy moved, but didn’t attack or
end their turn. I loaded up the last auto-save (which immediately
preceded the battle) and everything progressed normally. In the whole
first playthrough, this bug happened twice.
I
like the language options (I might try a German playthrough. As I
discovered with Dragon Age: Inquisition, my German is currently at
the stage perfect for gaming comedy, as I can understand quite a lot
of stuff, but not everything). However, the lack of subtitles for the
voiced parts of the game is a little disappointing. I’m not hard of
hearing, but some people are.
Longevity and
Replayability
I’d guess the game
took me about 12-14 hours. My understanding is that the forthcoming
sequel will be available for consoles as well as PC upon launch, and
that (on all platforms) decisions can be imported.
In a few weeks, I may
well replay the game, taking a more ruthless approach and seeing how
that turns out. I got a fair share of stuff right, but also made a
few massive mistakes.
So, what score? I’d
give it 8/10.
Thaddeus
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