The Banner Saga

[Tridax]

So I've recently made it through the first game of the saga (since there is a sequel coming out). The visuals, the overall aesthetic, the dialogues, the characters, the plot and the beautifully crafted world really made this game one of my favorites. And the encounters may have been a tad repetitive, but each of them proved to be a challenge - I was seriously concerned for the safety of the characters.

The choices were also superb. I did not expect that a simple urge to hold on to a pile of gold at a certain point of the game could lead to a quick death of a char. And this is only one example.

Oh, and when the final dialogue came out, I sat glaring at the screen and thinking for some good fifteen minutes. It was surely a very hard choice for me.

I chose not to give Alette the arrow. She is Rook's daughter after all, and it is father's duty to protect his child. But when he suffered his inevitable demise at the hands of the Bellower and the following cutscene showed his funeral I couldn't help but think that I probably made a non-canon choice. Alette's funeral just somehow seemed much more fitting and beautiful.

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Af-F1R0axk) the trailer for the second installment if anyone hadn't seen it yet. There are centaurs!

[Farix]

Phenomenal game really, mostly in the art style and music. I know some people complained that you made decisions without any idea of what the consequences might be (ie the gold cart) but I think that was part of the game's strength. Gameplay's interesting in tying health and damage together but it does make any fight pretty snowbally, soon as you get an advantage you can press it hard, though I suppose it makes more sense for hurt characters to do less damage, compared to most games and rpgs where a guy with 1 hp does the same damage as someone who hasn't been touched.



I chose not to give Alette the arrow. She is Rook's daughter after all, and it is father's duty to protect his child. But when he suffered his inevitable demise at the hands of the Bellower and the following cutscene showed his funeral I couldn't help but think that I probably made a non-canon choice. Alette's funeral just somehow seemed much more fitting and beautiful.


I gave Alette the arrow, with the idea that this was Rook's acknowledgement of her and a sign of a father's trust in his daughter. But man that ending. I think it fits better with the feel of the story as a whole, loss and sacrifice and whatnot but still it hits pretty hard.

So if the horseborn are actually centaurs that means centaurs wiped out the horses.

Looking forward to the next two games (designed to be a trilogy from my understanding).

[JustPlayItLoud]

Didn't even realize this was out. Looked amazing from the early stuff way back. Played the Factions game on Steam that was basically just the combat. I'll have to pick it up now.

[Crow]

I love this game. Played through twice, but that was after I had been playing the Factions MP beta for months.

[Flickerdart]

Gameplay's interesting in tying health and damage together but it does make any fight pretty snowbally, soon as you get an advantage you can press it hard, though I suppose it makes more sense for hurt characters to do less damage, compared to most games and rpgs where a guy with 1 hp does the same damage as someone who hasn't been touched.
The fights are definitely not snowbally - the initiative system makes sure of that. The entire point is that you're supposed to avoid the dogpiling strategy that happens in every other RPG and "spread the love" so that your enemy winds up with many weakened units instead of 2-3 strong units. Yes, after you've achieved that, it's pretty easy to kill everyone, but unless you play your cards right, your guys are weakened too. Arriving at the end of a match with your units in the proper shape to seize the day is part of the strategy.

[Legato Endless]

It might depend on what difficulty you're engaging on the game on. But when playing on the harder modes, it's much less snowball and more a precarious balance between weakening the enemy and eliminating them. If you leave too many alive even weakened, they'll start gutting your characters through attrition. Wipe out too many enemies too early, and the remaining ones will seize hold of the initiative and never look back. Granted, once you've hit the tipping point and adequately crippled them into impotency, it's a fast mop up, but snowball really isn't the relevant metaphor for combat as a whole I think.


Arriving at the end of a match with your units in the proper shape to seize the day is part of the strategy.

Yeah, I couldn't stand having someone fall over to injury. Granted, maybe everyone else didn't play the game Fire Emblem style to the same extent I did, but that certainly influences perception. I'm hoping they change the resource balance in 2. The music, art direction, and general atmosphere were all fantastic, and the choice mechanics worked fine, except for population, which really didn't punish you at all if you let half your caravan die, indeed it was rather advantageous to do so. Also shop equipment being a complete trap unless you were completely willing to watch your refugees starve in mass is a bit problematic.

[Draconi Redfir]

the game is okay, but i have issues with it's final few moments, mainly relating to it's renown system, which has you needing to decide between feeding your caravan an everyone in it, or levelling up your characters.


Feed your people: Fewer people die of starvation, your characters are more or less screwed in the final battle against an overpowered boss and his small army of overpowered adds. seriously just the over powered bellower alone would be a good boss fight, the stone-singers shield-bearers, and massive-sword users are just tedious and take away a lot of hope from the fight. espesually if you don't have a lot of varl.

level up your heroes: you stand a better chance against the final boss, you can probably chew through the tedious adds while bellower continuously bellows and likely kills a varl that's acting as a meat shield against him, HOWEVER your entire caravan will likely die due to starvation, if not during the trip then in the final city where you need to hold out. and ultimately there doesn't seem to be any consequence for this as your heroes don't seem to eat anything and can't die of starvation.

there are also some other nitpicks i have, such as heroes not scaling in level with when you got them. there's one hero you get near the end of the game if you let odd train up the caravan's women as fighters, bell i think is her name. she's described as an archery prodigy, described as taking out multiple enemies in one shot each with ease and even pins a hare to the ground which she picks up for lunch. but when she finally joins your party? level one. you're three quarters of the way into the game and she is level one. it's all but impossible to level her up enough to be of any use in the final battle. in regards to that hare thing, why can't we send people out hunting for food?

and why can't we give her or Odd the silver arrow? they're supposed to be great archers, don't see why it's limited only to the main character and his daughter.

[Legato Endless]

The lack of scaling is definitely an issue. It renders some characters like that last archer essentially unplayable. It probably wouldn't be so bad if leveling wasn't solely defined by kills. I don't necessarily mind that on its own, but coupled with the previous issue of rookie units its quite aggravating.

While the prospect of new unit types is nice as always, more than anything what the game needs is some variation on the battlefield. Pretty much every fight is a flat rectangular field, save for the occasional random hole in the first game.