The Banner Saga PC Review by BoxCatHero of WeTouchGames
Genre: Indie, RPG, Strategy
Developer: Stoic Publisher: Versus Evil
Release Date: Jan 14, 2014
Banner Saga is a grandiose story-driven tactical combat based rpg from Stoic and Versus Evil. In the game, you manage your caravan as you travel across the country visiting many a village and killing a lot of the Dredge, the main enemy of the world. In the world there are Humans, Varl (Giant like beings with horns and a long lifespan), and the Dredge. In the beginning, Varl and Humans were fighting against each other and were on verge of a great war. Then one of the gods decided to create the Dredge to give them a common enemy to fight. Thus began the first great war and the Dredge were pushed into the north and defeated. Then the second great war occurred centuries later and the Dredge were defeated yet again. Now with recent events, it seems we are on the verge of another great war. But something is not right with the Dredge, they are almost desperate, like they are running for their lives. That’s all the core story you will get in this review.
Now let us delve into what makes this game unique and highly worth getting, beginning with Renown. Renown is what you would call the experience used to promote your characters, and to buy items and supplies. Speaking of supplies, that is how you keep your characters alive. I mentioned promoting your characters, but nothing else about them. Well let’s change that and delve into what makes the characters in the game memorable. As the game progresses, there are story events that will occur. Some are random and some not so, but choices that affect how characters see each other must be made. Which brings me to another point that needs to be made, you can kill off characters in the game if you let them die too much in battle, or make the wrong choices in a story event.
However, there are some at least two (well, three, one is a choice between two characters) I know of that will happen regardless of if you want it to or not. Let’s get back to character progression, remember how I said renown can be used to promote them? But how do you earn renown? That is simple, you get it from story events and winning battles. How do you use it to promote characters? Why it’s elementary my dears. As stated, you get renown from story events and battles, but to be able to promote a character they first must have enough kills in battle to earn the right to be promoted. As far as levels go, the max in this game is five, but you can boost your characters with items from story events or ones bought from the market. Another feature that makes the the game interesting is the traveling screen, which is where you spend a good portion of the game, and the most prominent part of that is the status medallion.
The status medallion holds a wealth of information for you, it informs you of how much renown you have, the morale of your caravan, how many days you have traveled, how many days of supplies you have left, and the makeup of your caravan. There are three parts to the makeup of your caravan and they are clansmen (townspeople), Fighters (human combatants), and Varl. The next biggest feature that, in my opinion is the biggest draw for me to the game, is the artwork. It’s very colorful and brings a sense of nostalgia for old cartoons from the late 80’s and early 90’s. I found it to be very immersive, and the animations that are part of the story elements are very good looking. I would watch an actual tv series based off of them.
Let’s get onto the audio for the game which is equally as amazing as the artwork. I mentioned the animations and how I would watch a series with them, and that is mostly due to the music and voice work for them. The voice work in the game is absolutely wonderful in quality and really improves on the immersiveness of the artwork for the game. That being said, the music really sets the tone for the game in all the right places, bringing the immersiveness to its peak.
At the start of the review I mentioned how the combat was tactical based, so let me go into more detail on that now. By tactical combat I mean you and the enemies take turns moving and attacking with each character on the grid-like board. There are three main stats in combat your strength (which is your damage and HP), armor, and willpower. With willpower, it functions a lot like action points, being able to grant you extra movement and extra oomph to your two attacks, which are armor break and attack, or power special abilities that every character has. With that being said there seven character classes, some with a sub class, and they Spearmen (Human), Shieldbanger (a Varl Tank-like class), Landsman (Human Scout utility class), Raiders (Human melee class with shields), Archers (Human ranged unit), Warrior (Varl 2hander smashy smash class), and the mysterious Menders (mage like class).
I can safely say there is only one thing I did not like about the game, and that was you could not choose when to save. However, the rest of the game far, far, far outweighs that small fault. I will gladly say that this game is worth it at any price you can find it.
Pros:
- Gorgeous animations and artwork
- Voice work is outstanding
- A story that draws you in
- Unique and memorable characters
Cons:
- Can not choose when to save
BoxCatHero gives The Banner Saga 1 a Drastik Measure of 9.0 out of 10 (90).
http://store.steampowered.com/app/237990/
