Review: Banner Saga

First Impression

Like many of my fellow Steam users, when a steam sale occurs, we whip out our wallets and spend what little money we have in our bank accounts. As for the types of games I do choose to buy, I attempt to purchase interesting games with unique art styles. Which brings me to The Banner Saga.

The game looked incredible. From the sample images provided by steam, it looked to be a turn based, grid combat system. Being a lover of Final Fantasy Tactics, I was sold.

Not only was the art work great, the combat system something I enjoyed but looking closer I could see some manner of horned creature as well as some sort of armored foes. Needless to say I was intrigued by all of this and had to wonder what the story line could be.

What Actually Happened

Jumping in, the story begins explaining the current situation and how the sun refuses to go down. I don’t want to give away too much information, but it’s pretty amazing. The best part is that you have a say in what happens. Decisions such as ‘Should I kill this guy and please everyone or let him live so he can help us but piss everyone off?’. Many times their choices are harsh and offer two completely different outcomes that alter the rest of the game. There have been many moments while playing Banner Saga that I had no idea what to do and often left the decision up to others or a coin toss.  If you enjoy an epic fantasy story line then The Banner Saga is right up your alley.

The combat was even better than expected as it included certain situations where permadeath was a factor. A gripe I have against video games these days is that there is hardly any risk like there was with Fire Emblem where one wrong move and there goes your greatest champion. Banner Saga offers a number of different classes, each with their own pros and cons to using them. Some heroes were extremely skilled in one area while lack luster in others, and others were hybrids being good at all things but a master at none. There were quite a few battles where I had to pause the game, study the arena, judge the strength of my enemies before actually making the first move. The AI was surprisingly good and offered some close matches.

In Conclusion

The Banner Saga is a refreshing game that offers outstanding music, artwork, story, combat and reputability. Even had this game not been on sale, I would pay full price for it. My only problem with Banner Saga was that there were so many questions left unanswered.Little did I know that this was but one part of a planned trilogy. After finding this out, I can say with all confidence that this game was one of the best I’ve played all year.