The Banner Saga - Review @ RPG Codex

Bubbles from the RPG Codex has reviewed The Banner Saga - some snippets:

If I had to guess how Stoic used their Kickstarter budget for this game, I would wager that they spent most of their money on visual and sound design. The Banner Saga's score presents a surprisingly effective combination of moody chants and rousing battle marches, featuring plenty of drums, string instruments, and grizzled Icelandic singers. It complements the gameplay nicely, providing the proper backdrop for a lonely journey through a harsh northern landscape. The game's locations also offer unique sound work; when woodcutters are around, you will hear axes and labourer's chatter, while a settlement of cattle herders presents you with a symphony of gentle mooing sounds. Visually, the game shows off a distinct 2D art style with a rich colour palette, suffused with intricate details. Particularly noteworthy are the rotoscoped combat animations, which manage to express a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. With so many modern RPGs featuring limp melee animations, it is very nice to a see a game where the combatants actually contort their bodies and visibly take time to recover while swinging their heavy weapons around. The fact that the game's visual design is also fully coherent and without any obvious flaws should generally not be worthy of note, much less of praise; however, after seeing so many strange problems with recent games – I recall the mismatched NPC models in Wasteland 2 and the sloppy area lighting and perspective issues in the Shadowrun games – it is nice to see an indie RPG that simply looks consistently good. But is there any depth to the design? Is “great style” just shorthand for shallow narrative design and simple gameplay? Let us investigate. (…)

After close inspection, I can attest that Stoic's C&C system is quite cunningly implemented. Let us start with what would normally be the worst consequence of them all: you lose a battle against a horde of merciless enemies. Your heroes all fall unconscious on the battle field, and all hope is lost. What happens now? Reload to last save? That would be the bland, safe choice, allowing you to simply redo the battle until you get it right and can reap the rewards of victory. So, no, that is not what happens. Instead, a text window pops up and tells you how you got saved. Usually, some of your nameless supporting troops rushed to your aid and hurtled themselves onto the spears of your enemies, thus paying the ultimate price in the service of a smooth gameplay experience. Rarely, one of your less important companions made a heroic sacrifice, forever removing himself from your party roster in the process. Sometimes you wake up, battered and defeated, without really knowing what happened. Much e-blood has already been spilled over this mechanic; many of the game's harshest critics absolutely abhor the fact that it is (almost) impossible to get a game over screen from a party wipe. Other, more tolerant and progressive minds have come to appreciate the advantages of this implementation. (…)

Parting Remarks
The Banner Saga is an immensely unique, and, by no coincidence, immensely good game that combines great artistic design and robust C&C mechanics with a highly entertaining and deceptively complex battle system. The Banner Saga has only a few outright flaws; the shoddy dialogues and the constant need to click-click-click through them line by line are a blemish on an otherwise engaging narrative. Moreover, the startling lack of enemy variety and the relatively dumb AI keep the battle system from realizing its potential for true tactical greatness. The game's system of choices and consequences also has far less of an impact on the story than Stoic's PR department has been trying to claim; nonetheless, it still offers an engaging and immersive range of decisions that will directly influence your battle performance and can occasionally result in major character deaths.

I suspect that The Banner Saga will always be the subject of great controversy; it has a kind of self-assured swagger, flaunting all of its little weirdnesses and weaknesses without making much of an effort to look like a typical tactical cRPG or a typical casual story game. The game features heaps upon heaps of idiosyncratic gameplay systems, like the strange combination of a broad C&C system with a fully pre-determined linear story, the fact that you will rarely if ever be able to see a "game over" screen, the "sit back and immerse yourself" approach to map travel, and a whole slew of novel and deeply unrealistic combat mechanics. You may choose to accept or reject these mechanics according to your personal preferences; all I can tell you is that all of these elements stand in the service of a fully coherent and extremely tightly designed gameplay experience that I deeply enjoyed playing through.

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As always a quality comprehensive review from Mr. Bubbles.

I'm on the fence about this game. And the Steam discount will last like 22 hrs from now. Should I grab it ? The RPGWatch's curator does recommend it ?

It's 7/10 game, pretty linear exploring, but some cool c&c, turn based chess like combat, nice story & trek management.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
It's 7/10 game, pretty linear exploring, but some cool c&c, turn based chess like combat, nice story & trek management.

What do you mean by "c&c" ? Sorry, I've seen this abbreviation here before, but I was afraid to ask. Now, since you answered directly a question of mine, I have no choice but asking

Choices & Consequences or better Choices with Consequences

- an ingredient every good RPG needs.

The choices could use bigger consequences. I believe there was a piece here on The Watch recently about the sequel intending to do just that. Liked the chessesque combat, though a few more abilities and such would be appreciated. Greater variety of enemies needed. Got tired of fighting the Bucketheads toward the end. Was ready for the game to end when it did, though it only dragged for a little while at the end before wrapping up. Liked the caravan-management concept, but it could use bigger consequences, as well. Liked the art style. Not a waste of time at all. HiddenX's score it spot on in my book.

Steam sale for $5? Grab it for sure.

Thanks for the answers, HiddenX and Capt. Huggy Face. I already grabbed it !

For me this was the most disappointing game of 2014, probably because I had very high expectations for it. The dialogues and artwork were great, but I didn't find the gameplay very good. It felt like a visual novel to me, and I find that's not the kind of game I like playing. Lots of people seem to really like it though, so I guess I'm in the minority. I was surprised to find that I even liked Child of Light better than the Banner Saga.