Cant agree with you with sounds. Just like kingdom come deliverance, the weapons sounds of this game are realistic. Realistic also means less spectacular.
In real life hitting something with an axe sounds quite lackluster compared to most movies and video games. Sadly, life lacks the oomph we expect from most things. :D
I've played the first and second and backed the third chapter on Kickstarter. I'll play that for sure! I would suggest waiting for a bundle sale of the whole trilogy.
Small thing, I believe you just misspoke, no biggie but early in the review you referred to the animation as "hand-drawn or retroscoped" I think it's "rotoscoped" just a minor nitpick there no big deal, thanks for the concise review
Thanks for the wonderful review as always. Not sure if anyone else has asked you this before, but would you consider providing the timelinks (is that a word?!) to the different parts of the review (graphics, sound, music, gameplay, and verdict) in the description? Maybe it's just me, but music and sounds may not affect my decision to buy a game that much, so sometimes I just wanna skip ahead to the gameplay (especially since music and sounds are usually reviewed between graphics and gameplay). Thanks again!
super stoked for this, going to buy and replay the trilogy, great narrative and lore, fun combat and interesting choices, if you like story games give this a shot!
Never played any turn based games. Looks cool. Really looking forward to Divinity Original Sin 2 definitive on PS4. Hope you review it because there are supposed to be many changes including the UI and also the main story.
I bought the trilogy after keeping my eye on this for years. It didn't come with BS 2's survival mode. I was devastated. I did enjoy the games and the choices were more impactful than most so I wouldn't say I completely regretted the purchase but I do need to be more careful. Been caught out twice this month. Edit: there is also a couple of other modes you can only get on pc apparently. Further added to my disappointment.
Love you, man. I'm from blighty, so 'bullshit' is the English term, but yep, like so many others below, you took me aback with that diversion. Good for you.
Thank you for the usual in depth review. Really enjoy how you put so much in, no matter it being a great game a good game or utter poop. Hoping this series stays terrific.
I really wanted to like this series, had a cool setting some pretty neat ideas for the strategy with the armour and power attacks. Unfortunately it was all ruined by the horrible battle system. It's turned based but each turn is composed of one of your characters and one of the enemies. Seems fair at first when both sides have 6 fighters. Your guy goes, then there guy goes. But as you start killing them their guys go faster and faster. Until when they are down to 1 guy he becomes "the flash" as he obliterates half your team before your characters can react. This is because as the only person left on their team he takes a turn for every turn any of your characters make. So one of your guys across the board goes, and he goes and hits one of your fighters. Then some other guy goes and tries to run in on the enemy. But then the enemy goes again and attack the same guy. The enemy will have attacked 6 times by the time your one guy near him gets to go (if he even survived that long). And if you don't immediately kill him, it will be another 6 turns till you can try again. By the time you get everyone closed in on him to take him down he will have killed 1 or two of your characters. This wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't give you huge penalty for character death. In fact the better and more strategically you fight ( the more characters you keep alive in a fight) the more this system penalizes you. So your screwed both ways. This makes each fight a tedious chore wittling down each enemy but keeping them alive, to try and get them all in a domino effect. And turns what should be gangbangs into mad scrambles against superman. It's such a shame too, because it would be so simple to correct this issue and make it a really great game.
You are confusing The Banner Saga with its clone, Ash of Gods. The fighting system in Saga doesn't work like that. In The Banner Saga, when the enemy only has one guy left, the pillage mode begins, where your whole team takes a turn before the enemy team. You can also trigger pillage when there are up to, I believe, 7 enemies left, using your leader's ability.
The Banner Saga is one of those video game series that I want to like but just really can't get into. I played a bit of the first game on mobile when my PC died for 6 weeks but I ended up playing a text-based Choose Your Own Adventure style game instead. It's a punishing game & it'll constantly make you want to save scum or just rage quit. I wish I had the patience but I just can't enjoy games like this.
I don't know if we're talking about the same game here. In The Banner Saga it's pretty easy to not lose a single battle in the game even on hard difficulty. There is also basically no punishment for failing a battle. Why would you ever want to save scum or rage quit?
It seems interesting the only problem for me is the fact that it's turn based the last turn based game I enjoyed was pokemon :/ I wish it was a RTT but oh well
Thanks for this review I have been wondering about these titles for a while now. The art style looks great, it reminds me of some old school animated fantasy movie.
Dang it man costing me more money buy coving a game I had no interest in so well that I get interested in it and go buy it. Great review by the way always a fan of your work.
I can't wait to dive in this third title after i finish my WoW dailys..thanks Karak! PS: How long was one playthrough for you? (cause I need to finish this game before Yakuza 0 comes out on Aug 1st).
Each game depending on your skill, understanding of the strategies id say average playthrough can be between 10 and 15 hours. Different endings for each game so multiple playthroughs are always fun.
Each and everyone of your choice trough the first two games will have an impact on How your clan manages to face the apocalypse at the end of the 3rd game. A solid playtrough of the first two games will not only give you more characters, it will also give you many ti.es the supplies you would have by simply starting a new game in banner saga 3. Kinda like mass effect
I love banner saga but I'm not that happy with the price system. They are flipping the whole game design, engine, animation, combat, everything from game to game(even though I love it). And while they are creating a bunch(I wouldn't say a lot) of content from game to game, they are essentially DLCs from the first game, charging as if it was a whole new game to me feels a bit greedy.
It is. I already forgot half of what was happening in the second game. I was like: "What, the mage dude is an old gray-haired man now? The shield maiden is under mind-control? The Valka witch can ressurect herself indefinitely? And my boy Bolverk turned into a fucking zombie?"
Did they change the wonky-ass combat system where killing bad guys makes the other bad guys go into hyperdrive for some reason, so the best way to play is the unfun way of handicapping them all instead of actually killing guys one at a time? Or do you actually like that system as you said you liked the combat system, but that is what made me stop playing the first one pretty quickly.
That's the thing - the story is great, but games should have good 'gameplays'... Some games like banner saga and Pyre are unique in terms of graphics and story... but the way the 'game plays' is too much limited.
