The Banner Saga - That Kickstarter Game with Vikings

[Great Rumbler]

The game's out today, if you're interested in it picking it up off Steam for $20 [or $25 if you don't preorder in the next 3 hours].

There are no flashy rendered cutscenes, but Banner’s art direction is stellar. Drawn in a clean, uncluttered style that was inspired by Cinderella-era Disney animation, game’s visuals are unique and perfectly mated to the game’s Viking aesthetic. The characters are nicely designed, but there is relatively little movement in the game, aside from battle animations and the slow trudge of the caravans across the landscape. Whether this is a budgetary constraint or design decision, the game’s pace and energy would benefit from more animation. Austin Wintory’s score–primarily wind ensemble cues and percussion instruments with an occasional plaintive solo violin or vocalist–is heroic and appropriately clear, and brittle. It is evocative and emotional, refreshingly without a hint of cloying romantic sentimentality.

Despite a strong overall presentation, The Banner Saga stumbles a bit in its failure to make the story clear and engaging from the start, to manage the game’s pacing and build consistently towards a climax, and make the significant amount of text feel as vital to the experience as it actually is to the gameplay. From a character-player perspective, the weight and burden of leadership is well conveyed and the constant, worrying decisions mean there is always something meaningful to consider. The battles are engaging, despite the limited gallery of enemies, and the music and presentation are well done. There is a great deal of replayability in this first installment and I look forward to the upcoming chapters of the game.

An original work of epic fantasy in the truest sense of the term, The Banner Saga can only be called a triumph. Feature-quality production values make the world come alive, while weighty choices and deep combat with a real sense of consequence make for a story that feels both personalized and dramatically satisfying. If you’re getting tired of swords and sorcery, or just looking for meaty tactical battles, few RPGs will satisfy you better.

The Banner Saga offers a refreshing take on the tactical RPG with a story every bit as engaging as its combat. It is a beautiful game filled with ugly choices and tough consequences. While this crowd-funded instalment stands as a complete experience in itself, it deserves to sell well enough that the planned parts two and three might come to fruition. I don't envy the hundreds that have suffered under my ineffectual command, but it would be a shame not to see the saga through to its end.

In a twisting of a similar perspective, Stoic’s vision reduces those ‘hero shots’ to a rabble led by a fragile banner, carrying families, histories and entire cultures in its wake. Broken carts creak and clatter. It’s a picture of vulnerability and a different kind of strength, and at its best the game is about that as much as it’s about stats and tiles. It’s a shame that, in this instance, the world is more fascinating than the somewhat cumbersome game that inhabits it.

That risk/reward duality permeates through the game, to the decisions you need to make while on the road. There’s a persistent need to keep morale up, but joining in with some drunken revelry (say,) may leave your convoy open to attack. Likewise, you’ll always be needing more fighters and warriors by your side, but it’s worth keeping in mind just what kind of characters you might be inviting to share tents with you.

I’ve mentioned the magnificent landscapes already, but it’s worth reiterating that the art and animation are terrific throughout. Combat animations in particular add a really dynamic aspect to the turn-based action, as you see fighters struggle to maintain balance after a heavy blow or pull a bow from their back to loose off an arrow. The face-to-face dialogue scenes can sometimes seem a bit static (even with the odd bit of beard wiggling,) but that’s being super picky. Alongside all that, you have Austin “holy crap he did the music from Journey” Wintory providing a score full of nomadic violin and throaty choral Vikings. Lovely stuff.

It’s tempting to say that The Banner Saga is like a long-lost, early Disney film about Vikings, except of course for the fact that Disney would never touch this narrative. It’s a tale that is bleak and relentless, depicting a group of dwindling refugees trying to escape the end of the world. With its weighty choices, strong writing and convincing characters, even the dread hand of the saved game apocalypse couldn’t prevent me loving this one.

This game feels like a project created by artists. It's uncompromising to a fault. Tiptoeing its way around trite conventions and hackneyed design choices, I have no doubt that the team at Stoic created the game they wanted to make. By the end of the journey, I cared for my banner like a shepherd tending to his flock. I commiserated with their hardships, as the thread of despondency wove its way throughout virtually every aspect of the experience.

The Banner Saga is dark and onerous experience, but its one that draws you in.  I'll be waiting with bated breath to see which way this winding path darts next. Something tells me we're not out of the woods just yet.

The Banner Saga deserves commendation for the strength of its art and music experience alone, which shatters conventions. That experience, in turn, complements a bleak story of a world teetering before its fall, where the harshness of the Scandinavian landscape mirrors the plight of mutually distrustful refugees. It's also a tough tactical RPG that rewards thought and careful strategy, although it stumbles a bit in explaining systems beyond its combat.

I ... just go and play it, will you? With the caveat that you understand that this is only tangentially related to games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. You won't be able to assemble a League of Extraordinary Fantasy Soldiers here or even dress them to the nines. Which is fantastic because the claustrophobic desperation of the plot wouldn't gel well with the genre's usual tropes. The Banner Saga is a taciturn beast, unwilling to freely yield its secrets. It's like the winter that swallowed the world, with rules that are blindingly simple to understand but difficult to command. Beautiful, bleak and built like what all good viking-related media want to grow up to be, the first chapter of The Banner Saga is a work of art. (So there, hah!)

Pretty solid reviews all around, sounds like it managed to do just about everything it set out to do from the beginning.

[Fifstar]

Put it on my wishlist. Vids of the tactical combat look pretty unappealing for some reason to me though.

[MoxManiac]

I was a kickstarter backer, I'd like to redeem my free copy but the website they set up to do it is broken right now

[Great Rumbler]

It's pretty good so far! Graphics, art, and music are top-shelf, the combat is deceptively simple, and the story's interesting.

[Human Snorenado]

I backed it and am having the same issue.

[mjemirzian]

I might be totally off on this, but is it kinda like The Oregon Trail: Tactics? lol

[Great Rumbler]

I might be totally off on this, but is it kinda like The Oregon Trail: Tactics? lol

It actually kind of is!

The sidescrolling section is when you're traveling between locations on the map, with portraits for the dialog sections, and the isometric grid for the turn-based combat.

[brob]

There was a lovely edutainment game called vikingbyen where you governed a viking settlement somewhat like Oregon Trail which is basically my entire reason for being hyped about this game.

The little I played of the f2p multi made positional play seem important which is cool, but I kinda lost interest since it was too grindy n stuff.

[Great Rumbler]

The little I played of the f2p multi made positional play seem important which is cool, but I kinda lost interest since it was too grindy n stuff.

Pretty sure there's not really any grinding in the main game, fortunately.

[Bebpo]

Played some of this tonight.  Really like a lot of it.  The combat is neat!  Feels unique and there's not a lot of srpgs on PC.  Definitely can see the depth which makes me happy.  The art is gorgeous and the story choices make the tale a lot more enjoyable since you have some input.

Only downsides are the interface is incredibly janky and bad.  Like is there a button to cancel an action without having to move your mouse to another action to cancel it? 


And Himuro will hate this game since there's no subs during the cutscenes and the weird accents make it kind of hard to understand the characters sometimes.  Voice acting seems kind of ...bad


But yeah, definitely excited to jump into this once I finish up the games I'm currently playing.  Glad I backed it!

[Great Rumbler]

I think you can cancel out from an action with the right button on the mouse.

The decision to not have subtitles is such a dumb thing to do. Sometime I waffle back and forth on whether I use them or not, but anybody with serious hearing problems would absolutely need them and, like you said, some of the accents are a little weird so some things are just simply hard to understand anyway. Maybe that's something they'll get a patch on soon, though.

[MrAngryFace]

Works PRETTY well on my Venue Pro 8. Only catch is map scrolling- but there's a reliable way to do that 90% of the time so whatever.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I might be totally off on this, but is it kinda like The Oregon Trail: Tactics? lol

you know, I just started Expeditions: Conquistador, and that was pretty much my take on it so far (Turn Based Hex Fights/Oregon Trail Subsistence)

[Big Barry Jazz]

Soundtrack's up on Austin Wintory's bandcamp page to listen to and buy.

[chronovore]

Is this also the thread where we discuss King (of Candy Crush Saga) taking legal action against this game developer for use of the word "Saga"?

[Great Rumbler]

Is this also the thread where we discuss King (of Candy Crush Saga) taking legal action against this game developer for use of the word "Saga"?

 

Fun Fact: The Banner Saga went on sale [through Kickstarter] a whole month before Candy Crush Saga launched on Facebook.

[Rufus]

Almost every single game they ever made ends with "Saga".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King.com

I guess that's why they have a case? This shit is stupid regardless. What would happen as far as confusion goes? "Oh, this is not a match three puzzler? I'll never look for another [blabla] Saga game again"?

[Great Rumbler]

Almost every single game they ever made ends with "Saga".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King.com

[Eel O'Brian]

The Candy Banner

[Tasty]

[CatsCatsCats]

Only clicked because I thought this said boner saga, looks cool tho

[chronovore]

Those Cinderella-esque backgrounds are really gorgeous.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I'm playing this now on PS4 and it's really sweet. Made it to chapter 5 without too much struggle so far, but it feels like it's about to get tough.

Digging the story too.

The sequel is coming this year too to PC, should be more good stuff:)

http://www.gamereactor.eu/articles/371203/The+Banner+Saga+2+Stoic+on+the+Journey+Ahead/