The Banner Saga – Review

As you haul your caravan of supplies and army of soldiers across the map the bleak sobering backdrop of war and struggle to survive is made ever pure in the Banner Saga on PlayStation 4. Making decisions that are life and death is common occurrence but getting these right is key if you want to survive the 10 hour campaign should you begin the journey at all?

Stoic set out on a mission with banner saga to make you the player feel like you are creating your own Viking like story of heroism. It’s the unclear and often unexpected decisions that have the biggest ramifications but what the Banner saga does so incredibly well throughout its 10 hour campaign is constantly have you on the back foot. Decisions are constant throughout the game and so they should as it’s an RPG after all and sculpting your character in stats as well as behaviour is key to the genre. Making emotionally tough choices through dialogue and as you approach battle will have pretty impactful consequences. Some so severe you may even want to start all over again.

In the heat of the action the Banner saga is a turn based strategy RPG tasking you with methodically understanding your characters strengths and weaknesses as you head into battle. Each character in the game has a range of different skillsets and upgrading these as you progress in the right way will be the real reason behind many of your battle triumphs. Renown is the currency on offer and will enable you to rank up each of your characters as you progress through the story. Renown is gained in battle through killing enemies and for winning each battle. Choosing which of your roster to rank up vs the other is a tough choice and often I’m left regretting investing hard earned Renown on some weak individuals that won’t last the testing battles I needed them for.

Before you have to make those tough in battle decisions agonising over the numbers and stats, you are often met with an obtrusively vague set of options which may see each battle play out differently. Story narration will give some subtle indicators but deciding when best to charge, get formations or retreat is really down to pure luck with the Banner saga often too keen to hurt your progress as a result of its vague narration in places. Heading into battle you are given the option of picking one of those approaches and then selecting from a range of characters. Many of these characters are unlocked as you progress through the game. How to win each battle in Banner saga is down to your tactical noose and ability to position your characters both at the start and during the battle in an effective way.

“there is a clear consequence of how you handle each piece of dialogue.”

Each character has a turn space to operate in and offers up two stats which may impact your approach. These two stats are defence and health. Each as significant as each other but health being the determining factor in whether a character survives or not. Getting some opponents health down at all is entirely determined on how well you bring down their initial defences in the blue. However important the initial battle tutorials make this out at the get go I didn’t really find myself having to focus on this as a strategy until some of the later levels and I’m convinced that even then I could have got through many battles just by attacking the health element of enemies on each occasion. Perhaps on the higher difficulties in the later stages this would have been the death of me.

Some battles also offer in the additional risk vs reward mechanic to really give the player choice of how they want to progress and have their characters known by. Do you win the initial battle and flee or do you chance your luck and kick the enemy when their down by taking on a second wave. It’s yet another way the game forces great decision making scenarios on the you the player both in battle and through the narrative.

In many RPGs I tend to find myself skipping through the dialogue with in many games the action telling the story effectively enough. In the main this is true of the Banner Saga however unlike most games there is a clear consequence of how you handle each piece of dialogue. Your leadership will be tested with morale defining decisions which may have far lasting consequences in your playthrough. Choosing to act swiftly and firmly with a drunk in your caravan or be the passive one who lets the behaviour rage on will either positively or negatively impact your following? Nurturing this following is key to preserver a strong and motivated army of soldiers when taking on the dredge.

Although pushed at many turns to making leadership decisions that have wide ranging impacts Banner saga can be a little confusing. In most games with an RPG element I play the role as an individual looking to shape my behaviour through all my actions. Whether I’m a wanderer in Fallout 4, Commander Shephard in Mass Effect I’m making decisions for me and the world around me will change as a result. What Banner Saga does however is have you making decisions for different people. Often such lines of narration are incredibly vague and obtuse so my investment in the characters is at times lost and fuels my want to skip ahead. However managing each interaction and paying close attention to the story will reward you in different ways through increased supplies, gifts or Renown.

“Visually the games a treat and suits its style and if you are a fan of Nordic battle games this one should definitely be in your collection.”

Your leadership is also tasked through some of the banner sagas smaller in game mechanics. Choosing to rest at camp for a few extra days can have huge benefits, better rested soldiers and refreshed will power will aid you in battle but will dwindle your supplies. During battle the use of Willpower also has to be carefully managed. Saving it up and utilising it later in the battle will reward you with greater damage on attacks but there’s only a limited supply available and resting for a turn is never an ideal way to go about sourcing more.

Visually the Banner saga is cartoon in nature and depicts the narrative through a side scrolling trek across the worlds map. Screens are animated if not fully realised with text scrolling the bottom of each screen. In parts there is voice over work in play but something I feel is lacking in the game is voice over for each character. Reading the dialogue doesn’t make sense at points and taking note of each character is tough in places. If Stoic had invested in to getting voice actors to narrate each line with some environmental sounds in the background it would go a long way to helping some of those decisions, through voice we get tone and by tone we get insight. I just never felt through simple words and still screens that I got the flavour of these characters that I wanted to.

All that being said Banner Saga is for me the perfect length for an RPG of this ilk. It plays enough twists and surprises that I want to give it another playthrough to discover some of the different paths I could have taken on my journey. Its turn based battle system is nothing new compared to others on the market but what I did find was an emotionally impactful ending worth playing through for. The battles are enjoyable with enough depth but once you’ve done about 10 of them your not going to experience anything new as the game progresses. Enemies aren’t varied enough to enable this. Visually the games a treat and suits its style and if you are a fan of Nordic battle games this one should definitely be in your collection. Banner Saga is available now on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.  This copy was supplied for review on PlayStation 4.