Banner Saga Trilogy: A Short Review
I have played Banner Saga games for many hours: a game trilogy by Stoic developer. The Stoic started their trilogy with an excessively successful Kickstarter campaign and is based on a Nordic apocalypse world. You go through constant turn-taking fights, but the reason any of your companions die (or yourself) is your decisions before or after the matches.
Banner Saga 1
Two primary factors, that made the first banner saga game a memorable experience, were (a) beautiful 2D design; and (b) the excellent soundtrack.
The story is dark and sad. However, since Sopranos (or Skyrim or Game of Thrones or...), everything is sad and gloomy.
The story had three primary characters: human (normal average Jose mostly), Varl: Nordic giants with horns (purely a homage to Scandinavian Nordic people) and Dredge: dark misunderstood monsters.
I liked the first Banner Saga game and found it interesting at least, and you can find plenty of positive reviews on the Internet by critics or gamers.
As another significant factor in the first game; it doesn't create “faultless, unique, precious, cute” hype out of Varls. Varls, though bigger, have weaknesses, obsessions, and severe paranoia like humans. You could distinguish varls from each other; same as human. The game was intelligent enough to understand the strengthens of such an approach.
Finally, the story tried to put the pressure of decisions on your shoulder. The game constantly pushes you to make harder and harder decisions: moral or morale, good or bad, and two grey choices.
Banner Saga 2
The second game was also impressive from one or two aspects: (a) it improved the mechanics and let you better comprehend the lore; (b) you had to encounter with exciting but small choices that you wondered about their outcomes.
The addition of training sessions to learn all the overlooked capabilities of your companion and also a new set of interesting enemies are a welcoming addition.
I have to emphasize again: the second game is an excellent improvement concerning the technical aspects: enemy types, fighting techniques, beneficial training sessions, and new graphics. However, the second story had severe issues.
The first banner saga had a big decision at the end: your last choice results in the death of the daughter or the father. The story was intelligent enough not to make it a clear critical choice: you could hardly read it through lines unless you have the walkthrough and decision trees.
The Banner Saga 1 didn't try to make it an issue of ageism or sexism or anything else but an emotional one between a daughter and father. You have time to know them both. Learn their preferences and their fighting styles. Moreover, the story didn't make your decision into a Simsons's middle way gibberish: both sides are wrong! Always wrong! Hail the centre!
In both cases, people would understand your decision and your limit of power to stop it. Yes, In both cases people try to comfort you, but they don't try to convince you that if the other person were alive, wow~ it would be neat!!!
Moreover, the Varls suddenly are these great cool precious woollen giants who are loyal, friendly, and beautiful and lots of emphasis on their uniqueness and lack of children. It is interesting from all these three critical races in two groups (humans and dark dredges have plenty of children) but not the Varls. Some people can find some stereotypes here if they want.
The second banner saga game was the weakest (worst) game from the decision-making side.
You have suddenly had to deal with an authority figure from the previous game for the first time: the person is condensing and rude but no significant interaction with him. I found it funny after one of your decision; the game only mentions this authority figure (Rugga) shakes his head. I thought wow, what a character development.
At the end of the story, you have a chance to stay inside the castle and benefit from the protections of the capital offers or stay in solidarity with all the people who were banned from entering the city: all humans with possible Varls (depends on to your previous decisions).
The interesting thing is, regardless of what your standing is with Varls; they would take their own decisions without any consideration for you: their companions in this long and dangerous journey. If they are welcomed, they go in the capital without even mentioning a word to their just a minute ago comrades. Yes, you heard right: the king doesn't let his people come in (due to shortness of resources) and closed the gate to them, but right away make these giants bulls, who eat substantially more than humans, inside because of personal/political reasons.
Here, was an interesting choice to make: should you stay with people outside to push for all people to come to the capital, or just decide it is better to take your tribes inside regardless of others.
I think the story would be great if they let you choose honestly and objectively. Stay with people outside the walls and don't accept the king's bribe to enter. Or stay with Varls and save your people who trusted you to take them to safety.
However, the game, though doesn't provide you with any third option, make sure that your moral decision to stay with hungry frighted people outside as a choice from a moral perspective.
The leader of people outside is, of course, meany(!?) Rugga whom the story do everything in his power to make as a jerk. Even people around him are jerks. The story throws everything to your face to make it impossible to have any positive feeling concerning the clear moral choice.
If you look at the forums on Banner Saga, many gamers decide to go inside the capital regardless of the people outside due to their hatred towards Rugga. He, though rarely conversed with us or even fought with us through the long second game as their leader. Even Rugga becoming the leader of people outside the city walls is vague and sudden. You can actually ask him, exposition, how he became the leader of people, and he doesn't provide any real reason or long (more than two sentences) reply.
Let's not consider the gamer who only decided to stay outside the capital due to their feeling of humbleness/comradeship towards Varls (who are not allowed inside in one of the many possible outcomes) in this argument.
Just remember, there is one decidedly who prefers to live with humans and is a friend to them: Iver. I was very curious to see what side he would take: stay with humans or Varls. Due to his strong friendship towards the father or sense of responsibility towards the daughter, he would stand with the human tribe, no matter if they decide to stay in or out of capital. This factor could put a dark shadow on our great fluffy giants of the second game and their decisions to leave without you. But of course: Iver is not there to make any decision…
Just one chapter before this decision, he departs the tribe. What a great writing! When I read this first, I laughed. I wasn't expecting Brothers Karamazov, but these people are awful at writing a story.
The last problem with Banner Saga 2 was the previous chapter 15 which everybody called twist hanger of the plot. However, it turned out it wasn't. More on that later.
Banner Saga 3
The last game in the series is just disappointing. I liked to see all the big or small decisions, and I made to have found disappointing ignored. The third story ignored many decisions that you made in previous games.
But to avoid the ending of mass effect 3 disasters (which infamously ignored everything beforehand), they tried to add a factor to the game: they count the number of people who have (Varls counted four times more) and give you days for it. So, they can let you know, you see, your decision matters: you get one more day.
OK, but what about characters interactions?
What about all of that paranoia by Varls for example? Who killed their king finally? What happens whether you choose to romance with another character or not. Does it even matter? The relationship that the game, cleverly, let you decide to have or not, doesn't also consider in any part of the game.
Instead of depth, the writers try to make the story darker!
You make a wrong decision, and somebody dies; OK, this game more often. The end.
So many loopholes and subplots were left without even a small node of appreciation. Here, I mean the ones that you made decisions from at least three options.
The story instead tries to wrap of the dark plot thoroughly, You spent half of the game dealing with world-eating darkness and decided to bring back our sun.
Here, considering the focus, I was waiting for a big twist or something. However, what we got in the last game, Chapter 15, was all the story they had.
They tried to create the illusion of more depth by adding two minutes origin animation, but regardless, the whole main plot is nothing more than what we learnt in the last chapter of banner saga 2. Great, but at least they finished it without any loopholes.
The game enemy types, as nearly all the major critics mentioned (do they all copy and paste IGN or PC Gamer?) is the weakest part of Banner Saga 3. Not because they are comfortable or few. However, because they are very similar to each other. In this game, they added a new enemy: big fluffy turkeys.
Another part that was mentioned nearly all game critics were the fantastic graphics and soundtrack (Do they all copy and paste IGN or PC Gamer?). OK, but they are from two games before, do you even read anything at all? Take a look at Wikipedia page at least before writing a review. If anything, the graphics were hugely disappointing this time. At least the Banner Saga 2 added a new set of environments such as red jungles. They were pretty, or at least unique.
Take a look at tiresome graphics of the third game, it is still good but no innovative or memorable area.
Finally, the third game finishes by adding a short conversation and tries to get your pass by wasting your time with all of those decisions. Few scatter choices, not emphasised in any way, on the road are suddenly reasons that the world survives or not. As I mentioned, the game tries to avoid the Mass Effect 3 infamous ending issue, which ignored all possible efforts and decisions.
OK, good. However, it is incredibly forced (deus ex machina).
I had so much hope for this trilogy to be phenomena. The potential was there, and everything was ready. Releasing the game five months earlier was appreciated, but I think from the story perspective, game attributes, and graphics were substantially weaker than even the second game.
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