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The Banner Saga
RPS' John Walker and Adam Smith have done a
back-and-forth preview of the soon-to-be-released (and pretty long in the making) Chapter One of
The Banner Saga. The gist of it is, they found it hard and confusing:
Adam: The most confusing part of the conversations is being referred to as ‘you’. It took me a while to realise who ‘I’ was. And then it changed! IDENTITY CRISIS. I thought I was the scribe at first, which made a certain kind of sense – a character not directly involved in combat and therefore unable to perish. But then I realised I was a giant with an axe.
John: I was certain I was the scribe. Now I’ve no idea who I was.
Adam: You are a casualty of war. All of that said, I appreciate the lack of lengthy exposition. To an extent. It’d be helpful to have a brief primer though. [...]
John: Okay, so the fights. I’m not the best at turn-based tactics, obviously. But I found them extremely difficult.
Adam: They are. And I think that’s partly because everything is so easy at first. Walk here, hit the man, the man falls down. Everybody is happy. And suddenly the distinction between armour and health becomes extremely important – which to target when and which character to use – and special abilities are absolutely necessary. I cracked it, but it took a while. And there were moments of frustration, when I thought I’d have to give up.
John: I’m certain I’m doing everything available. Firing of special moves early and until I run out of juice, chipping at armour before going for health, and making sure Varl are in the front lines. But I still only take 2 armour off an enemy who then thwacks me for 9, and am massively overpowered in every situation.
And with the fighters in the West, I’ve not been given a chance to buy items at any point I can recall, and prevented from resting between big fights, and too often not given chances to level up my characters. It feels really strangely restrictive. The screens offering me a choice of whom to take into battle are pretty meaningless. Um, everyone, obviously. And then there’s no freedom, no option to use an archer, or rebalance my tanks, etc.
Adam: It’s punishing, no doubt about it. Any attack that can create separation, pushing enemies back or grouping them together for knock-on effects, works wonders. There are chain reactions that chip away at a whole group. I tended to have a couple of varls hang back and only plod into battle when armour was already depleted. And sometimes that meant sacrificing another character to an early injury – a sort of kamikaze attack.
Agreed on the restrictiveness though. Squad selection is meaningless – presumably that changes later in the game, perhaps when the two groups meet? And there aren’t enough chances to shop or level up. It doesn’t help that there are SO many different classes, all with one special ability. And mostly unique to a single character, at this point.
BUT I LIKE IT!
John: See, I don’t! [...] I’m at a point now where I can’t win a fight. My guys are injured, the game won’t let me rest before the next fight, and it’s packed with ridiculously overpowered enemies. So I won’t win it, no matter how often I replay. So is that a game over? Am I done now?
The verdict is, of course, that the game needs rebalancing so that poor game journalists don't struggle so much with it.
Also covered in the preview: permadeath, seemingly random events, and the game's art style. They also note that while there are decisions that can influence your progress, the game is completely "on rails"; but I guess that was to be expected.
