GloomFrost
Arcane
Soundtrack is not too bad. Cartoonish graphics also were not awful.
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Review RPG Codex Review: The Banner Saga
- Thread starter Crooked Bee
- Start date
Soundtrack is not too bad. Cartoonish graphics also were not awful.
Burning Bridges
Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Banner Saga is pretty enough to provide you with a few hours of curiosity, until you realize it's only an extremely stylish screensaver with unlogical choices and combat thrown in between. The combat is actually very good, but there's not much point if I cannot change the game. It degrades the role of the player to that of a helpless idiot who must grind through the combat, only to see the end screen of a game that could have played by itself. Not all is bad, at least the combat demonstrate how rewarding turn based combat can be done today. Hopefully Stoic or someone else learns a few things from this and provides us with a real game.
Keldryn
Arcane
This game needs more C&C.
Copper
Savant
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2014
- Messages
- 469
Bubbles
I'm forever blowing
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2013
- Messages
- 7,817
I didn't test all of these scenarios myself (only the first two), but this is what the wiki says:
Mogr can be killed in a few different story-paths during the escape of Hakon's caravan from the Dredge siege at the ruined fortress of Ridgehorn: [...] If you lose the battle just after the escape, Mogr will sacrifice himself to allow Hakon and the others to flee.
Egil [...] will be slain by Onef outside Frostvellr if you try to ambush the supply-wagon and fail in the ensuing battle.
Hogun joins Rook's caravan if you do not side with the villagers. Note that he will be killed if you side with him and his brother against the villagers but lose the battle.
Mogun joins Rook's caravan if you do not side with the villagers. Note that he will be killed if you side with him and his brother against the villagers but lose the battle.
Nid can be asked to join Rook's caravan in Chapter 6, if you allow Oddleif train archers from women of the caravan from Chapter 4. Nid can die if you are defeated in a particular battle that takes place near Highpass, returning to a small village to help the peasants fight off a Dredge attack. This battle can be entirely avoided thus lifting the danger of having the (quite weak) Nid die in her first battle.
Egil [...] will be slain by Onef outside Frostvellr if you try to ambush the supply-wagon and fail in the ensuing battle.
Hogun joins Rook's caravan if you do not side with the villagers. Note that he will be killed if you side with him and his brother against the villagers but lose the battle.
Mogun joins Rook's caravan if you do not side with the villagers. Note that he will be killed if you side with him and his brother against the villagers but lose the battle.
Nid can be asked to join Rook's caravan in Chapter 6, if you allow Oddleif train archers from women of the caravan from Chapter 4. Nid can die if you are defeated in a particular battle that takes place near Highpass, returning to a small village to help the peasants fight off a Dredge attack. This battle can be entirely avoided thus lifting the danger of having the (quite weak) Nid die in her first battle.
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Copper
Savant
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2014
- Messages
- 469
Cool, that's actually quite nice. It's a shame there isn't more, but without randomised clan heroes like Dragon Pass it would be a bit of a pain. It's annoying when your elite chieftain in training dies on their first hero quest, or a good ring member dies during battle, but it's not that devastating.
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2014
- Messages
- 1,901
Commendation to Bubbles for writing one of the best reviews I have seen on the Codex.
On the back of that I have recently given this one a thorough rodgering.
It's different. Forget elves and dwarves - this time we are delving into Norse type mythology. Humans and Giants placing their long time emnity on hold to join forces and combat the evil Dredge. Gods have died and the sun has stopped. No one knows what day it is or even the time. It could be the end of the world! The developers did a decent job with the background stuff, the harsh cold environment certainly comes across well.
Somewhat into the game the mountains seem to fall and a giant serpent thing seems to be slithering around - wtf is going on?
Good stuff.
The best bit so far is the combat. It looks simple and cartoony, a bit Disney to tell the truth. In fact it is more complicated than I originally thought. Don't judge a book by its cover right?
Attack Armour or Stregth.
Placing your team on the battle field.
Using those precious Willpower points to turn the tide.
Kill the weak and dying opponents or leave them to mop up later.
When to use those special attacks.
To continue and rout an enemy in battle or leave with a simple victory.
What Stoic could do with a bit more cash and more time with this combat engine is interesting in the extreme. I must know the answer. Bubbles mentions the combat was well tested before implementation and that certainly comes across.
Apart from the excellent combat a lot of the game is spent just watching your caravan marching across the country. It would be boring if not every now again your party has to deal with a confromtation where you cannot predict the optimum path through.
You come across some bandits accosting some people. On investigation you discover the people are theives and the "bandits" are just trying to get their stuff back. Who do you help?
Some guys run after you and want to join your gang. The chieften wants them back as he needs everyone to protect the town. Do you let them join or send them back?
A member of your army often gets drunk and shouts "Dredge" in the middle of the night scaring the shit out of a lot of people. He thinks it is funny. Laugh along with him or kick the crap out of his ass.
All this stuff isn't bad as it helps disguise the fact that apart from combat there is not that much going on or to do.
Renown - I keep running out of it when I try and level my characters - it is making me mad and almost prompting me to start again for a third time. I probably bought too much food - but how do you work out how much you need - does the map help?
RPG ina different setting with unique combat and not much else. I will love it for a while.
On the back of that I have recently given this one a thorough rodgering.
It's different. Forget elves and dwarves - this time we are delving into Norse type mythology. Humans and Giants placing their long time emnity on hold to join forces and combat the evil Dredge. Gods have died and the sun has stopped. No one knows what day it is or even the time. It could be the end of the world! The developers did a decent job with the background stuff, the harsh cold environment certainly comes across well.
Somewhat into the game the mountains seem to fall and a giant serpent thing seems to be slithering around - wtf is going on?
Good stuff.
The best bit so far is the combat. It looks simple and cartoony, a bit Disney to tell the truth. In fact it is more complicated than I originally thought. Don't judge a book by its cover right?
Attack Armour or Stregth.
Placing your team on the battle field.
Using those precious Willpower points to turn the tide.
Kill the weak and dying opponents or leave them to mop up later.
When to use those special attacks.
To continue and rout an enemy in battle or leave with a simple victory.
What Stoic could do with a bit more cash and more time with this combat engine is interesting in the extreme. I must know the answer. Bubbles mentions the combat was well tested before implementation and that certainly comes across.
Apart from the excellent combat a lot of the game is spent just watching your caravan marching across the country. It would be boring if not every now again your party has to deal with a confromtation where you cannot predict the optimum path through.
You come across some bandits accosting some people. On investigation you discover the people are theives and the "bandits" are just trying to get their stuff back. Who do you help?
Some guys run after you and want to join your gang. The chieften wants them back as he needs everyone to protect the town. Do you let them join or send them back?
A member of your army often gets drunk and shouts "Dredge" in the middle of the night scaring the shit out of a lot of people. He thinks it is funny. Laugh along with him or kick the crap out of his ass.
All this stuff isn't bad as it helps disguise the fact that apart from combat there is not that much going on or to do.
Renown - I keep running out of it when I try and level my characters - it is making me mad and almost prompting me to start again for a third time. I probably bought too much food - but how do you work out how much you need - does the map help?
RPG ina different setting with unique combat and not much else. I will love it for a while.
Started playing it yesterday and I have a blast. The combat system is indeed very much fun (playing on hard, where it's impossible for me to win all the battles without an ally going down - good times) and I like pretty much everything, presentation, setting, aesthetics and music etc.
The only gripe I have so far is the sometimes weird language. I switched from German to English because some of the dialogues and map descriptions felt slightly off and I blamed the translation as usual ... and I still have the same feeling. Some ill-chosen words, some nonsensical clause, it's really weird.
Still, great game so far, thx again for the recommendation, would have dismissed it otherwise.
The only gripe I have so far is the sometimes weird language. I switched from German to English because some of the dialogues and map descriptions felt slightly off and I blamed the translation as usual ... and I still have the same feeling. Some ill-chosen words, some nonsensical clause, it's really weird.
Still, great game so far, thx again for the recommendation, would have dismissed it otherwise.
Another weak spot would be the way the game trolls you by messing with your party roster.
Just had to reload a 4 hours old save because I didn't expect to lose Ludin, Bersi and Yrsa that fast and I invested heavily in promoting them. Sorry, but the game is already hard enough on hard without flushing renown points down the shitter.
edit:
Aaaaand I also don't like the way C&C are handled, all those uninformed choices with mostly immediate rewards or punishments, nearly nothing that changes the way the story unfolds, nothing that makes up for picking the less rewarding choices.
The game rewards you for playing a certain kind of leader and that's it. That's just lazy and not much better than the way other games use minigames or QTEs to mix up the non-interactive story bits aund infodumps.
Just had to reload a 4 hours old save because I didn't expect to lose Ludin, Bersi and Yrsa that fast and I invested heavily in promoting them. Sorry, but the game is already hard enough on hard without flushing renown points down the shitter.
edit:
Aaaaand I also don't like the way C&C are handled, all those uninformed choices with mostly immediate rewards or punishments, nearly nothing that changes the way the story unfolds, nothing that makes up for picking the less rewarding choices.
The game rewards you for playing a certain kind of leader and that's it. That's just lazy and not much better than the way other games use minigames or QTEs to mix up the non-interactive story bits aund infodumps.
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Finished it, finally beat the final boss on the fourth try. Tough as nails fight, couldn't win it by maiming and then killing everything like before and I also had to use a very specific team in a very specific order. Dunno what I would have done hadn't I leveled up just the right guys.
At the end the thing that kept me going was the tactical combat and nothing else. I didn't care for the story, the dialogue is crap (uneven, uninteresting, short: inane) and the characters are lame. And the ones that aren't suffer from the way the game just abuses them as infodumps or cuts them short because the caravan has to keep moving.
But the combat is really good til the end (on hard, on normal I'm sure it's just a boring timesink).
It still felt very limited with the short playtime, level 5 cap and few enemy types. And some mechanics were poorly handled, still don't know why the game doesn't show drawing aggro for every char for example. Maybe because the AI ignores it anyway, going for my squishies instead of the +2 drawing aggro tank.
The story C&C are window dressing imo, playtime is short but long enough to get a grasp of all the classes and how to utilize them.
Since the story is linear (and nothing special really, the setting doesn't help much either, the game is too short to really get to know the world so it's all just background noise to the fighting) and the only things that might change are random events and party composition there is just no replay value there, at least not for me.
Final verdict:
"Good enough for what it is" / 5
At the end the thing that kept me going was the tactical combat and nothing else. I didn't care for the story, the dialogue is crap (uneven, uninteresting, short: inane) and the characters are lame. And the ones that aren't suffer from the way the game just abuses them as infodumps or cuts them short because the caravan has to keep moving.
But the combat is really good til the end (on hard, on normal I'm sure it's just a boring timesink).
It still felt very limited with the short playtime, level 5 cap and few enemy types. And some mechanics were poorly handled, still don't know why the game doesn't show drawing aggro for every char for example. Maybe because the AI ignores it anyway, going for my squishies instead of the +2 drawing aggro tank.
The story C&C are window dressing imo, playtime is short but long enough to get a grasp of all the classes and how to utilize them.
Since the story is linear (and nothing special really, the setting doesn't help much either, the game is too short to really get to know the world so it's all just background noise to the fighting) and the only things that might change are random events and party composition there is just no replay value there, at least not for me.
Final verdict:
"Good enough for what it is" / 5
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Cadmus
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2013
- Messages
- 4,280
What a nice review, Bubbles.
I dropped the game around the time you get to the Varl fortress that is being besieged by the robots and you run away. The writing is really shitty and the character design looks annoying to me, like a real Disney cartoon. The combat is nice but but everything about the game turns me off, the screensaver part is the only pretty thing in the game.
I dropped the game around the time you get to the Varl fortress that is being besieged by the robots and you run away. The writing is really shitty and the character design looks annoying to me, like a real Disney cartoon. The combat is nice but but everything about the game turns me off, the screensaver part is the only pretty thing in the game.
Lurker King
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2015
- Messages
- 1,865,419
This game looks great! Thanks, bra!
Lurker King
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2015
- Messages
- 1,865,419
Got interested in the review because I wanted to know more about that game associated with bad management, and now I want to play the game, reviewed by Bubbles nonetheless. The irony.
a cut of domestic sheep prime
Guest
In fairness, it is kind of awesome, but most Americans play it in school. Hence the "old" ratings.
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