i'm buying this just to give every one of banner saga games a bad review. Stoic(if it's a person) is just a egoestic narcissist, who's okey as a narrative designer but terrible as a game designer. Yet he cherish all his stupid ideas so much thinking they are genius. You know what's extra pathetic? People defending the game, who's in general just trying to show-off or be special.
1. The battles are not puzzle(at least not well made ones), and luck is a DECIDING factor
Enemy moves first, reinforcement is placed random, you are doing well on the battle but then, the next wave pops a 18 strength ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ right in your face and it moves FIRST!
There're people like the A*** who's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for Stoic, who's constantly claiming that it is a interesting puzzle (trying desperately to indicate he's able to think around, guess that's who you pretend when you have half a brain), and non-luck based (seriously, who about that reinforcement in face problem? is that not luck?)
2. Conflicting designs that shows how little this Stoic person knows about games
The odd turn orders is one of the thing developers are so proud of, yet it conflicts with any realistic/common game logic, so technically you shouldn't kill anything, but leave it at very little HP just to degrade enemy turn ourcome. BUT, when all the stupid fans are high on this, this ♥♥♥♥ is nothing but a counter-intuitive negative feedback loop(rubber bending in lamer's term). Additionally, it's a rubber-bending mechanic targeted only at the player(since you'd not have people die consistantly as part of tactic).
It's basically just a mario-kart rubber-bending, but when you change the form of it, some stupid people would take the bait, and think it's so clever(so to prove them, as lovers of this mechanic, is also clever).
The wounded doesn't regenerate through calender time, but only when you rest. What is that? X-Com injury system, only more punishing (because in that game you can natrually get back your team-mates without cost). Again, it's decorated in a different way, and certain low-iq fans will take the bait again.
So you see? This dude is basically just grabbing all the most-hated mechanics from other games and thinking they are good, and gathering a little cult that's desperately draining self-esteem from it. Don't be one of them my friend.
3. Good narrative direction, BUT non-reasonable dialogue options
Remember how bad fallout 4's dialogue options was? This is even worse. Without a guide, you never know if certain things(it could be as bad as losing your protaganist) is because of your choices, or a narrative choice. It's just so bad that people need to post guides that directly indicate outcomes from game-database. Because there's no one to logically understand the options and consequences.
Again, this is somewhat a mix. The narration does benefit from it, but it's a design that's so conflicted to the point you'd be reading a guide line by line just to make sure you don't accidently LOSE a character forever. Sign....i bet he's getting some narrative decision that worked in other games and feeling smart again, but NO, it doesn't work here.
Over-all, like i said, i'm just collecting all 3 games to give a warning to any decent folks out there. And now i'm off to the second game. Have a good time, and stay away from this game(watch people play probably is the best).
