If you like Supergiant's games, you'll definitely like this.
I got this game sometime after playing the demo for The Pale Beyond, but only played it long after playing Pyre, which I greatly enjoyed.
Onto the meat of the review.
[b]LEGEND: love (╋), like (+), neutral (~), dislike (-), abhor (—)[/b]
[b]╋ MUSIC[/b]; Downbeat acoustic soundtrack with vocals. My favorite track is "There Is No Bad Weather".
[b]╋ VISUALS[/b]; 2D Graphics look amazing. The use of colors, parallax, linear motions, and reuse of similar sprites, is as beautiful as it is impressive.
[b]╋ STORY[/b]; Themes of trade-off, limited agency, thanatology, perspective, normalcy bias, loss aversion.
[b]╋ UI/UX[/b]; Spacebar, Enter, and Numpad Enter, all forward text. Many indie text-based games focused on story-decisions neglect to do this, which is hugely important for comfort and usability.
[b]╋ UI/UX[/b]; I appreciate the quality and consistency of texts descriptive of character abilities and such. They are frontloaded with "how" followed by "what", very succinct.
[b]╋ COMBAT[/b]; One thing Banner Saga has, which I love, is low numeric values. Into the Breach also has this.
[b]+ STORY/VISUALS[/b]; On the map, you can read descriptions about places and roads. It doesn't get much use, and it's not necessary, but it's really awesome that the option is there. It makes the world feel more alive.
[b]+ ECONOMY[/b]; Resting spends Supplies which you find, are gifted, or buy with Renown. "Renown" is the exchange currency you get by defeating enemies in combat. This was never an issue, and in fact, I found it a fun, interesting, smooth and "unproblematic" piece of design.
[b]∽ COMBAT[/b]; I saw a reviewer claim the "last boss is broken after 10 years" and proceed not to qualify how. I had zero issues with the last boss, and everything proceeded smoothly. I saw another claim it was "obnoxiously difficult", this was false, at least for my playthrough. It seems that the game's design might have balancing/consistency issues.
[b]∽ COMBAT[/b]; Your health is also your damage. I've sometimes wondered what it might be to have a system like that, but I always concluded it's a bad idea to deal less damage the less health you have. It's an extremizing mechanic. It's way harder, I dare say impossible, to pull of a "clutch" win when you're at low health. It works just fine here, it's not a problem.
[b]∽ TIME[/b]; I was ready to play for 100hs, but my playthrough was around 15-16 hours.
[b]∽ STORY[/b]; I had expected that characters could die in combat, but this is false. They can only die in story decisions, or else, when a combat encouter is explicitly relevant for a high-stakes situation. When a character loses in combat, they become injured, and need to rest for a few days.
[b]- UI/UX[/b]; The game autosaves (quick slot) after every decision, and after every place (ordinary slot). I take two problems here: (1) this does nothing against save scumming, and (2) you have zero control over when to save. So, the player loses control over saving, and it does not even prevent savescumming. The saving system is actively detrimental.
[b]- STORY[/b]; The introduction into the world of Banner Saga is a little confusing. Characters are introduced without their names, and without you even seeing them for a while, since it's only narration. It's unclear if the narrator is someone, or not really anyone. After you begin playing as Ubin, this mostly subsides, but it could have been better.
[b]- STORY[/b]; I was expecting more swaps of perspective throughout. Instead, you play a little as Ubin, then a little as Hakon, and most of the game is centered on Rook. This would've been a neutral point, but the game literally opens by telling you that perspective-taking will be a huge deal; you are setup to be disappointed.
[b]- UI/UX[/b]; The map takes too long to load. I would have used it more if it wasn't for this.
[b]- UI/UX[/b]; GUI is inconvenient when it comes to accessing/leaving Combat Training, as well as (un)equipping the gear of characters, and especially when you wanna do that to someone who is currently apt for a level-up.
[b]- UI/UX[/b]; Some of the stats are unexplained. I didn't know what "REST" is, or what "CRIT CHANCE" meant, and now that I've finished the game, still do not know.
[b]- STORY[/b]; At least in this first game, I disliked how the approach to and use of divinity. As soon as you begin, you are told "the gods are dead" [sic]. It isn't clear what significance this has in the world, or those who live in it. There are "godstones", monuments to the gods. Throughout, you uncover a little more about the significance, but it's very little indeed. The only person who seems to care is Ubin, who is terrifically old, and even then, doesn't seem to care much. Characters mostly are ambivalent, or plainly oppositional. This theme is underexplored and underutilized. It feels more of a mundane reflection of the time period this was written, and less anything substantial for the world and story. I loved visiting the godstones, they are clearly meant to be of great, great significance, and that should be reflected more generally. The end of the game almost seems to foreshadow that this will become more relevant. I'm hoping this is improved in the future games I have not yet played.
[b]- STORY/GAMEPLAY[/b]; Yrsa died in my playthrough. I don't care that this happened, as I was not invested in her, but the way it happened was awfully contrived: [spoiler] she suggests an attack which uses fire on a forest. If you do this, by the end, she vanishes, is presumed dead, and Ludin blames you for her disappearance[/spoiler]. Gunnulf is a character who I had to go out of my way to ensure he lived. If he dies, it's like nobody gives a ♥♥♥♥. Your character is more worried about the "treasure now at the bottom of the valley". Regardless, the decision sequence in which he may die is totally out of nowhere. You're traveling, and what should've been an ordinary decision about the caravan or whatever, is instead HIGHLY IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!! His death is so contrived, there is only one way to save him, you are practically forced to savescum and brute-forcedly exclude decisions.
[b]— UI/UX[/b]; In case you accidentally skip something you did not mean to, there is no text log for you to view past messages.
[b]— UI/UX[/b]; The character screen GUI is majorly whack. It is designed as if it were a mobile game UI. There is a Hint button you must press to get explanations for things on the screen, but instead of the descriptive tooltips being shown during mouseover, EVERYTHING is shown at once, which is horrifically bad for anyone trying to absorb new information. Not everything is explained either, mostly just the stats.
[b]— COMBAT[/b]; By far, my biggest issue is that you can't undo movement actions. When Acting as a character, the first thing you do is Move, during which there are three steps in time: (1) before selecting a tile, (2) after selecting but before confirming, and (3) after confirming. If you're in step 2, or in step 3, you can't return to step 1. in many other strategy games, such as [b]Into the Breach[/b] and the iconic [b]Advance Wars[/b], you can, yes, do this, but not here. In the negative sense of the word, this is [b]archaic[/b]; providing neither enhancement, joy, nor challenge to the game. Additionally, contrast this with the fact this same 1-2-3 step process applies to Attacking, which you do after Movement, EXCEPT here, you can return to step 1 during step 2. You can't do that from step 3, but that is expected for attacks.
At one point in my playthrough, I thought about why Banner Saga isn't much spoken about, and concluded that just as in movies, games like this — 2D, animated, story-heavy, all around artistic skill — are affected by the technologist-photorealist slop culture we've been having since the 2000s CGI boom.
The games and studios that are, such as Supergiant themselves, are exceptions to this.
