Wading Through the Pile of Shame

Now that the Steam sale has ended we can all spend time ogling the new additions to our gaming libraries.  We can begin strategizing the best methods to gradually reduce the pile of shame from our wanton spending.  I probably spent more during this Steam sale than I have in several previous sales and I am already feeling like I may have gotten a few duds.  Impulse grabs can result in some poor choices.  However, I also feel like I may have grabbed some genuine gems.

The art style of "The Banner Saga" is beautiful and unique.

I decided to start my trudge through my sale purchases with The Banner Saga.  I would classify The Banner Saga as part choose your own adventure and part turn-based combat RPGish like thing (that's specific enough, right?).  Uniquely, it is set in a world that is influenced by Norse mythology and the story plays out like the plot of a great epic.  The story starts with a group of Varl. a race of giants who are sort of enemies but also protectors of humans.  These Varl are working to create some sort of lasting alliance between the races and are on a quest to reach the capital city to cement this alliance.  Making this alliance turns out to be very difficult because of the resurgence of the enemies of the Varl, the Dredge.  For no apparent reason the Dredge have started attacking settlements.  As you lead the Varl you realize that these attacks are more than just sporadic and that there is something much larger going on.

The player gets to make many choices about what happens along the trek to the capital city.  Sometimes you run into random encounters that require you to make choices about certain situations--do you choose to rescue a village that's under attack or do you pass by and protect your group?  Do you ruthlessly march your group towards the capital or do you try to rest frequently to preserve morale?  After you've made your choice there's a chance you might end up in combat.  The combat system in The Banner Saga is....interesting.  I'm not going to call it fun, because it's not.  You possess a small group of units--each unit has unique abilities but seem to fall into certain roles like shieldbearers who are tank-like or warhawks who are can do higher amounts of damage.  Combat is turn-based so you get to decide the order of attack for your units.  Each unit possesses two unique stats--armor and strength.  Sounds simple, right?  It probably is, but it's also not.  Armor is the amount of damage that your unit can block, but it can be damaged.  The more confusing and difficult aspect is strength.  Strength represents both the attack power of a single unit as well as the amount of health that the unit has.  To disable a unit you must reduce its strength to 0.  This usually requires damaging both the armor and the strength of a unit.  The downside is that the more that your units get attacked, the weaker they get (which makes logical sense...but makes combat much more challenging).  Units also possess willpower which allows them to move further or add a little extra to their attacks.  Willpower is limited so you have to choose the most opportune times to utilize those valuable points.  Especially in the beginning of the game the combat can be very confusing and not much fun.  I was confused for many of the early battles and didn't really figure out the mechanics until the end of the game.  It is frustrating and makes combat only mildly enjoyable.

After fighting several frustrating bouts of combat and making some possibly catastrophic decisions about your caravan, the story forks off to a group of humans who are running into similar problems.  The Dredge (a race of stone people?  Basically your mortal enemy) have begun attacking human settlements and you must flee before you become overwhelmed.  It's here that we're introduced to the key human characters Rook and Alette--a father/daughter duo who take on the task of trying to save the villagers who are fleeing from the Dredge.  The human party is made up of ranged units as well as melee.  Archers are useful for picking off enemies at a distance and as long as your melee units are able to keep the enemies away, they can have some powerful attacks.

I would recommend The Banner Saga to someone who enjoys an interesting story.  If you're looking for some sort of intense turn-based combat then you should look elsewhere.  The combat is really where The Banner Saga is weak.  I enjoyed the story, the art style, and the difficulty of making choices that could directly effect people in my caravan.  Oh, and it's actually fairly short--I finished the story in 11 hours.  It could probably be stretched longer depending on the number of combat encounters that you have.  Is it worth playing?  Yes.  Is it worth paying full price?  No.  I would definitely wait for another sale before picking it up.