The Banner Saga
Overall Value: $10 or FTP
Gameplay 0, 0.75
Length/Cost 0
Controls 0.5
Stability 1
Video 1
Story/Development 0
Unique 0.5
Evolving Gameplay 0
Audio 1
Next Gen 0
OVERALL 4-5
Length/Cost 0
Controls 0.5
Stability 1
Video 1
Story/Development 0
Unique 0.5
Evolving Gameplay 0
Audio 1
Next Gen 0
OVERALL 4-5
Gameplay: 0, 0.75
Most People: 0/1
Most people want to play a game; this is not really a game. It is an interactive book that combines Oregon Trail (the worst parts of it) and the worst tactical turn based combat gaming as ever seen. Even if you like reading, the interactive parts of the story will piss you off to no end. Why? They give you five options and four are horribly bad and one option is neutral-good. To enjoy that you would have to have a guide that basically tells you what to click, in which case what fun is there in the actual choice making? Tactical combat is terrible, just terrible. Turns are not based on AP, or Agility, or anything tactical; they are based on “enemies turn/ your turn” and it doesn’t matter if you have 5 allies and the enemy has 2, you will both get to move equally. There are a total of three different units for you to play with- an archer, a smaller sword/shield dude, and larger sword/shield dude (known as varl). The enemies? Black archer, smaller black dude with sword/shield, and larger black dude with sword/shield. Combat is weak and the interactions are terrible and you cannot skip anything. I repeat you cannot skip anything. The walking slow animations, the terrible story options, nothing. You also cannot save. Yep. So basically to sum this up most people will not enjoy the actual “gameplay” of this “game”.
Absolutely love Vikings and turn based combat: 0.75/1
Even though the turn based is terrible and the “Vikings” are only that by looks alone- the lore and world are very much not Vikings- you will enjoy gameplay more than everyone else. Will it be enough for you to walk away screaming “I loved that gameplay, woot!”? No. Hell no.
Length/Cost: 0
This game is 75%+ watching your people walk across the screen. Literally. I also beat the game in 5 hours, some have taken as long as 10 hours. That means that 3.75-7.5 hours of your 5-10 hours will be spent watching your people walk from left to right or from right to left (two protagonists, one moving west the other east). That means your actual game is 1.25-2.5 hours long- some have said the actual reported figure is “four hours” but I would say that is a desperate stretch. Regardless, this is unacceptable for any game charging money and/or isn’t a demo.
Controls: 0.5
You don’t control anything in this game. You can’t control your save file, you can’t control skipping scenes or speeding things up, and the controls in battle are literally “move over- attack”. Since they allowed you to move and to attack I give it a 0.5
Stability: 1
Another game developed with a phone in mind, which means the game could play on a toaster and is about as entertaining as watching your toaster pull it off. The tradeoff between stability and quality is ever present in modern gaming due to the phone and pay to win/play taking over that market.
Video: 1
Personally I don’t think that you can ever go wrong going with a hand drawn world so I will always give hand drawn worlds 1/1. The quality and timelessness of them makes them priceless in my book; you can go back and play a hand drawn world (Dragon Quest VII) that came out years and years ago and it is just as good as when it came out- graphics don’t “date” themselves.
Story/Development: 0.5
The story wasn’t actually terrible (what you got from it anyways) the problem is that you didn’t get much of it at all. What you did get ended very abruptly. Sure there were some cliché items and an overall lack of depth across the board but the total lack of total content was the biggest baffler.
Unique: 0.5
Between Oregon Trail and a half dozen tactical turn based games that are much, much better this game is unique only in that it attempts to bring Vikings into the picture and combine them together. If it had succeeded in any one area (let alone as a whole) this game would be much more unique. As it stands it failed unilaterally across the board, let alone the whole.
Evolving Gameplay: 0
As I described in the gameplay at about the 1-2 hour mark you have seen all this game has to offer, including their one real cinematic scene. No new troops, no new combat upgrades, no new abilities, no new enemies, nothing new period… For a game that is 5-10 hours, for them to fail so horribly in this regard is unforgivable.
Audio: 0.75
The 5-10 hours you actually play you will enjoy some fantastic music. Voice over? No, no not at all, but music yes. In fact the rumor goes that they spent almost all of their budget on the sound (music) and that is what ended up sinking the game. You can quote me on that, because even if that was never verified, after playing the game I can say that it is extremely plausible.
Next Gen: 0
A 5-10 hour Oregon Trail with Vikings simulator that wasn’t as good as Oregon Trail? (in Oregon trail you could at least choose your path, yikes) A game that was basically designed for a phone? You know, scratch that, ANY GAME that can be or is designed for a phone will never get anything above a 0/1 as that is not what anyone should be hoping is “next gen”. “Oh but man, I can play it on my phone yo! Who cares if the graphics and game mechanics are terrible, I can…”- screw that…
Bottom Line:
Is this game seriously only 5 hours long?
Was 75% of that time really spent watching your people walk across the screen Oregon Trail style?
Does this game really have this many positive reviews?
Is this Earth?
Did I really just spend all my renown on this guy and did he really just die with no way for me to avoid said death?
OMG did it just give me 6 whole renown for killing 18 enemies when 4 of my people leveled up and each needs 15+ renown to ACTUALLY level up?
Do you seriously need to spend renown on a hero to make his "level up official"?
OMG I can't even spend that renown to level up one person because I have to use 80% of my renown to buy resources?
WTF OMG THERE ARE ITEMS TO BUY WITH RENOWN?! WITH WHAT (&^*%%$# RENOWN!?
Did that enemy archer just move when I attacked him?
Why the hell can't my archers do that?
Did that enemy just smash his shield down and do knockback to all of my troops while damaging their armor?
Why can't I do that?
Is this AI difficulty really just inflated with enemies that can do $#!t that I can't? Seriously?
Did those two guys just kill four of my guys because they got to move 2x more than me and the rest of my team was across the map?
Who in their right mind thinks this is "tactical"?
Did that spell caster with 3 extra will just seriously do a total of 4 damage?
Do my archers seriously have to be within the enemies walking distance before they can attack?
Do I have more questions? Yes, but I am spending more time making these questions then I did beating this game...
Most People: 0/1
Most people want to play a game; this is not really a game. It is an interactive book that combines Oregon Trail (the worst parts of it) and the worst tactical turn based combat gaming as ever seen. Even if you like reading, the interactive parts of the story will piss you off to no end. Why? They give you five options and four are horribly bad and one option is neutral-good. To enjoy that you would have to have a guide that basically tells you what to click, in which case what fun is there in the actual choice making? Tactical combat is terrible, just terrible. Turns are not based on AP, or Agility, or anything tactical; they are based on “enemies turn/ your turn” and it doesn’t matter if you have 5 allies and the enemy has 2, you will both get to move equally. There are a total of three different units for you to play with- an archer, a smaller sword/shield dude, and larger sword/shield dude (known as varl). The enemies? Black archer, smaller black dude with sword/shield, and larger black dude with sword/shield. Combat is weak and the interactions are terrible and you cannot skip anything. I repeat you cannot skip anything. The walking slow animations, the terrible story options, nothing. You also cannot save. Yep. So basically to sum this up most people will not enjoy the actual “gameplay” of this “game”.
Absolutely love Vikings and turn based combat: 0.75/1
Even though the turn based is terrible and the “Vikings” are only that by looks alone- the lore and world are very much not Vikings- you will enjoy gameplay more than everyone else. Will it be enough for you to walk away screaming “I loved that gameplay, woot!”? No. Hell no.
Length/Cost: 0
This game is 75%+ watching your people walk across the screen. Literally. I also beat the game in 5 hours, some have taken as long as 10 hours. That means that 3.75-7.5 hours of your 5-10 hours will be spent watching your people walk from left to right or from right to left (two protagonists, one moving west the other east). That means your actual game is 1.25-2.5 hours long- some have said the actual reported figure is “four hours” but I would say that is a desperate stretch. Regardless, this is unacceptable for any game charging money and/or isn’t a demo.
Controls: 0.5
You don’t control anything in this game. You can’t control your save file, you can’t control skipping scenes or speeding things up, and the controls in battle are literally “move over- attack”. Since they allowed you to move and to attack I give it a 0.5
Stability: 1
Another game developed with a phone in mind, which means the game could play on a toaster and is about as entertaining as watching your toaster pull it off. The tradeoff between stability and quality is ever present in modern gaming due to the phone and pay to win/play taking over that market.
Video: 1
Personally I don’t think that you can ever go wrong going with a hand drawn world so I will always give hand drawn worlds 1/1. The quality and timelessness of them makes them priceless in my book; you can go back and play a hand drawn world (Dragon Quest VII) that came out years and years ago and it is just as good as when it came out- graphics don’t “date” themselves.
Story/Development: 0.5
The story wasn’t actually terrible (what you got from it anyways) the problem is that you didn’t get much of it at all. What you did get ended very abruptly. Sure there were some cliché items and an overall lack of depth across the board but the total lack of total content was the biggest baffler.
Unique: 0.5
Between Oregon Trail and a half dozen tactical turn based games that are much, much better this game is unique only in that it attempts to bring Vikings into the picture and combine them together. If it had succeeded in any one area (let alone as a whole) this game would be much more unique. As it stands it failed unilaterally across the board, let alone the whole.
Evolving Gameplay: 0
As I described in the gameplay at about the 1-2 hour mark you have seen all this game has to offer, including their one real cinematic scene. No new troops, no new combat upgrades, no new abilities, no new enemies, nothing new period… For a game that is 5-10 hours, for them to fail so horribly in this regard is unforgivable.
Audio: 0.75
The 5-10 hours you actually play you will enjoy some fantastic music. Voice over? No, no not at all, but music yes. In fact the rumor goes that they spent almost all of their budget on the sound (music) and that is what ended up sinking the game. You can quote me on that, because even if that was never verified, after playing the game I can say that it is extremely plausible.
Next Gen: 0
A 5-10 hour Oregon Trail with Vikings simulator that wasn’t as good as Oregon Trail? (in Oregon trail you could at least choose your path, yikes) A game that was basically designed for a phone? You know, scratch that, ANY GAME that can be or is designed for a phone will never get anything above a 0/1 as that is not what anyone should be hoping is “next gen”. “Oh but man, I can play it on my phone yo! Who cares if the graphics and game mechanics are terrible, I can…”- screw that…
Bottom Line:
Is this game seriously only 5 hours long?
Was 75% of that time really spent watching your people walk across the screen Oregon Trail style?
Does this game really have this many positive reviews?
Is this Earth?
Did I really just spend all my renown on this guy and did he really just die with no way for me to avoid said death?
OMG did it just give me 6 whole renown for killing 18 enemies when 4 of my people leveled up and each needs 15+ renown to ACTUALLY level up?
Do you seriously need to spend renown on a hero to make his "level up official"?
OMG I can't even spend that renown to level up one person because I have to use 80% of my renown to buy resources?
WTF OMG THERE ARE ITEMS TO BUY WITH RENOWN?! WITH WHAT (&^*%%$# RENOWN!?
Did that enemy archer just move when I attacked him?
Why the hell can't my archers do that?
Did that enemy just smash his shield down and do knockback to all of my troops while damaging their armor?
Why can't I do that?
Is this AI difficulty really just inflated with enemies that can do $#!t that I can't? Seriously?
Did those two guys just kill four of my guys because they got to move 2x more than me and the rest of my team was across the map?
Who in their right mind thinks this is "tactical"?
Did that spell caster with 3 extra will just seriously do a total of 4 damage?
Do my archers seriously have to be within the enemies walking distance before they can attack?
Do I have more questions? Yes, but I am spending more time making these questions then I did beating this game...