Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: Stoic
Publisher: Versus Evil
Release Date: July 26th, 2018
Reviewed by Nips
Ever since 2016, I have been anxiously awaiting the third and final installment to the Banner Saga series. Inspired by Norse culture, The Banner Saga has been regaling fans with tales of warriors, clansmen, giants, evil creatures, and magic since its debut in 2014.
We have all followed the story of Rook and his daughter Alette, two ordinary clanspeople thrust into an unfortunate situation where they must lead their clan across their country, running away from what very well seems to be the end of their world as they run from and battle with hordes of enemy Dredge along the way. Now, with the long-awaited release of The Banner Saga 3, the epic series finds its conclusion. As you can probably tell, I’ve been waiting to pick this title up for a while. Let’s see what The Banner Saga’s final installment has to offer!
The Banner Saga 3 picks up right on the heels of The Banner Saga 2. Playing as Rook or Alette, the player is caught in the middle of a rebellion outside of humanity’s last standing city. At the same time, Iver, the king of the giants, has mysteriously vanished into an alternate dimension to accomplish who knows what. Allies are few and enemies are plentiful, the player perched both literally and figuratively on the edge of a cliff. What an awesome way to start a game.
Unlike the previous two titles, The Banner Saga 3 wastes no time in plunging the player directly into the action. While not necessarily intense, the initial fight that kicks things off features all the complexities of a traditional skirmish without any of the traditional startup time or tutorials, a clear sign that this game is not intended for new players; this is a game designed solely for those who have been following the series up until this point. If you’re planning on picking up The Banner Saga series, best start with the first one. For better or worse, this episodic series was not intended to be played out of order. I personally love this decision, and the fact that you can carry the same save file through all three games really adds to the feeling that your decisions matter.
And the combat in The Banner Saga 3 is just as good as it has been for the previous two titles. Better, even. Very few new combat mechanics are introduced in this iteration of The Banner Saga; instead, focus is much more heavily placed on refining those existing mechanics in order to offer the player opportunities to push their limits with scarce resources.
By now, much of the leveling up for each individual character is maxed out, replaced by small bonuses and “title” enhancements that typically come in handy on a case-by-case basis. This means that in order to do well at combat in this game, you can’t just level your way out of a jam; you gotta really know your shit, and this sort of in-depth knowledge of the game’s systems can only come from taxing playthroughs (and likely multiple playthroughs) of the previous two titles, making you feel like a hardened veteran at the end of a long and brutal war.
And, at the end of the day, the story is rather good. As I’ve stated in my previous two reviews, the writing for The Banner Saga series is very strong, with excellent prose and vivid imagery alongside believable and immersive dialogue and character development that rope you into The Banner Saga’s beautiful, yet twisted world. The story of The Banner Saga 3 is more than happy to deliver its fair share of surprises and interesting twists without relying heavily on tired tropes or fantasy stereotypes, crafting an atmosphere where you are genuinely unsure of what will happen next. On top of all this, the fact that you’re smack in the middle making key decisions adds an extra layer of anxiety and uncertainty while connecting you more strongly to the events. When things go horribly wrong, not only are you immersed, but you are personally affected by the events in ways that are entirely unique to the medium of video games.
The combat isn’t the only way in which The Banner Saga 3 captures this feeling; the story is also mired in doubt, strife, and hardship. Only this time, the characters, themselves, are more than willing to display their war-weariness, their individual decisions plunging the narrative of The Banner Saga into a downward spiral that the player feels helpless to control. Playing through the story of this game really recreates the feeling of what it must be like to actually have hundreds of people counting on you for their lives. Disaster will happen regardless, and the best you can do is minimize the casualties through some tough decision-making.
The combat featured in The Banner Saga 3 operates very similarly to the combat in the previous two titles. Much like classic games such as Dungeons and Dragons, the combat in this game operates as an isolated chunk from the rest of the game, and it takes place on a grid. Each character in your party can move a certain amount of tiles and use special moves aside from their basic attacks, just like your enemies. Some characters work well with their teammates, while others work better alone. Not much has really changed about the combat between the first and third games of this series, save for a handful of tweaks and added abilities.
In previous titles, the level of your characters played a large role in the outcomes of certain battles. In The Banner Saga 3, however, most of your characters have already maxed out most of their stats. So where is there to go next? This is where the third iteration to the series introduces one of its minor tweaks, coming in the form of “titles.” Once a character hits level 11, they are eligible to take on a title. From “The Brave” to “The Foolish,” and everything in between, there is a tidy assortment of epic titles you can give to your characters that each come with its own enhancements to said character’s ability. This is a neat little feature, giving the level-up system at least a modicum of extra runway while adding to the epic tone of the game.
Aside from titles, the second most notable addition to the combat system is the “fight or flight” mechanic. In previous titles, certain fights could extend past their usual length if the player so chose. More enemies would enter the field, giving opportunities for more experience points. But, this was typically a very hard choice to make, since most of your fighters would be badly wounded by the end of an already long fight, and the prospect of fighting even more was unthinkable. The Banner Saga 3, on the other hand, offers a slight twist on this format. In this game, at the end of some fights, you will have the opportunity to press on or retreat. If you retreat, no harm done. No losses, but no gains, either. If you press on, however, you are given the opportunity to exchange your units on the field for units in your reserve for a chance to win a unique item that might help you down the road.
The reason that I like this mechanic so much is that it encourages the player to make use of their auxiliary characters a lot more often. While playing the first two games, I would figure out which characters I liked the best and play with them every single time, with little to no variation for most fights. With this new system in The Banner Saga 3, however, I felt much more compelled to explore my full roster of available characters, becoming more familiar with their ins and outs for the sole reason that they could become useful as backup. I honestly wish this system was implemented throughout the trio of Banner Saga titles, since it’s such a simple, yet effective method at forcing the player to explore the facets of the game.
When not pitting you against enemies, The Banner Saga 3, mirroring its predecessors, alternates between story-heavy chunks and traveling chunks. The story-heavy chunks are just as good as they’ve always been. As I stated earlier in this review and in both of the other two reviews I did for this series, the writing for The Banner Saga is simply stellar. Characters behave in believable manners, the dialogue is well-written, and your choices seem like they actually matter. At any point, key characters can be killed off at the drop of a hat, much like the famous Game of Thrones series. Some of these characters were introduced in the first game, others in the second, and some as recently as the third, but they are all given equal treatment within the world of The Banner Saga, which seems intent on reminding you that its characters are still mortal at the end of the day. Though my heart has been broken may a time by this series, I can’t help but admire the developers’ dedication to the craft.
Aside from the combat and story segments, the final pillar to The Banner Saga series is where your caravan simply trudges across vast, beautiful, and awesome landscapes, and The Banner Saga 3 is in no rush to break with that tradition. With a seemingly higher budget, the surrounding environments appear grander and more complex than they’ve ever been before. A few changes have been made, though. The camping system, for all intents and purposes, is defunct. Half of your crew is stuck stationary, while the other half is constantly racing against the clock. Aside from this, there’s no longer much incentive to analyze the amount of supplies you have left, since this game feels much more like it’s on rails than any of the previous two titles. Also, the battle mechanic seems to have disappeared, meaning that there’s not much incentive to analyze the amount of soldiers versus clansmen that you have, since those independent and somewhat arbitrary numbers can’t possibly help you in-game. Simply put, there are a few holdovers here from the previous two games that don’t necessarily seem to fit with the new demands of The Banner Saga 3’s narrative.
As always, the graphics and art for The Banner Saga 3 are simply awe-inspiring. With a 2D, Disney-esque aesthetic, you simply can’t go wrong here. Each central character (and believe me, there are a lot of them) has their own unique artwork with ambient animations that make them feel more alive. Not only that, but characters who have been around for a while look a bit different than they did when you first meet them, haggard as they are by the grueling conditions of the situation they’re in. On top of this, The Banner Saga 3 features more original cut scenes than the previous two titles, with more voice acting to boot! I have always been impressed by the extra length the artists have gone to in order to give The Banner Saga series a more cohesive atmosphere, and it holds stronger than ever with the third installment to the series.
Now, time for a little bit of the bad. Even though The Banner Saga is a series initially made for the PC, I played the first title on my PlayStation 4, cause I just loved the idea of kicking back on the couch with a Nordic-themed game on the big screen with a beer in my hand. Ever since the first title, however, this series has simply been fraught with glitches on the consoles. Controlling characters can be a bit like pulling teeth, animations are not always as smooth as they should be, and there’s just a general glitchiness to this series that I really have to force myself to overlook while I play it. The Banner Saga 3, being a more mechanically complex game, understandably compounds on the glitches introduced by the first two titles. Simply put, if you care at all about this kind of stuff, then I would recommend going with the PC version versus the console port.
And now it’s over. The Banner Saga is an epic tale that took more than four years to tell, and boy, has it been a ride. Coming out on the other side of this series at the end of The Banner Saga 3, my reaction is closer to that of an avid reader at the end of a beloved series than that of a casual video game fan. The Banner Saga’s immersive storytelling and compelling gameplay mechanics have kept me hooked these last four years as I grew invested in the characters and the narrative.
The Banner Saga 3 is the final installment to the series, and it carries on a lot of the traditions from the previous two titles. Some of these traditions, such as the combat mechanics, story elements, and immersive environments, I welcome like old friends, but others, such as the console glitches and overly redundant game mechanics, I can’t help but shake my head at. Ill-content with parroting their previous successes, the developers of The Banner Saga series have opted for a nice handful of innovations this time around, in the form of new characters and narrative structures, but most notably in the form of the “fight or flight” mechanic, an inclusion that would have been most welcome in the previous two titles. But, at the end of the day, this game provides the meat and potatoes necessary to please and surprise fans as they conclude the story. All in all, The Banner Saga 3 stands as a fitting end for this wonderful series. I’m sad to see it go.
Nerd Rating: 7.5 out of 10
